A Twenty Minute Silence Followed by Applause

by Shawn Wen

  COLLECTIONS: WORK-RELATED READING

  Philological Entertainment.

  (David-Étienne Choffin)

  Dramatic Anecdotes.

  (Jean Marie Bernard Clément and Joseph de La Porte)

  Old Paris: Parties, Games and Shows.

  (Victor Fournel)

  Memoirs of Goldoni, Written by Himself: Forming a Complete History of His Life and Writings.

  (Carlo Goldoni)

  Lyon’s Guignol Theater Illustrated.

  (Jean-Baptiste Onofrio and Eugène Lefebvre)

  Acrobats and Mountebanks.

  (Hugues Le Roux and Jules Garnier)

  Pulcinella: Former King of Puppets Becomes a Philosopher.

  (Alcide-Joseph Lorentz)

  Memories of the Funambulists.

  (Champfleury)

  The Two Pierrots.

  (Champfleury)

  Masks and Jesters [Italian Comedy].

  (Maurice Sand)

  Lyric Theatre.

  (Venard de La Jonchère)

  Grotesque Paris: The Celebrities of the Street.

  (Charles Yriarte)

  From the Sword to the Stage.

  (Robert Heddle-Roboth and Daniel Marciano)

  M. ON AMERICA, 1955

  He arrives in New York for a two-week run. But the Americans hold him over, and he stays for six months. Originally slated to perform at the Phoenix Theater, he moves on to the Ethel Barrymore on Broadway. From there, City Center. Applause begins before he even steps onstage.

  A figure in the deep

  White

  Because it shows movement

  White

  Because it hides the wrinkles

  White

  Because we are frail

  Marceau said, “Americans love something new. And I was doing something new. I brought silence on stage for the first time. I made the invisible visible, I created metaphors, and Americans saw the poetry.”

  As Chaplin danced and bumbled, Marceau studied the footwork.

  “I found the art in that silence.”

  And he sold it.

  SCENE 4: BIP PLAYS DAVID AND GOLIATH

  Stage right, Bip hunches over to make himself slight, all rollicking feet and fluttering digits.

  Stage left, hulking Goliath, arms raised on either side, face grim, muscles bouncing with each step.

  David weakly pantomimes boxing. He clasps his hands together into a prayer and glances at the sky. Goliath approaches in stilted, bold steps, arms waving like a gorilla’s.

  David peers into the audience, pleading for help. Fear has compressed his body.

  Goliath bounds across the stage with an enormous jumping jack, searching for his prey. He clenches and unclenches his fists.

  In a single, swift movement, David launches a rock with his slingshot. Goliath stumbles back, wide-eyed, and darkness overcomes him.

  M. ON THE CONNECTIVE TISSUES

  Collagen fibers

  Braided, banded, packed

  Coalesce

  Into macroaggregates, into fascicles and tendons

  These little bundles of string tie muscle to bone

  They stretch and spring

  tear, inflame

  “I don’t mime to look nice or cute. It must be tense.”

  Ligaments are elastic

  Under tension, they lengthen

  The body stretches

  Supple joints flower

  “Do you make them laugh under the belt, or do you make them laugh with an idea? The best is laughter through tears, a laugh that hurts.”

  Cutaneous

  Of the skin

  The nerve endings react

  To heat and cold

  To touch

  “The more I play now, the better I feel in my muscles, in my control.”

  I am the pant legs

  I am the pant legs

  I flare

  I never hug the ankles

  I bloom out

  M. ON HIS OWN

  “I had the feeling there was no war going on, so kind were the people and so warm the welcome.” (May 1970, Hanoi)

  He claims that he cannot tell his fans apart. French, American, Vietnamese—all citizens defined by their adoration for him. He says they laugh and cry at the same moments. With a flick of his fingers, he reaches in and pulls out identical sighs. He takes in the onlookers, the gigglers and gaspers, the criers—all from behind the shadow of a hand.

  His hand, with all its particulars. Each line, bulge, and groove—defined. They tell the story of a man.

  The fingerprints are proof.

  He wanted the universal, commonality across nations. But what if all people were not alike? From France to America to Vietnam. He found no formula for the end of suffering. No formula to stir up empathy and understanding. Just a formula for one man.

