THE SEVEN AGES OF MIME

Most of the current popular concept of Mime is not popular at all, and images of annoying white-faced street performers being brutalized receive laughs and cheers in films and on TV, much more frequently than any actual Mime performance does in its own right. The American public is more likely to remember these images now than the great silent-films, or the very popular and highly mimetic Commedia dell’Arte, which dominated European stages from the 16^th to the early 18^th century. Even the great mute clowning of the late 19^th and early 20^th-century circus now seems remote. In the Ballet world, as Balanchine moved the aesthetic towards “pure dance”, pantomimic sections of the great early story ballets fell from favor and are now frequently excised.

My great mime teacher, Etienne Decroux worked to create a modern Art of Mime, after it had lost its home in the silent film. But it was Decroux’s student (and my other great teacher), Marcel Marceau, singular in his genius, who was able to capture the heart and mind of a broad public. So dominant has his presence been since he first performed in New York in 1955-56, that his work has come to define “Mime.” The world began to expect “Mime” to mean a solo performer in white face on an empty stage, forgetting the art’s many previous incarnations. A host of lesser imitators then further clouded the picture. Many serious artists now even avoid the word “mime” when describing their work, to avoid comparisons with Marceau or unpleasant associations with his imitators.

But even Marceau, who defines mime as “the Art of Gesture,” would readily admit that the art is larger than any individual artist. His own work hearkens back to that of Charlie Chaplin, and the great Deburau before that, whose forbears trace back to ancient Greece.

So, here is a story of Mime, largely in Mime. I have liberally ”borrowed” or re-imagined the best work I know from some of the best performers of all-time.

-Mark Jaster
Links to Articles about the show:

Curtain Up

Washington Post article by Nelson Pressley

Washington Post article by Michael Toscano