|
Contenidos disponibles
en
español y en inglés - Availables resources
in spanish and english
- Compilador / Compiler:
Jorge T Colombo
 230907
- The French mime artist Marcel Marceau has died at
the age of 84, his family has announced.
Marcel Marceau
"The world's greatest mime" -
Source:
M.
Marceau Foundation
Marcel Marceau - universally acclaimed as the world's
greatest mime, was born in Strasbourg, France. Marceau's
interest in the art of mime began at an early age when he would
imitate with gestures anything that fired his imagination. Later
he discovered such silent screen artists as Charlie Chaplin,
Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and
his admiration for these great actors inspired him to pursue the
art of silence as a profession.
In 1946, he enrolled as a student in
Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre
in Paris, where he studied with the great master, Etienne Decroux, who
had also taught Jean-Louis Barrault. The latter noticed Marceau's
exceptional talent, made him a member of his company, and cast him in
the role of Arlequin in the pantomime entitled Baptiste
- which Barrault himself had interpreted in the world famous film
Les Enfants du Paradis. Marceau's performance won him such acclaim
that he was encouraged to present his first "mimodrama", called
Praxitele and the Golden Fish, at the Bernhardt Theatre that same
year. The acclaim was so unanimous that Marceau's career as a mime was
firmly established.
In 1947, Marceau created "Bip", the clown
who in his striped pullover and battered, deflowered opera hat, has
become his alter-ego, even as Chaplin's "Little Tramp" became that
star's personality. Bip's misadventures with everything from butterflies
to lions, on ships and trains, in dance-halls or restaurants, are
limitless.
As a style pantomime, Marceau has been
acknowledged without peer. His silent exercises, which include such
classic works at The Cage, Walking Against the Wind, The Mask Maker, and
In The Park, and satires on everything from sculptors to matadors, have
been described as works of genius. Of his summation of the ages of man
in the famous Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death, one critic said, "He
accomplishes in less than two minutes what most novelists can not do in
volumes.
In 1949, following his receipt of the
renowned Deburau Prize (established as a memorial to the 19th century
master) for his second mimodrama, Death before Dawn, Marceau formed his
Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau - the only company of
pantomime in the world at the time. The ensemble played the leading
Paris theaters - Le Theatre des Champs-Elyees, Le Theatre de la
Renaissance, and the Sarah Bernhardt, as well as other playhouses
throughout the world. During the 1959-60, a retrospective of his
mimodramas, including the famous Overcoat by Gogol, ran for a full year
at the Amibigu Theatre in Paris. He has produced 15 other mimodramas,
including Pierrot de Montmartre, The 3 Wigs, The Pawn Shop, 14th July,
The Wolf of Tsu Ku Mi, Paris Cries--Paris Laughs, and Don Juan - adapted
from the Spanish writer Tirso de Molina.
He first toured the United States in
1955-56, close on the heels of his North American debut at the Stratford
(Ontario) Festival. After his opening engagement at the Phoenix Theater
in New York which received rave reviews, he moved to the larger
Barrymore Theater to accommodate the public demand. This first US tour
ended with a record breaking return to standing room only crowds in San
Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and other
major cities. His extensive transcontinental tours have included South
America, Africa, Australia, China, Japan, South East Asia, Russia and
Europe.
Mr. Marceau's art has become familiar to
millions of Americans through his many television appearances. His first
television performance as a star performer on the Max Liebman Show of
Shows won him the television industry's coveted "Emmy" award. He
appeared on the BBC as Scrooge, in A Christmas Carol in 1973. He has
been a favorite guest of Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, and
Dinah Shore, and he also had his own one-man show entitled Meet Marcel
Marceau.
He has also shown his versatility in
motion pictures, such as First Class in which he portrayed 17
different roles, Shanks where he combined his silent art,
playing a deaf and mute puppeteer, and his speaking talent, as a mad
scientist, and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. A further example of
Mr. Marceau's multiple talents was the mimodrama Candide, which
he created for the Ballet company of the Hamburg Opera. He directed this
work and also performed the title role.
Children have been delighted by his
highly acclaimed Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book and Marcel
Marceau Counting Book. Other publications of Mr. Marceau's poetry
and illustrations include his La ballade de Paris et du Monde,
which he wrote in 1966, and The Story of Bip, written and
illustrated by Marcel Marceau and published by Harper and Row. In 1982
The Third Eye, his collection of ten lithographs, was published
in Paris with an accompanying text by Mr. Marceau. Belfond of Paris
published Pimporello in 1987.
The French Government has conferred upon
Mr. Marceau its highest honor, making him an "Officier de la Legion
d'Honneur," and in 1978 he received the Medaille Vermeil de la
Ville de Paris. In November of 1998, President Chirac named Marceau
a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit, and he is an elected member of
the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich,
the Academie des Beaux Arts France, and the Institut de
France. The City of Paris awarded him a grant which enabled him to
reopen his International School, which offers a three year curriculum.
