Well, here they are! My cast, the cast of Immortali. They mean so much to me this won’t be the last time I post about them. But, before, I do, let me apologise for the translations, should any of you be using them. A linguist friend informs me that the French, Spanish & German are trash on account of being done by a machine. There. that’s out of the way.
I fell in love with my characters (yes, my – because they belong to me as well as everyone else) at the tender, impressionable age of 16 when I watched Les Enfants du Paradis at a school film club. (Anyone aiming to become a mime artist – watch the beginning and weep). Then I discovered that the characters originated in Italy and that the French had taken Pierrot to their hearts and refined him into the sad eyed clown we know today. But I’m not here to give a history of the Commedia dell’Arte. I’m concerned only with my own selfish love of the roles which drove me into writing the novel, Immortali.
My characters are not entirely true to the originals and some purists will be outraged at what I’ve done to them in my novel. But I don’t give a toss. To me the Commedia are real, live people; just as vital today as they were at their birth in the mid 1500’s and to make them acceptable to a modern day audience (readership) I had to update. But anyone perceptive will recognise that these characters have come down through the centuries to dominate modern drama.
I’ll come back to the Immortali very soon.
