All the clichés, the jokes, mimes trapped in invisible boxes come down to this: a man walks along and hits an invisible wall. He jumps back. He can’t see the wall, but he can feel it.
He reaches as high as he can and recognizes that the wall extends far above him. He puts one hand forward, then the other, then takes a step. Two hands forward, another step. His eyes light up only as he learns to navigate—feeling around corners, turning ninety degrees, looking for an exit. His mood turns from confounded to desperate. He pounds the surface of the wall with his fist.
The man finds an opening and tries to pry it open. He sticks his head in and looks from side to side. Climbs, shoulders first, and begins walking again. Almost immediately, he smacks into a second wall, stunned by the impact. Again he searches the perimeter, rounding the corners of this secondary space.
As he goes deeper, the room shrinks, evidenced by the actor’s increasingly constricted movements. The man is shrinking as well. Finally he dies, body folded into a knot.
Seeing is a way of possessing. With our eyes, we have what we desire. We are in control.
But when we watch the mime, desire turns to envy. Our limbs are incapable of such articulation. Our muscles cannot call upon so deep a vocabulary.
We’re jealous of the volume and range of his movements. We cannot even mimic the gestures. Bip’s passions are not for us.