  SCENE 5: BIP ATTEMPTS SUICIDE

  The girl in the framed photo doesn’t return his feelings, so he’s looking for a way out. He places his battered hat on the floor, safely out of the splash zone. Bip weighs the options: poison, pistol, dagger, gas, and noose.

  He mixes the poison himself, and the elixir is so appetizing. Sweet nectar’s all drunk up and he feels fine.

  So, Bip goes for the pistol. He covers his ear with his free hand. Such delicate sensibilities. The gun shakes uncontrollably in his nervous grip.

  His aim is too high, then too low. He tightens his grasp. But, wait, where is the heart? To the left or right of the sternum? He feels along his chest with the barrel, trying to recall science class. By accident the gun goes off and the sound terrifies him. Stunned, trembling, he reconsiders.

  Director: Marcel, it’s beautiful.

  Marceau: I made two or three mistakes but fortunately you didn’t see them.

  M. ON BOUNDARIES AND BORDERLINES

  “Mime can’t translate lies. For lies, words are adequate.”

  “I could use words, but to be very honest, it’s beautiful to be a mime. Words would destroy the mystery of the illusion.”

  “Mime can do things that words cannot. . . . It describes the metaphysical world on the border of the real world.”

  He made you do it.

  SCENE 6: BIP, THE BULLFIGHTER

  He’s the matador crowned with an iconic three-pointed hat, his stovetop perched on the fence beside the bullring.

  He dances. He’s a parading spider. The sweep of his arms conjures up a full stadium and its crowd. He allows his cape to catch in the air and billow. Before the fight starts, he takes a moment to lean on a shelf and take a breath. (A charming disruption of the narrative, and typical Bip, the furniture materializes and dematerializes at will.)

  From a distance, the bull stares him down. Bip is not up to the task. He daintily dangles the cape away from his body, terrified of the bull drawing near.

  Long pause. The bull refuses to charge.

  Bip points to the cape. He drags the bull like a disobedient dog on a leash. He leans on the mantel again to catch his breath.

  Drumroll begins. He rotates, making sure the arena crowd sees his weapon. In a swift motion, he spears the bull. There’s a flicker of regret on his face; then he assumes a triumphant pose, arms up and chest inflated. He tips his cap towards the audience and they burst into applause.

  Were you horrified? Did you think he wouldn’t go through with it? Bip breaks out of his exultant stance to revive the bull. He bends over to pet it, grabs the udders and begins to squeeze. The bull transforms into a docile heifer. Bip sticks his finger into the milk to give it a taste.

  M. ON MAN’S MODERN PROBLEMS

  Coming off his US tour, and just a day before heading off to the USSR, Marceau stops in at the studios of Guy Béart’s new show Bienvenue. The taping has the feel of a master class. Photogenic audience members crowd the stage, seated right next to the host. The camera turns to them frequently as they applaud, chuckle, and ask questions. They look like idealized graduate students: beautiful, curious, and young.

  Marceau is dr
essed in a black suit that’s tailored perfectly to his lean body. He’s thirty-three years old and the most handsome he’s ever looked. Béart reminds his audience the mime has arrived “without the white mask, without the character he immortalized—Bip—without the hat, without the flower.” This sets the tone for today’s intimate show.

  Marceau steps on stage and begins: “The mime must be clear with his gestures. A mime who we cannot understand is a solipsistic man,” he says, prompting quiet laughter.

  Marceau takes off his suit jacket and hands it to a guy sitting close by. He opens with The Kite. The strength of the wind appears to lift him, bending his whole body backwards. He fights against the gust of air, forcing himself to the ground. This is Decroux’s contrepoids in action. A few audience members scream, exhilarated by the palpable illusion of wind, as Marceau shifts his weight from one foot to the other, hot under the closeup adoration.

  He pretends to wait for an elevator, “one of man’s modern problems.” Marceau anxiously looks up at the indicator lights, presses the button multiple times and then gives up, taking the stairs. To the audience’s delight, he punctuates the long climb by marching impatiently around the landing at each floor.

