UNITED STATES/JAPAN: WORLD FAMOUS MIME ARTIST MARCEL MARCEAU BEGINS SERIES OF SHOWS IN WASHINGTON

Record ID: 706194

  • Title: UNITED STATES/JAPAN: WORLD FAMOUS MIME ARTIST MARCEL MARCEAU BEGINS SERIES OF SHOWS IN WASHINGTON
  • Date: 28th January 2000
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C. UNITED STATES (JANUARY 28, 2000) (REUTERS) MARCEAU IN INTERVIEW TALKING OVER MIME PERFORMANCE VISION (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) SAYING ...and then illusions bring this reality in the theatre ,whereas in the films reality brings violence"
  • Embargoed: 12th February 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: WASHINGTON, D.C. UNITED STATES AND TOKYO, JAPAN
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Arts,General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3ODUVCUM2EN2QF6OC0M2C6SI
  • Story Text: World famous mime artist Marcel Marceau has begun a series of shows in Washington's Fords Theater, returning to Washington, D.C.to rave reviews after a twenty year absence while many fans are turning out to what they see as possibly their last opportunity to see the 76-year-olds show.
    He doesn't speak often.But when he does, Marcel Marceau doesn't mince his words.
    "It's good to shut up sometimes," the world's most famous mime said, stating his philosophy on life.
    The man who has spent more than 50 years shutting up and letting his painted white face speak more eloquently on the stage than many speaking actors said what epitaph he wants etched on his tombstone: "Silence."
    For Marceau, silence is truly golden.Speaking at a National Press Club luncheon on Friday, the 76-year-old waxed lyrical on his favourite subject.
    "Everybody, in every field, has to be silent before action,"
    he said.
    "We are all sometimes solitary with our dreams and then we go to the light," he said on the fragility of human condition.
    Marceau is in town for a three-week run at Washington's Ford Theatre.Even at this late stage in his career, he draws strong reviews.
    The Washington Post's notice of the mime's latest show said, "Marceau, 76, has long been regarded as the world's greatest mime -- can anyone name another? -- and his skills remain in glorious condition."
    While Marceau might be best known for his mime, he also fought as a young man in the French resistance during World War II, a subject he said he would rather not dwell upon, choosing instead to seek out the positive.
    Indeed, although his own father was killed by the Nazis during the war, he said what was more important was that even after all the millions who were killed, that Europe was rebuilt in cooperation with the Germans because "blood should not be spilled on the heads of a new generation."
    At times Marceau sounded more like an evangelist than a comic wit, talking at length about his hopes for a reign of peace, hope and global love in the 21st century.
    Marceau turned serious on the topic of violence, blaming the recent spate of school shootings, most notably the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado which claimed the lives of 12 students and a teacher, on violence in Hollywood movies.
    "I could be very critical of the violence, the guns, the bombs," he said of Hollywood movies."That's why we had the accident at that school, it's a real threat.How can our children survive seeing all this violence? Is this our civilisation?"
    Marceau told the audience if he had not been a mime he would have been a painter, that William Shakespeare would have made a wonderful mime and that he plans a new show in 2001.
    Marceau, who peppered his appearance with snippets of mime, admitted that part of his success was that mime has universal appeal wherever he went or whomever he played to -- almost.
    "Not in the desert and not before a tree," he said."We have to have human beings.And not before animals -- dogs don't understand.
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