Etienne Decroux and his Theatre Laboratory 113895358X, 9781138953581

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MARCO DE MARINIS

Etienne Decroux

and His Theatre

Laboratory

Translated from Italian

JOHN

by

DEAN and BIANCA MASTROMINICO

Edited and

prefaced by

FRANK CAMILLERI

Routledge St Francis Tayfor

Holstebro

-

Malta

London

-

-

Group

Wroclaw

New York

2015

ICARUS

Publishing Enterprise

is

a

joint

initiative

of Odin Teatret (Denmark), The Grotowski Institute (Poland) and Theatre Arts Researching the Foundations (Malta)

First 'Parte

prima.

published in Italy as

Etienne Decroux: il mimo corporeo in

come

utopia teatrale'

Mimo e teatro nel Novecento Florence: La Casa Usher, 1993

Copyright © 1993 Marco De Marinis Copyright for this edition © 2015 Icarus Publishing Enterprise and Routledge

Cover

Icarus

design and layout Barbara Kaezmarek Typesetting Tadeusz Zarych Index Agata Kaczmarek

Published by Publishing Enterprise and Routledge www.icaruspublishing.com

www.routledge.com The Grotowski Institute Rynek-Ratusz 27, 50-101

Wroclaw, Poland

Routledge Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN, UK 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA an imprint of Taylor and Francis Group, an informa business

2 Park

Routledge is

ISBN 978-1-138-95358-1

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613

Printed and bound in Poland by JAKS

Contents English Edition by Frank

Preface to the

Camillerixi.i

Notes.xx INTRODUCTION: LABORATORY THEATRE AND DRAMATURGY OF THE

ACTOR: THE CASE FOR DECROU X

Starting Points.2 Many Decroux.6 Towards Art: The Counterfeiting of the Body . 9 The Double Articulation: Dramaturgy of Body and Action Interlude: Regarding Two Misunderstandings.16 Why a Theatre Laboratory? Seven Reasons.18 25 . Beyond Art: Poverty, Misery, and Wealth Work on Oneself and Mime as Political Theatre.27 Conclusion: Decroux and Grotowski.30 1945 AND OTHER DATE S PROLOGUE:

1945: At Last

.34

a

Creator in the Theatre’

A Brief Chronology 39. 1 THE VIEUX COLOMBIER TRADITIO N 1.1

Sources

1.2

Jouvet, ‘Corporeal Mime’

1.3 1.4

2

vs Apprenticeship 44 . the Actor-Marionette . 45

at

Copeau’s School.47

Improvisation and ‘Plastics’ at Dullin’s Atelier.72 DECROUX AND

BARRAULT

‘Cutting off the Theatre’s Right Hand’ A Controversial Collaboration 94 . 88 .

2.1 2.2

3

OTHER

SOURCES, CONTEXTS, CO-EXISTENCE S

Mime and the Supermarionette . 106 3.2 Mime and the Arts.108 3.1

3.3

The Rediscovery of the Body in Twentieth-Century Theatre . 113 .

4

DECROUX PEDAGOGU E

4.1

A Different School between Anecdote and

4.2

Mime’s Mime and Actor’s Mime.126 ‘The Place for Young People is at School’

129 .

4.3

. 120 Legend

.

.

.

13

4.4

From the 1960s to the 1980s: Success and

4.5

132 Organisation . Beyond the System and the Technique.136.. .

5 CORPOREAL MIME: AESTHETICS AND GRAMMA R 5.1 5.2

The Mobile Statue.143 Towards an Abstract Gesture.148

5.3 The Drama of Movement.154 5.4 Gesture

and/or Word?.158

Corporeal Specific: ‘History’ and ‘Manner’ 5.6 A New Grammar of the Body . 167

163 .

5.5 The

6 CORPOREAL MIME AS THEATRICAL UTOPI A

Mime and the

6.1

Corporeal

6.2

Between Presence and Absence: Decroux in

Contemporary Theatre EPILOGUE:

186 . .

MIME AND THEATRE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTUR Y

In Search of the Lost Art and/or

Spectator.180

Body.192

Pedagogy.197

A ‘New’ Means of Expression in Theatre . 203

The Aporias of Contemporary Mime and Decroux’s Theatre Contribution . 205

.

