Penrith Players’ new theatrical offering next week is an extraordinary one man show.
Scaramouche Jones, by Justin Butcher, tells of the life of a clown throughout the 20th Century.
He reminisces on his life during those years and the events that coloured them. It is a journey that is both funny and tragic in turn, but always engaging.
The performance is directed by Judith Henderson. It is the second time Judith has produced this play, this time it has James Shorrock as Scaramouche.
“This is theatre as you’ve never seen it before. It isn’t a drama, it’s more a full length piece of poetry – beautiful and haunting,” said Judith.
Of the biggest role of his life, James said: “It’s been an exciting production, first of all because I’ve never done anything like this. It feels like the culmination thus far of the skills I’ve accrued as a performer over the years, and second, because I’m playing someone in the twilight of their years.
“It changes everything about how you move, talk and are supposed to feel. People should definitely come see the show as it’s a play about life itself told through the story of someone whose existence has been marked by frequent tragedy, which makes for compelling theatre.”
Scaramouche Jones, born at midnight on 31st December, 1899, a strange, pale, white-skinned “oyster” who popped out of his Gypsy mother in a fishmongers in Trinidad.
A man of the 20th Century, buffeted this way and that by the tides of chance and change, caught up in the currents of madness of that swirling, cruel, ridiculous century.
Orphaned, exiled and sold into slavery in a single day, Scaramouche is then apprenticed to a Latin-speaking African snake-charmer, rescued by an Italian prince who transports him towards Venice and a masked ball where Mussolini will preside.
Then, falling in with gypsies heading to sell shoes in Poland, Scaramouche ends up in a concentration camp in Croatia where his white face saves him from death.
He becomes the digger of mass graves – a clown who makes the children laugh as they stand on the edge of the pit waiting to be shot.
Scaramouche Jones is a traveller of the world and an extra at some of the great and terrible events of the past century.
Now, as the clocks tick towards midnight at the very end of the 20th Century, 100-year-old Scaramouche reflects on his life, peeling back the masks to tell of “50 years to make the clown, 50 years to play the clown”.
The play runs from the 17th to 19th August at 7-30pm at Penrith Playhouse. Tickets are available from the Players’ website, the tourist information office in Penrith, or by calling 01768 867466.