Mr. Marceau holds honorary doctorates
from Ohio State University, Linfield College, Princeton University, and
the University of Michigan - America's way of honoring Marcel Marceau's
creation of a new art form, inherited from an old tradition.
In 2000, Mr. Marceau brought his full
mime company to New York City for presentation of his new mimodrama,
The Bowler Hat, previously seen in Paris, London, Tokyo, Taipei,
Caracas, Santo Domingo, Valencia (Venezuela) and Munich. Since 1999,
when Marceau returned with his classic solo show to New York and San
Francisco after 15-year absences for critically-acclaimed sold out runs,
his career in America has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance with strong
appeal to a third generation. He has recently appeared for extended
engagements at such legendary American theaters as The Ford's Theatre in
Washington, DC, the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA, and the
Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, to overwhelming acclaim, demonstrating
the timeless appeal of the work and the mastery of this unique artist.
Mr. Marceau accepted the honor and
responsibilities of serving as Goodwill Ambassador for the United
Nations Second World Assembly on Ageing, which took place in Madrid,
Spain in April, 2002. A new photo book for children titled "Bip in a
Book", published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, is in the bookstores in the
US, France and Australia. Marceau's new full company production Les
Contes Fantastiques (Fantasy Tales) recently opened to great acclaim
at the Theatre Antoine in Paris.
Marcel Marceau.
Biography - Lorin Eric Salm - approved by
Marcel Marceau *
Universally considered the world's greatest
contemporary mime artist, Marcel Marceau is a living legend.
Born Marcel Mangel on March 22, 1923, in the French town of Strasbourg,
on the French-German border, Marceau was inspired as a young child by
the great stars of silent film. The comic brilliance of Buster Keaton,
Harold Lloyd, and Laurel and Hardy, among others, fascinated him, but it
was Charlie Chaplin that made the biggest and most lasting impression.
After his father took him to see City Lights, Marceau began to
imitate Chaplin immediately. The young Marceau would perform his
imitations of Chaplin and other characters for the neighborhood children,
and his entertaining became very popular. (Ironically, in spite of the
many Hollywood stars Marceau would later come to know personally, he
would meet Chaplin only once, and only by chance, at the Orly airport
outside Paris in 1967, upon his return from shooting a film in Rome.)
It was as a young man when Marcel took Marceau as his new surname. He
and his older brother Alain had moved to Limoges early into World War II,
and worked for the French resistance during the Nazi occupation of
France. The name change helped hide his true identity. While in Limoges,
Marceau also attended school, where he studied decorative art.
When his brother became wanted by the Gestapo, it was too dangerous for
Marceau to remain in Limoges, and so he moved to Paris. He enrolled as a
student of Charles Dullin, the great French actor-director-theoretician,
at Dullin’s School of Dramatic Art at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. It
was there where he began to study mime under Etienne Decroux, who would
later become known as "the father of modern mime."
When France was liberated in 1944, Marceau enlisted in the French Army.
He served alongside American soldiers in Germany from January to April
1945, when the war in Europe ended, and remained in service there until
May 1946.
Marceau returned to France in 1946, when he performed in Dullin's troupe,
and he also returned to his mime studies with Decroux. As he was one of
Decroux's most talented students, Marceau was invited to play the role
of Arlequin (Harlequin) in the Renault-Barrault Company's production of
Baptiste, a full-length mime play, or
mimodrame, based on the character
that Jean-Louis Barrault had played in the enormously successful film
Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise), which itself was
partially based on the life of Jean-Gaspard Deburau, the greatest French
mime of the 19th century. Marceau's performance received acclaim, and he
was encouraged to create his own mime work. That same year he created
the mimodrame Praxitèle et le poisson d'or (Praxitele and the Golden
Fish) at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt.
The following year, in 1947, Marceau introduced Bip, the character that
would become his alter-ego, as the Little Tramp was to Chaplin. He first
performed Bip at the Théâtre de Poche in Paris, with Bip et la fille
des rues (Bip and the Girl of the Streets) and Bip et la
parapluie (Bip and the Umbrella).
Marceau's and Decroux's views of mime differed, and they had a falling
out in 1948. That same year Marceau, now his own artist, won the Deburau
Prize for his mimodrame Mort avant l'aube (Death Before Dawn).
The following year he created the first Compagnie Marceau and began his
first international tours in Europe with his troupe.
Technically, Marceau's first opportunity to perform for an American
audience had been when he performed for 3000 of General George S.
