Marcel Marceau: Marceau’s Way
Bass Concert Hall,October 6
Marcel Marceau defined modern mime. His name sits in Webster’s dictionary between marble and margarine. All his life, he’s pushed the invisible envelope with crazy experiments. On October 6, in Bass Concert Hall, he gave a rendition of some of his most successful experiments, his greatest hits.
The evening consisted of a series of mimed sketches. The first half revolved around ideas like “The Creation of the World,” while the second revolved around the adventures of Bip, Marceau’s flower-hatted Mr. Bean, like “Bip Travels by Sea.” Two of the top graduates from Marceau’s International School of Mime in Paris, Pierre-Yves Massip and Sara Mangano, proved their diligence by introducing each sketch with a mimette.
When the sketches had a point, the word “eureka” sprang to mind. “The Trial” told a story straight from the Texas criminal justice system. Expressionless accused, dozing court official, hardy judge, bellicose prosecutor, and incompetent defense — Marceau rounded up the lot. The audience held their applause while the convict hung from an invisible rope.
Another successful experiment was called “Youth, Maturity, Old Age, and Death” — a famous attempt to put a nutshell around human life. The 78-year-old walked on the spot. He started with short steps, broke into a strong stride, slowed gradually, and crumpled into a corpse.
Even perfect technique could not save “Bip and the Dating Service,” however. This sketch was so bereft of a point that it dragged like a 10-minute rabbit-in-the-hat trick.
Like Sinatra striking up “My Way,” the Chairman of Silence knew how to finish a retrospective of his hits. In “The Maskmaker,” the finale, Marceau told the story of his life.
It began with a crafting of the fingers, like the subtle exercises that Marceau invented for his own training and for the students at his school. Once the masks had been prepared, the maker could slip them on and off at will. A smiling mask replaced a frown, followed by a girning face, followed by a shocked mug. These masks swapped around at a giddy pace.
That continued until the smiling mask became lodged on his head. I had to laugh at the man with the smile stuck on his chops. He wrestled to remove the image, which made him look, for all the world, like a clown. My laughter only stopped when the mask popped and Marceau was left with a very personal face — tense with pain, turned toward the heavens. In this way, Marceau faced the curtain in Austin.
This article appears in October 19 • 2001.