| In simple terms, Mime Theatre
(also called Theatrical Mime) is Mime for the stage rather
than Mime for the street. While Marcel Marceau's popular success spawned
imitators on sidewalks, boardwalks, and cafés worldwide, Marceau himself
has never been a street artist, but has always been a stage artist.
Street Mime
is an art in itself and can lay claim to many talented performers, but is generally more
improvisational and interactive than Mime Theatre. Mime Theatre is
actor-centered, physical performance that can vary from a single performer to a
full cast, and from a bare stage to a production employing all the arts that
belong to the theatre—lighting, music, costume, makeup, scenic design.
Many think of Mime as a sort of "illegitimate art"
whose practitioners bother pedestrians and demonstrate cliché illusions. Mime Theatre
is a genre of theatre as old as theatre itself, and can be as
profound, poetic, comic, or dramatic as any art of the stage. With its roots in
ancient Greece and the Commedia dell'Arte, it has developed in modern times into
a highly-skilled actor's art that requires extensive study of its dramatic
principals and physical skills.
Mime Theatre is a complete art in itself, and
those who learn it will find it also enhances their work in other performance
arts such as traditional theatre, acting for film and television, dance, improv
theatre, and stand-up comedy. (See some of the
people who have studied mime.)
|