Patton's U.S. troops in Germany during Marceau's tour of duty after the
war. In 1955, however, came his first theatrical performances in the
United States. He performed a one-man show composed of short
Bip mimes
and style pantomimes
in New York, first at the Phoenix Theatre, then in a sold-out run on
Broadway at the Ethyl Barrymore Theatre. The response was astounding,
and he followed New York with a six-month U.S. tour.
The name Marcel Marceau started to become a household name as he
appeared on American television. He made guest appearances on such shows
as The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, Laugh-In, The Dinah Shore
Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show, and appeared three times in
concerts with Red Skelton. He won a 1956 Emmy award for his guest
appearance on Max Liebman Presents - The Maurice Chevalier Show.
His later television accomplishments included the one-hour special
Meet Marcel Marceau (1965), and Scrooge (for the BBC, 1973),
in which he played all the roles. Marceau also appeared in films, both
of his mime work, such as Un Jardin Public (The Public Garden,
1955) and The Art of Silence (1975), and feature films such
as Shanks (1973), Barbarella (1968), First Class
(1970, in which he played 17 roles), and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie
(1976), in which he was the only actor to speak.
Throughout the 1950's and 1960's Marceau continued international tours
that took him literally all over the world. During the latter decade he
took on new artistic roles—those of painter, teacher, and author.
Influenced by artists like Marc Chagall and William Blake, Marceau's
drawings and paintings reflect his sense of the fantasy, poetry,
complexity, and profoundness of life. Some of his paintings illustrate
the pages of The Story of Bip, one of several children's books he
has written.
In 1969, Marceau founded the Ecole Internationale de Mime Marcel Marceau,
the first version of his school, maintained under the direction of his
longtime associate Pierre Verry. Later, in 1978, with the financial
support of the city of Paris, he opened the Ecole Internationale de
Mimodrame de Paris Marcel Marceau, a three-year, multi-discipline
program that offered the skills he felt were essential to the mime
actor—instruction in his own mime technique, acting, ballet, fencing,
acrobatics, and Corporeal Mime, the technique created by his master of
years ago, Etienne Decroux. In the 1980's and 1990’s, Marceau also
taught summer seminars in Italy and the United States, and has continued
to offer occasional workshops in various cities, some in cooperation
with other mime programs.
Since he began touring internationally in the 1950's, Marceau has worked
almost without pause. He has toured every year since then, and has
continued to teach, paint, write, and create. The demands of this
lifestyle caught up with him only once, in 1985, when a perforated ulcer
necessitated an emergency return to France from the U.S.S.R., where he
was touring, followed by a six-month recovery. He returned to touring in
1986, and continues to this day.
Marceau's achievements as an artist and his contribution to the renewed
popularity of the art of mime have earned him not only a loyal worldwide
audience, but also much formal recognition. He has received the highest
civilian honors of his native France, named Officier de la Légion
d'Honneur, Officier du Mérite, and Commandeur des Arts et Lettres, among
others. He was inducted into the Academy of Arts and Letters of Berlin
in 1954, and into the French Académie des Beaux Arts in 1993. Marceau
has received honorary doctorates from major universities, has been
received by world leaders, and has been designated a Goodwill Ambassador
by the United Nations.
Today Marcel Marceau continues to perform in his solo show and with his
Nouvelle Compagnie de Mimodrame, and after a career that has thus far
spanned more than half a century, he remains for many the world's
greatest mime.
* Marcel Marceau read the first draft of
the preceding biography, and this final version reflects his corrections
to that draft.
Marcel Marceau
STAGE PERFORMANCE
Marcel Marceau has, for many years, structured his
theatrical performances in two formats. His "one-man show" is a
performance in two acts, the first act comprised of several
Style Pantomimes, and the second act
of several Bip pantomimes. His
programs usually list his entire repertoire of solo works, and state
that the performance at hand will be selected from this repertoire. When
Marceau performs with his ensemble company, the first act is usually a
selection of solo Style Pantomimes and Bip pantomimes, and the second
act involves the entire company in the group performance of a
mimodrame.
STYLE PANTOMIMES
Marceau's Pantomimes de style began as the
creations of Etienne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault who, during the
1930's, worked tirelessly at discovering the possibilities of human
dramatic movement. This work resulted in techniques, stylizations, and
illusions that provided the mime actor with a means of "making visible
the invisible," as Decroux said.
When Marceau first presented these and his own similar works, they were
essentially short demonstrations, or "exercises", as Marceau calls them,
whose purpose was to show the audience the wonder of the technique of
mime, and allow them to appreciate this aspect separately from any
dramatic context. Early examples included Walking (Decroux-Barrault),
Walking Against the Wind (Marceau), Tug of War (Marceau),
and The Staircase (Barrault-Marceau). In the 1940's and 1950's,
when mime was still a novelty to contemporary theatre and television
audiences, these demonstrations of corporal virtuosity were of interest
in themselves.
