Friday, September 28, 2007

It's Mime I Tell You, All Mime

As the world spins more and more rapidly (that is an analogy to describe how quickly aspects of our lives change, because if the world was really speeding up stuff would start falling off my desk) there are more and more things fading into history. The following is a phrase which may never be used by major news agencies again: world-renowned mime.
It was in the press recently though. Marcel Marceau, probably the last person to have that phrase attached to his name, passed away last week. Strangely enough, he had no last words.
When I told that joke at the dinner table my oldest daughter was aghast. She said it was tasteless. If any of the readers out there agree with her feel free to jam up the Globe Exchange phone lines with your complaints, but I still maintain it was funny.
I actually had great respect for Monsieur Marceau. I did see him perform on television and appreciated his ability to tell such complete stories with so little. He used body movements and facial expressions only to elicit in his audience understanding of complex situations and emotions.
However, as an art form, mime has more opportunities for ridicule than most. Admit it, if someone asked you to go to the Civic Center to see this “really cool mime” you would claim anything from relatives visiting from out of town to suddenly remembering you had a big presentation at work or even having to go to the emergency room to have a family of Emperor Gum Moth Caterpillars removed from your Eustachian tubes. Who would blame you? After you’ve seen one guy walk against the wind and find himself trapped in an invisible box you’d almost rather have to go to the hospital to get moth larvae removed from your inner ear.
The word mime itself is just funny.
Do you think Lorene Yarnell walked up to Robert Shields in a bar and asked “If you’ve got the money, honey, I’ve got the mime”? (Give yourself 50 bonus points if you remember the mime team of Shields and Yarnell from the late 70’s.)
In 1937 a gigantic tent was set up outside of the town of Alabaster, Alabama in which hundreds of pilgrims of a little known sect of Baptists, who believed talking to God was best done silently, held a three day revival meeting. To this very day there are folks in that part of the country who long for that old mime religion.
Since I pride myself on the exhaustive research I use to make this column educational I spent innumerable hours (okay, it was seven and half minutes on the internet) getting information on the state of mime in the 21st century.
First I found the School for Mime Theatre. As you can probably guess this place of higher learning is in one of the artistic centers of the United States, Gambier Ohio. Their website talks of a summer seminar which offered “opportunities for local community youth to interact with professional mimes” as well as participate in a live performance during the Fourth of July Parade. I am a pacifist by nature, but even I would have been sorely tempted to lob a few Black Cats at a group of local community youth playing tug-of-war with an invisible rope down Main Street.
I then found a message board for mimes, really, I did, promise. Here is the first message to catch my eye (I swear I did not make this up): “Do I really need to put a lot of thought into what my eyebrows look like?” But this is my favorite entry (I am still not making this up and even better it seems to be from the same guy who wrote the other question): “I was wondering if anyone had any mime music they could recommend. I want to practice at home, but I don't know what music to use.” I do hope someone helps this guy out. It would be so sad if he was stuck in his parents’ basement practicing his mime sporting Leonid Brezhnev eyebrows performing to Creeping Death by Metallica.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tell your daughter that her father isn't that bad. At my dinner table, I made the statement that they should position his body with elbows bent and palms out and then bury him in a glass coffin. I was deemed the devil.