A Concise History of Mime
Exclusively for MimeLikeThis.com (formerly the AMERICAN ACADEMY of MIME) by Bari Rolfe
Edited by Cary Trivanovich with Bari Rolfe

Bari Rolfe has worked for over 30 years as a mime, dancer, choreographer, consultant, teacher, director, and writer; in the United States, Mexico, and Europe. After the training and influences of Marcel Marceau, Etienne Decroux, and especially that of Jacques Lecoq, with whom she studied for three years, she returned to the United States in 1966 to teach in universities and in acting and dance studies for the next ten years.  She has published many articles in professional journals and the metropolitan press, and is the author of Mimes on Miming, Behind The Mask; Commedia Dell' Arte, A Scene Study Book; and editor of Farces, Italian Style and of Mime Directory Bibliography.

Special Note:  Bari Rolfe passed away on October 19, 2002, just three days after she and Cary Trivanovich edited this final draft for Mr. Trivanovich's website.  The following Concise History of Mime is presented here with honor, adoration, and remembrance of Bari.

Ancient Theatre in Rome

Mime in Antiquity
Pantomime in Greece, also called "the art of interpretive dancing," often took the form of mimetic dances, or military pantomimes such as Pyrrhic dances.  The art of gesture was called orchesis, from which we get the word orchestra, the Greek term for a dancing place.

The Romans were especially fond of pantomime, mounting subjects from myth and legend in movement, sometimes accompanied by narration or song.  The sketches were often played as afterpieces to the written plays, or even between the acts.  Two famous players - both freed slaves - were Pylades, who excelled in tragic style, and Bathyllus, known for his comic style.

The Empress Theodora of Byzantium, a ruler remarkable for her concern with the welfare of women and performers, was a pantomime player from her childhood until shortly before her marriage to Emperor Justinian.

To tell a story in movement and gesture was called pantomime; often short comic, topical, satirical one-acts.

Medieval Mime
When Rome fell, the theatres were closed and entertainers were reduced to wandering through the countryside, playing at fairs and markets.  The Church banned them for being licentious and cruel.  Yet, at the same time, the Church was producing mystery and miracle plays, first in church buildings and then later in churchyards.  Performed by guilds, these plays were an important technique for teaching the Bible, because mime, mystery, miracle, and morality plays were easily adapted to biblical stories.  Many of these spoken plays were easily made into pantomime versions, or included pantomime sequences.  Tableaux vivants consisted of a single representative pose, or a series of sculptural poses illustrating a story.

Broadbent quotes Colley Cibber, "It has been conjectured that the actors of the Mysteries of Religion were mummers, a word signifying one who makes and disguises himself to play the fool without speaking.  They were dressed in an antic manner, dancing, mimicking, and showing postures."  And Meyerhold wrote, "The organizers of medieval festivals of mystery plays appreciated only too well the magical power of pantomime.  In the French mysteries at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century the most moving scenes were invariably mimed."

Commedia dell’arte
Commedia dell'arte is a spoken form of theatre derived from rustic farce.  It is of interest to mimes because it was a highly physical theatre form utilizing mime, gymnastics, and silent by-play.  Plays had a structured plot and actors' texts were semi-improvised.  Actors usually played the same character throughout their professional lives. 

Commedia dell'arte lasted longer than any other period drama, more than 200 years.  During that time some changes did take place, away from the early rustic farce toward inclusion of some witty refinements and upper class characters.

Elizabethan Dumb Show
Elizabethan Dumb Show, silent enactment, was an integral part of Elizabethan drama, the best known example being the dumb show from Hamlet.  Dumb show could also appear before the play, or after, or between acts; it could depict specific story elements, symbolic action, allegory, the supernatural, etc.  It could range from scenes to processions to off-stage action to tableaux; it could be merely an added device, or fulfill an important dramatic function.

Many Elizabethan playwrights used these mimed sections within or around the acts.  These mimes relieved the strict form of classical tragedy, and helped to express the plays' concepts by visual representation, beyond the dialogue.

Dumb Show was also a part of civic entertainment, since pageants and processions containing silent tableaux or brief scenes were seen in various civic functions, from about 1550 to well into the 17th century.