Audiences became more accustomed to the techniques and
illusions of mime, and as their familiarity evolved, so did the Style
Pantomimes. "Progressively the style pantomimes oriented themselves
toward social satire, oneiric fable, symbolism and surrealism."
1
Marceau's works such as The Public Garden and The Trial
showed the multitude of character types that we recognize amongst us,
and the conflicts that fill our daily lives, from the trivial to the
crucial. They also demonstrated retournée de personnage, the way
in which the mime actor instantly changes from one character to another.
The Maskmaker and The Cage used visual metaphor to express
the human tragedy. In The Creation of the World, The Hands,
and Youth, Maturity, Old Age, and Death Marceau employed
symbolism and metamorphosis to condense time and space and render the
entire expanse of human existence in visual moments that transcend the
possibilities of words.
Other examples of Marcel Marceau's Style Pantomimes
include:
The Painter
The Side Show
The Pickpocket's Nightmare
The Seven Deadly Sins
The Tango Dancer
The Small Café
The Four Seasons
The Eater of Hearts
BIP PANTOMIMES
Born in 1947 at the beginning of his career, Marceau's
character Bip would become so closely connected with the artist as to be
called his alter-ego. Bip is the fictional personification of Marceau's
influences and heroes, a tribute to his predecessors, and his philosophy
on mankind.
With the change of one letter, Marceau named his character after Pip,
the favorite hero of his from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.
He donned a costume that pays tribute to his influences—a coat that
seems too short and pants that seem too long, the way Charlie Chaplin's
costume was composed of ill-fitting elements; an opera hat reminiscent
of a romantic era gone by, but battered and torn, and topped by a red
carnation, the aroma of which reminds Bip from time to time that life is
sweet in spite of circumstances. He applied to his face the white makeup
of Jean-Gaspard Deburau's Pierrot, in tribute to the 19th-century
sensation whose memory personifies the art of pantomime in the France of
his time.
Marceau compares Bip to Don Quixote, always in search of
adventure, and battling the windmills of life against which he is
powerless. Like the Pedrolino of the Commedia dell'Arte and the Pierrot
of Deburau, Bip assumes a humble position in life, but Marceau's hero
always dreams of something more. Sometimes we see the Little Tramp side
of Bip, as he struggles to fit in with society, to deal with technology,
or to pursue love. Other times we look into Bip's dreams as he plays out
for us his aspirations and his fantasies. Every time we see Bip, however,
we see ourselves. Bip is an Everyman, and he reflects the comedy and
tragedy of all mankind.
"Born in the imagination of my childhood," Marceau
writes, "Bip is a romantic and burlesque hero of our time. His look is
turned not only towards heaven, but into the hearts of men."
2
Bip's comedy often arises from nature, such as when he
struggles against gravity to keep his suitcase in it's overhead
compartment in Bip Travels by Train, or when simply maintaining
his balance is an ongoing challenge in Bip Travels by Sea. Always
the underdog, no undertaking is a simple task for him. Bip's childlike
imagination comes to life in such pieces as Bip Plays David and
Goliath, Bip Dreams He is Don Juan, and Bip, Great Star of
a Traveling Circus. While Marceau lets Bip fantasize, though, he
always brings him back down to Earth in the end. Although Bip is a
simple man, or perhaps because he is, he is sensitive to the world. In
Bip Hunts Butterflies, for example, he alternately discovers both
the beauty and frailty of life. He is easily inspired, easily touched,
and as easily wounded, but his simplicity allows him to quickly
reconcile any conflicts and maintain his love of life.
Other examples of Marcel Marceau's Bip Pantomimes include:
Bip as a Skater
Bip Commits Suicide
Bip as a Lion Tamer
Bip and the Dating Service
Bip in the Modern and Future Life
Bip as a Soldier
Bip at a Society Party
Bip Remembers
MIMODRAME
Literally,
mimodrame is the French term for "mime drama," or the theatrical
art of mime. (The English equivalent might be mimodrama.) The term is
often used to signify an ensemble mime piece. Marceau sometimes refers
to l'art de mimodrame, but also uses the term to refer to one-act
or full-length mime plays he performs with his company.
Examples of Marcel Marceau's mimodrames include:
Mort avant l'Aube (Death Before Dawn) - 1948
Le Manteau (The Overcoat) - 1951
Pierrot de Montmartre - 1952
Un soir aux Funambules (An Evening at the Funambules) - 1953
Les Trois Perruques (The Three Wigs) - 1953
Le 14 Juillet (The 14 of July) - 1956
Paris qui Rit, Paris qui Pleure (Paris Laughs, Paris Cries) -
1959
Le Chapeau Melon (The Bowler Hat) - 1997
Notes:
1. From Marcel Marceau performance program.
2. As quoted in Marceau, Marcel, "The Story of Bip" (New York: Harper &
Row, 1976).
|
