Making the Invisible Visible

For the past month, the Loeb Mainstage has been host to a veritable menagerie of nature’s most ferocious beasts. On any given night, the stage will be crowded with a pride of lions, an ambush of tigers, a den of snakes and even the occasional ghost. But these creatures hardly ever make a sound, and they seem to appear and disappear at a moment’s notice.

In fact, the only way one could tell they’re there at all, is by paying close attention to the feral handwork of one 81-year-old legend and his troupe of former students. With only their ingenuity and bodies at their disposal, they collectively set out to make “the invisible visible.”

A Master of His Art

The 81-year-old in question is Marcel Marceau, recognized internationally as the world’s greatest mime. Since Sept. 10, he has presented at the American Repertory Theatre (ART), with the help of his seven-member Nouvelle Compagnie de Mimodrame, an evening of mystery and familiarity, of mirth, fright and above all, humanity.

His show, “Les Contes Fantastiques,” is divided into two acts. The first act consists of a collection of virtuosic yet touching solo vignettes entitled “Pantomimes of Style,” entirely performed by Marceau. About half of these vignettes feature his onstage alter ego, “the dreamy little poet” Bip. The second act features three mime-dramas, or “mimodramas,” presented by the company as an ensemble.

Some of the solos in the first act, such as “The Public Garden” and “The Mask Maker,” are well-known classics that Marceau has performed throughout the world since 1947. Achieving octogenarian status hasn’t slowed Marceau down; he averages 200 shows a year and past performances include a three-month stint on Broadway and numerous television and cinematic appearances. Yet even without knowing of his legendary reputation, Marceau’s solo exercises are breathtaking in their concise ability to produce so much out of thin air.

One spectacular example of this is “The Creation of the World,” which Marceau meticulously depicts from the very first bacteria to the genesis of Adam and Eve, using nothing more than his body and the space around him, in about 10 minutes.

Many people assume that Marceau physically cannot speak; that he is deaf or mute and that his profession was a product of this condition. But offstage, he most certainly speaks—at length. As he himself has famously said, “Never get a mime talking. He won’t stop.” In a question-and-answer session on Sept. 29, Marceau shared a great deal of advice and wisdom with students and performers of the ART and of the Harvard community.

An Array of Influences

Marceau says his largest influence is Charlie Chaplin, because unlike Marceau’s master teacher Etienne Decroux, Chaplin demonstrated the ability to show humor within tragedy. Marceau believes that this sense of “tragicomedy” truly reflects the essence of human life. In the first act of his show at the ART, Marceau proves the effectiveness of such a paradox when Marceau’s alter ego, Bip, laments his inability to adequately perform as a lion tamer.

Despite the powerful influence of Chaplin and other great silent film stars, Marceau says he originally aspired to become a speaking actor. When Decroux recognized Marceau’s talent for mime in 1946, his plans changed.

Nonetheless, Marceau stresses the importance of studying the work of great performers of every type, regardless of one’s own artistic specialization. He further emphasized this point last week by reminding students attending his talk to take notes on his advice and by telling them to look up any unfamiliar author, actor, or literary work mentioned in his talk. Marceau believes that no single art form is greater than any other, but, instead, any work of any kind of art must be deeply moving to its audience in order to have worth.

The second act of the show, “Les Contes Fantastiques (Fantastic Tales),” reflects Marceau’s conviction that any artist must also have full knowledge and understanding of the historical roots of his craft. The first mimodrama, “The Wandering Monk,” has stylistic and thematic roots in Japanese Noh drama, and the calm, flowing movement of the company reflects the peacefulness of Zen Buddhism.

“The Masquerade Ball” appears to be a modernized take on 19th-century Italian commedia dell’arte, and “The Tiger” is a retelling of an ancient Chinese tale, complete with intricate martial arts choreography. The specifics of each piece reflect the wide range of disciplines in which all members of the company has trained: pantomime, Decroux’s exacting “grammar for the body,” Marceau’s own modern mime technique, dance, acrobatics, fencing and martial arts.

In the program notes for the show, Marceau mentions Greek mime drama, Verdi’s operas, the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and the Brothers Grimm as other influences in these group works. Additionally, he stresses the universality of art as a reflection of common human experience which ties together such a diverse mix of cultural references.

A Right-Hand Troupe

In addition to these theatric and literary sources, every member of Marceau’s company has some training in dance as well, and this background is evident in the grace with which the cast members carry themselves onstage, regardless of specific attributes of character. The dance skills of the company are most explicitly displayed in the court dances of “The Masquerade Ball” and in the smoothly articulated unison movements of monks in “The Wandering Monk.”