18th and 19th Centuries in England
Pantomime came to England from France as Italian Mimic Scenes and from the Italian commedia dell'arte.  The English quickly developed their own form, a combination of plays based on fairy tales, children's stories, and songs.  Traditionally it was performed at Christmas time - also called Christmas Panto.

The most famous players were John Weaver and John Rich; then came Joseph Grimaldi, whose name, Joey, became a generic name for Clown.

Theatre of the Funambules

The 19th Century and Deburau
A remarkable, long-lived form of pantomime began in Paris at the Theatre of the Funambules in 1819 with the debut of Jean-Gaspard Deburau in the role of Pierrot, whom he called Baptiste.  He became enormously popular, beloved of high estate and low, and his influence lasted for a hundred years.

Deburau was followed by his son Charles, and then Paul LeGrand, the Marseilles mimes, Severin, and a revival in Paris called the Cercle Funambulesque.

Pantomime underwent certain changes in that period, but remained a recognizable continuation of Deburau, all the way to the beginning of World War I.

Mime into the  20th Century
The turn of the century saw the most astonishing burst of creativity that marked the beginning of modern day mime.  Mime was popular in vaudeville, music halls, circus, and Ziegfeld Follies.  Rudolf Laban, teacher and theoretician of mime and movement, trained some famous dancers, several of whom incorporated mime in their dance work.  Angna Enters was truly great, the first popular concert hall mime.  Charles Weidman often used literary sources, like Thurber and Beerbohm, for his serious and comic work.  Kurt Jooss' anti-war piece, The Green Table, became immortal and is still performed today.

Silent Film Comics
When motion pictures came along, who was to play in them?  Comics, for the most part, because of their many actions and facility in physical expression.  They came out of music halls, vaudeville, and circus. 

France was the innovator, with Georges Wague who saw film as a continuation of mime, and music hall star Max Linder reeling off one-reelers beginning in 1905.  Charlie Chaplin saluted Linder as his "professor"; then followed Keaton, Lloyd, Langdon, and others.  At first they simply improvised before a stationary camera, but soon learned that film was different from the stage, and developed the techniques that made them world famous in a few short years.

The Big French Four
20th century mime in France began quite differently from that in other European countries and the United States, and contrasted greatly with the previous early 20th century mime.  It was most unusual too in that the four famous French names all stemmed, directly or indirectly, from the acting school of Jacques Copeau, the Vieux Colombier; they went in entirely different creative directions from each other.  The four are Etienne Decroux, teacher; Jean-Louis Barrault, performer; Marcel Marceau, performer and teacher; and Jacques Lecoq, teacher.

They and their work form the bases of most of concert mime today for one very important reason; they established schools.  The earlier teachers, Laban and Weidman, centered on dance, and Enters projected no body of mime technique.  When she taught, much later in life, she worked with actors.

So the mime schools of Decroux and Lecoq, and more recently that of Marceau, give the bases of much of the mime we see today.

Editor's Note: Marcel Marceau passed away in September of 2007.  More information about Marceau can be found through the following links:
The International Herald Tribune
Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia
 

Contemporary Mime
In the second half of the 20th century, mime stayed popular in the concert hall, the streets, the circus, and television.  Artists like Red Skelton and Dick Van Dyke could make the jump from mime in vaudeville and cabarets, to spoken pieces in television.

Present-day theatre exhibits a broad range of style and form, and the advent of physical theatre offered possibilities both to physical performers and to traditional actors to enlarge their technical skills.  Many plays call for sequences in mime, or of silent communication.  Some have the actor simulate use of imaginary props and sets (Thornton Wilder).  Others contain written mime sequences (Marat/Sade), or place much of the action in silent enactment (The Miracle Worker). 

The Marceau style is evident, and equally evident are other, individual styles of performing, many prominent artists having come from sources other than the famous French four.  We now see (and hear!) more mime that is unique to each performer, in style, content, and use of technology.  Their works are as different from those of other artists as they are from the mime forms that preceded them.

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Pantomime in Answers.com for Further Research:
http://www.answers.com/topic/pantomime

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