From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 18 July

There are those moments in life, so profound, either you embrace them with alacrity, or you spiral into the deepest depression.

I STARTED-OUT at the National Theatre in Perth, 1966, as the front-end of Mavis the dancing horse in the pantomime Goldilocks and the Three Bears at the Circus – complete with transformation scenes and an enchanted forest. It was directed by the late Edgar Metcalfe, the director who gifted me a career.

I have, so to speak, been at it for 55 years. I have been fortunate and worked mostly at the top of the tree. I have enjoyed a degree of success. I have worked with all the great playwrights – most of them were dead at the time – and had more than my fair share of brilliant directors and wonderful stars. It has been a ridiculously incredible journey for the shanty-town boy.

I am still learning my craft. The theatre is a mercurial mistress, and the more you learn about her, the less you know. It is impossible to predict what an audience will, or will not, embrace, and they are the final arbiter. It is why we do it.

The theatre is phantasmagorical. At the end of the season, you exist only in the audience’s memory; a saved programme and a ticket stub. With time, major productions become clouded in the swirling mist of fact and fiction: ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on’.

Recently, I spent a day supporting actors Lisa McCune and David Hobson in an actors’ Masterclass for the Ballarat Arts Foundation. It proved one of the most exhilarating, and depressing, days of my life. I was mightily impressed as Lisa and David shaped and moulded the twelve aspirants who presented, seeking advice which might help them find their way in the difficult, magical world of the theatre. Ranging in age from 14 to 40 they sang and delivered monologues. The depth of the talent was inspiring.

My epiphany followed soon after lunch.

Fifteen-year-old Harry, with a mop of blond hair – long on one side of his head, and semi-shaved on the other, sang a number from a musical unknown to me, and which, mentally, I categorised: ‘a load of nonsense’. At its end, I sat silently as Lisa and David leapt to their feet in spontaneous enthusiasm. I watched and listened to all they said. Following 20 minutes of intense directorial cajoling, David and Lisa extracted from Harry a quite wonderful version of the song. It was unlike anything I could have imagined. At the moment I heard a voice in my head, saying, “Roland, you are, theatrically, an old man. Your moment has passed. You must step aside.” It was revelatory. It reverberated and required a concerted concentration to continue working for the afternoon.

At the end of the Masterclass, I walked home in the soft drizzle, attempting to sort-out my muddle thoughts. It has taken me several days to arrive at my destination.

The theatre is my raison d’etre. I cannot imagine my life without it, but my moment has been, and gone. While I am not washed-up by any stretch of the imagination – I am doing work for which, 25 years ago, I had neither the wit nor the wisdom; however, my place is no longer centre stage. I have moved, willingly, into the wings, watching, and waiting to catch the next generation should they stumble in their pursuit of theatrical truth.

Just as the baton was handed to me in my teenage years, Lisa and David, the current guardians of the flame, were handing it on to this generation. It is how the theatre works.

To make sense, I listened to Bob Dylan:

‘Come mothers and fathers throughout all the land,

And don’t criticise what you can’t understand.

Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.

The times they are changing.’

I have been rejuvenated!

Roland can be heard with Brett Macdonald each Monday at 10.45am on Radio 3BA and contacted via [email protected].