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.