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 dressed 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.