MARCEL MARCEAU
We all know the visual mime jokes of the man inside a glass box, pretending to hold a briefcase unimaginably heavy, sliding along with our hands, flat palms out as if we are stuck but there are many others too and yet I wonder is everyone aware where they originated? The enlightening story of the master mime artist wasn’t known to me and whilst the name was in common parlance we don’t necessarily know how come he came to act in total silence and the truth is heartbreakingly simple
Thérèse Le Prat Marcel Marceau, Paris 1950
“Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?” Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau, born Marcel Mangel, was a French Jew, originally from Strasbourg. His father was murdered in Auschwitz. During his teen years, Marceau became active in the French Resistance, in a unit commanded by his cousin, Georges Loinger. In the Resistance, Marceau was both a forger of false documents for people fleeing the nazis and a resistant who smuggled several hundred Jewish children to safety in Switzerland.
It was while clandestinely moving these young people that Marceau, in order to keep them calm, quiet and entertained, first began to experiment with mime. He also credited his experience during the war and the murder of his father with the tragic tone of much of his mime performance.
As he later said: “The people who came back from the camps were never able to talk about it. My name is Mangel. I am Jewish. Perhaps that, unconsciously, contributed towards my choice of silence.”
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