  The routine employs another Decroux technique: raccourci, or “shortcut”—a more abstract trick. The actor distills a movement into its basic elements while keeping the action recognizable. The stylized gesture compresses space and time as the mime climbs stairs, walks through the Garden of Eden, or skates across the rink, remaining in place. Hours seem to pass in seconds, years in minutes.

  A young woman raises her hand, “How do I become the greatest mime in the world?”

  “A very difficult question to answer,” Marceau says. “There are great mimes, for example Harpo Marx.” An excuse to break into a series of impressions: Buster Keaton, Stan Laurel, Charlie Chaplin. The audience hoots at Marceau’s figures from their childhood.

  “When you are abroad, if you do not understand the language, do you talk with your hands? And is that mime?” asks another young woman.

  Marceau pulls out a caricature of an Italian man, pinching his fingers to his thumb, mumbling under his breath, pulling his lower eyelid down with his index finger, Beware, I’m watching you.

  “We eat an apple,” he says, holding up an invisible sphere, demonstrating its shape and weight. “Volume.” He takes a bite. The crunch of the fruit gives way to pulp. Juice spills out of his full mouth. He inhales deeply, savoring the taste, and then tosses the core to the ground. “Orange,” he announces, unpeeling the thick rind, separating the individual carpels, and biting into the flesh. “Ice cream.” He takes a spoonful, and his smiling eyes are shocked with pain, teeth chattering from brain freeze.

  Beads of sweat drip down his cheek, glistening at his hairline. A woman starts to ask a question, “Monsieur Marceau, I want to know . . .,” but he cuts her off.

  “Animals are extraordinary mimes,” he says. Marceau imitates the wide, dilated pupils of his own pet, a Siamese kitten. “And the tail! He scares himself. He turns around.” Marceau arches his back in a cat’s defensive stance and takes three lateral jumps.

  Another woman raises her hand. “Tell me, in pantomime, I love you.”

  “Ah, I did not expect this question,” Marceau says. “It’s so French.”

  Marceau mimes the nineteenth-century Pierrot, lovelorn, clutching his heart, kissing the air, one arm extended towards his beloved.

  Or: Marceau leans against a shelf and leers at a woman across the room. He flicks cigarette ash on the ground, saunters over, and grabs her.

  Or: He walks up to the female audience member, pulls her out of her chair, and kisses her on both cheeks.

  M. ON CHAPLIN

  Marceau said, “How far back can I summon memories of the past? When I was five years old, my mother took me to see Charlie Chaplin’s silent moving pictures. Ah, Chaplin! To us he was a god. He made us laugh and cry, purged us of our own misfortunes, showed us a thousand tricks. And, always, no matter how beaten down, he triumphed over his tribulations in the end.”

  The first mime company did not rehearse. They were children on parade. Children flying banners fashioned from tattered handkerchiefs. Children wielding tree branches as rifles and canes. Waterloo in front of them. Narrow streets behind them. A dozen little Little Tramps battling the police.

  Marceau’s show returns in fragments. Your mind has been trained by the still camera. You can capture an instant, a flash; the mime inhabits a dozen positions. But your imagination cannot complete a sequence. Videos and photographs remind you how transient the stage is. So you replay the dancing ghost in your head and pray to get it right.

  SCENE 7: BIP AS SKATER AND SPECTATOR

  The white floor suggests a sheet of ice. Bip enters stage left, placing one foot in front of the other in a deliberately flat-footed walk. Taking a moment to admire the other skaters, he leans on an imaginary guideline, his torso slightly bouncing against its natural tension.

  Upstage, there are two pillars. He rests his hat on one and pulls himself up on the other, so that his feet dangle over the floor. He laces his skates and waxes the blades. In a show of extra preparation, he applies wax to his armpits and chest, and then warms up with a few stretches.

  Bip’s gaze populates the empty stage with a crowd of holiday revelers. As he follows a particularly skilled skater, his upper body rocks aspirationally from side to side. His head weaves in a figure eight as she glides around the rink. But his interest turns to derision. She takes a spill on the ice. He laughs and points at her. The mishap gives him a bout of courage and he lowers himself onto the ice.

  His ankles give way and legs collapse. Embarrassed, Bip climbs back on one pillar and pretends he’s happy to be a spectator.

