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Jaques could be described as cynical and judgmental, but John feels he is not a superior being in any way; he is not elevated to a higher plain of existence through his actions in the play. He is the only character who does not finish the play in a state of exaltation (as the lovers do), Duke Frederick has his conversion, while the last we hear of Jaques is that he plans to visit the Duke to hear and learn of this conversion for himself. (John feels that Jaques would be fascinated by the Duke’s conversion).

Sometimes John gets a very strong preconceived notion of what a character is like, but he is finding Jaques largely indefinable, at the moment he trying to extract as much from the text as he can – he breaks the text up into ‘thoughts’ or sequences. When the character changes the direction of his thought or motivation John marks this on the page and begins a new section. This helps him to remember the lines and to understand what the character is saying. He has divided the ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech into sections according to the ‘age’ being dealt with – e.g. infant, school boy etc. This also visually helps John remember where he is in the speech and to see how much material Shakespeare has devoted to each age.

John confesses he is a ‘stickler’ for marking where the stress or meter is in his lines. He finds it very useful to work through a speech deciding where the stress lies in each word, putting a line under the relevant part. John finds that always being aware of the meter helps him to understand and to convey the sense of his lines. If meaning is alluding him he will go back to the text and look at exactly where the meter falls in each line or speech.

The fact that the ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech is so well know makes it more difficult for John to perform as his performance could be cliched – but he feels that each individual actor brings their own interpretation to the speech. John does

not want to indulge the speech in any way and wishes to speak the speech as ‘trippingly’ and clearly as possible. The director is considering cutting some of Jaques’ lines in Act 2 Scene 7 in the speech that begins "Why who cries out on pride". John feels that the meaning at the beginning and end of the speech is clear to him but the middle section is more difficult. Understanding this section is one of the most challenging aspects of John’s work at this stage.

At this point in the rehearsal process the cast went on a residential weekend to an Elizabethan manor house where they improvised the scenes that were not in the play. This was useful for John as it allowed him to establish Jaques’ relationship with the other characters in the play – for example John was able to improvise the scene with Touchstone which he later refers to at the beginning of Act 2 Scene 7- "A fool, a fool! I met a fool I’ th’ forest". This process helps John as he has a visual memory of that moment when he comes to play the scene in performance.

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

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