However, Marceau and his company members insist that dance performances have a distinctly different impact on an audience than mime does. Company member Sara Mangano feels that mime expresses “the essence of the movement,” while dance tends to be more decorative.

Pierre-Yves Massip, another company member, likens the difference to the fine line between speaking and singing or between painting and sculpture. Marceau prefers to liken mime to writing, in the sense that both are about concisely creating poignant images.

While the first act of the show is a collection of Marceau’s previous solo creations, the second half is the product of an intensive collaborative process within the company. Development of these mimodramas began while Marceau was on a solo tour in Mexico; he presented concepts and story outlines to the rest of the company, then left them to fill in as much as they could before he returned. After weeks of discussion of how to adapt each tale for the stage and beginning to set staging, Marceau returned to direct.

The process remained collaborative, even with Marceau physically present. Massip notes that the considerably younger members of the company often view their source material quite differently from Marceau and that Marceau is always open to different ideas and suggestions, even while the show is on tour.

“But it is his company,” says Massip. “So he always has the last word.”

Although music is used in the performance, the company rehearsed almost entirely in silence, receiving the music composed for the show about two days before their first performance. Massip says that, like his teacher Decroux, he personally sings to himself in his head to keep the rhythm and timing of his movements but that the company members generally pay more attention to each other than to their musical accompaniment.

When he is not performing, Marceau teaches at L’Ecole International de Mimodrame de Paris Marcel Marceau, where the members of his company trained. All members of Marceau’s company were personally invited by Marceau to join his company during their third and final year of training.

Unfortunately, Marceau’s school will be closing at the end of this school year due to lack of funding, a reality that is greatly lamented by the members of Marceau’s company.

“Only three or four mime schools exist, and that’s not enough,” says Massip. “To not disappear, mime needs intelligent students.”

Massip believes that the reason most of the population does not see a distinction between mime and dance is due to lack of education and exposure. He says that since all actors express themselves through their bodies as well as voices, they are in fact using mime, whether they study it or not. Because all actors use this form of expression, he believes very strongly that speaking actors should study mime as well.

A Future for Mime

Although most of contemporary society might consider mime old-fashioned, Marceau believes that all art must be informed by the era in which it is made. He is very optimistic about the prospects of modern mime as an evolving art form, and he believes that the essence of art will always remain the same, despite superficial changes over time.

Mangano feels that the major obstacle preventing mime from continuing to flourish as an art form is a popular negative stereotype. “People see street performers and think that is what we do, and it’s not,” she says.

Mangano says people also confuse the art of mime with pantomime, which consists of smaller communicative gestures using only the face and hands. Mangano is in favor of possibly changing the term from “mime” to “gestural theater” or “physical theater” in order to escape popular clichés of what mime is, even though those terms are less accurate descriptions of what these performers do onstage.

Mangano and Massip both believe that the future of mime is to be found in fusion with other arts, such as dance, singing, circus and speaking theater.

“Sometimes a story doesn’t need words, and sometimes it’s good to have them,” says Mangano. “If you need words, you should use them…speech and mime can exist at the same time.”

Mangano and Massip are already exploring these possibilities in their own, smaller company, which performs independently of Marceau’s company.

Some graduates of Marceau’s school who are not chosen for his company perform in similar smaller mime companies. Additionally, many graduates of Marceau’s school find jobs in contemporary dance companies, which tend to have much in common with mime, especially newer dance companies in France.

In addition to fostering the development of new and innovative young mimes and other theatrical performers, Marceau also heads the Marcel Marceau Foundation for the Advancement of Mime. This foundation, supported by celebrities ranging from Placido Domingo to Dustin Hoffman, aims to accumulate and preserve an archive of mime performances, primarily those created or performed by Marceau himself.

The greatest threat to the future of mime remains the inevitable loss of Marceau. Energetic as he is, age is a force he can only deny onstage, and no performer has emerged as singularly talented to be deemed his successor.

“Who comes after Chaplin?” says Massip. “Marceau. And who comes after Marceau? Nobody. We must look to the other arts for the future of mime and to students building on the past to create something new.”

For the time being, Cambridge audiences appear infinitely appreciative to witness Marceau’s artistic genius; company members say they have received lengthy standing ovations at the end of nearly every performance here.

“They are a fun public,” says Mangano, “They have given us a very warm reception.”

And if anyone still has lingering doubts of the modern relevance of mime, consider the moonwalk: Michael Jackson based it on—that’s right—Marceau’s “Walking Against the Wind.”

—Staff writer Marin J.D. Orlosky can be reached at orlosky@fas.harvard.edu.