  On his final attempt, he starts off timidly, ankles bent inward. His body begins to wobble and he throws his arms out for balance. He swims the breaststroke, then freestyle, trying to catch an air current strong enough to allow him to stay upright. Finally, he shifts his weight from one leg to the other, skating briskly towards the audience. Beaming with happiness, he throws out his arms and spins.

  M. ON CHAPLIN II

  In Paris, Marcel Marceau met Charlie Chaplin. Marceau recognized the aging film star at the Orly airport. It was 1967, more than fifty years after the first Little Tramp film and thirty years after the last. Four decades after the talkies dented Chaplin’s career for good. Two after the actor was accused of un-American activities. Two after J. Edgar Hoover asked the FBI to keep extensive secret files on him. Fifteen years after he left the US for what he thought would be a brief trip. He was not allowed back in.

  In 1967, Chaplin was nearly eighty. His fame was diminished, as was his health. No one else recognized him. Marceau’s career was strong. The young mime was making television appearances and signing book deals. He approached Chaplin, and after talk of the weather, Marceau began to imitate the Little Tramp. Then Chaplin imitated Marceau’s Little Tramp. Marceau brought his knees to the ground, took the Tramp’s hand in his own, and kissed it. He looked up to see Chaplin’s cheeks wet with tears.

  COLLECTIONS: READING FOR A WELL-ROUNDED EDUCATION

  Discourse on Universal History.

  (Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet)

  Lucan’s “Pharsalia.”

  (Georges de Brébeuf)

  White Magic Revealed.

  (Henri Decremps)

  An Enquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell.

  (Tobias Swinden)

  Essays.

  (Michel de Montaigne)

  The Life of Monsieur de Molière.

  (Jean Léonor Le Gallois de Grimarest)

  The Life of Napoléon.

  (Napoléon)

  Interesting Letters of Pope Clement XIV.

  (Pope Clement XIV)

  Elementary Encyclopedia: or, Basics of the Sciences and of the Arts.

  (Isaac-Matthieu Crommelin)

  On Benefits.

  (Seneca)

 
; Provincial Letters.

  (Pascal)

  The History of the Conspiracy of the Spaniards against the Republic of Venice.

  (CésarVichard, M. l’abbé de Saint-Réal)

  SCENE 8

  A scarf is tied around his face. He tucks a found wallet into his back pocket. A stranger approaches, and the two begin to tango. (Marceau’s characters are constantly breaking into dance with women they’ve only just met.) One of his hands, representing the woman, works its way around his back to feel around for the wallet. The other hand wrestles it back. It’s a secondary battle between expressive, sinewy fingers. Fast-forward and the “Paris tough” shows that he’s managed to hold on to the wallet.

  SCENE 9

  He bears an uncanny resemblance to the Count from Sesame Street. Perhaps it’s the prominent nose and high collar. His velvet cape is deep maroon, lined with tassels. In these scenes, there’s no audience, no sound, as if someone forgot to turn on the microphone. The camera zooms in so closely that we can see pink, fleshy tear duct and the veins in his eyes. His irises are light brown. His eyeliner is smudged. There’s a little glimpse of the striped sailor shirt peeking out from underneath his cape. He holds up the title card: Sloth.

  The footage dissolves to Marceau slouched under a blue backdrop and a painted crescent moon. There’s no story here. A sleepy guy tries to wake up, but he winds up going back to bed. The dullest of the deadly sins.

  Marceau yawns, his body crumpled and weak. He does a few shoulder taps, and then grasps at his lower back in pain. His left leg is crooked, dragging behind him as he walks. He pulls his pants up slowly, fighting with the tangled suspenders, snapping them against his chest, but they fall to his ankles when he takes a step.

  He turns on the faucet and splashes water on his face. His arms are too inflexible to reach the back of his neck. He begins the same set of actions as The Society Party, painstakingly wrestling with his jacket, gloves, and hat. But then he staggers to the back of the room and sits down. After letting out a heaving yawn, he cracks open a book. His movements get slower as he turns the pages. He goes limp and collapses on the bed, completing the useless circuit of his brief day.