Chronology.211 Bibliography.213 Index

Preface to the A

English Edition

ago, at a conference on Jerzy Grotowski an eminent theatre professor based in Paris

couple of years

and Peter Brook,

‘see the point in Decroux’, that understand ‘the fuss about him’, and therefore

commented that he could he could

not

not

acknowledge the corporeal mime master’s contribution to twentieth-century theatre. The professor did not pass this comment during the plenary session itself

was not

but in

able

an

to

informal context when I

was

introduced

translation of a book

to

him

as

having

edited the

Lindh,

former student of Decroux from the late 1960s. 1 slightly taken aback when I heard this assessment

I

was

English

by Ingemar

a

respected scholar because, although I was aware that was not as well-known and appreciated as other corporeal practitioners, including former students Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcel Marceau, I expected at least a sign of tacit acceptance in a context that was sympathetic to (i.e. knowledgeable about) theatre laboratory developments during the century. The professor somehow linked his assessment with the fact that Decroux’s was essentially a pedagogical, rather than a performance, practice. Admittedly, the impact and contribution to theatre and performance would be significantly minimised if the sum total of Decroux’s achievements was restricted exclusively to the studies he presented in the earlier phases of his long career. But then something similar could also be said of Jacques Lecoq, whom the professor could ‘see the point of’. With Decroux, it always

by

a

Decroux

seems to

be

a

question of love-him-or-hate-him.

I mention this anecdote to highlight from the very start the need for publications like the present one, especially in English 1 Ingemar Lindh (1945-97) was a Swedish theatre practitioner who, after early studies with Decroux in the late 1960s, went on to develop his own research on collective improvisation as performance (Lindh 2010). For an overview of Lindh’s work, see Camilleri (2008) ; see especially Camilleri (2013) for links between Lindh and Decroux.

where the someone

and

language barrier

appears to be

paradoxically (for corporeal expression) denser impenetrable compared to other performing arts

who devoted his life

more

to

innovators in the century. Publications like Etienne Decroux

and His Theatre

important not so much to extend the master’s image of the cathedral

Laboratory

are

(or, to ‘convert’) people to believe that Decroux was an 2 important figure in twentieth-century performance practice,

convince

of mime,

to

but rather

to

disseminate information about

someone

who is

still capable of generating such ambivalent responses, ranging to lack of acknowledgement to disregard.

from admiration

A look at what has been

published about the corporeal mime master highlights the need for more analysis, more informed knowledge about the subject. Indeed, it is difficult to find, at least in English, a comprehensive bibliography on Decroux

and the multi-level

contexts

and

concerns

that he

traverses

(including theory, history, genres, aesthetics, ethics, and politics). Publications, especially full-length monographs on Decroux, are still a rarity in English. Arguably, the most influential publications that exist (always in English) are either authored or edited by Thomas Leabhart, another former student of Decroux (this time from the 1970s), who has dedicated his scholarly life to writing about his teacher. His main publications are Modem and PostModern Mime (1989) 3 and Etienne Decroux (2007) 4 .

2

Before my encounter with the eminent professor I thought that this was hardly question, even though, as De Marinis argues in the book, especially in Chapter 6 and the Conclusion, there seems to be a tradition or received belief that downplays in

Decroux's role as an influential innovator. This volume provides a systematic overview of mime developments in the twentieth century, mainly via an account of the principal protagonists. It includes chapters on Mime and Pantomime, Copeau, Decroux, Barrault, Marceau, Lecoq, Post-Modern Mime, and New Mimes. 4 This is the volume dedicated to Decroux in the Routledge Performance Practitioners (RPP) series. The book contains a three-page bibliography which is the best that I could find in English. The inclusion of Decroux in the RPP series has gone some way to disseminating information about him, as well as acknowledging his

3

Leabhart also launched and edits the Mime Journal, which has been published at intervals since 1974 and whose issues, despite the journal designation, are closer to edited volumes that focus on specific aspects of mime, e.g.

Jacques Copeaus School for Actors (1979), Words

on

Decroux

(1993-94) Incorporated Knowledge (1995) and Transmission (1998-99). One issue of the Mime Journal is indeed Words on Mime (1985), a translation by Mark Piper (yet another former student) of Decroux’s Paroles sur le mime (1963). In addition to these publications, Leabhart is also the coeditor (with Franc Chamberlain) of the Decroux Sourcebook (Decroux 2008). Though the sourcebook is undoubtedly an important contribution to the studies and visibility of Decroux in the English-speaking world, the slim size of the volume (and the big font size) means that the content is limited in terms of quantity, which is rather disappointing, especially when set 5 against similar publications. Of course, one cannot measure contribution and impact by the number of pages published about a practitioner’s work, but it does highlight the point I am trying to make about visibility and the acknowledgement ,

that I

stems am

,

from it.

aware

that this call for

‘more-in-English’ about

might appear to contradict the anecdote with which opened this preface: the Paris-based and French-speaking professor had access not just to sources in the original and to people who worked with Decroux or knew about his work, but also (being a contemporary of Decroux for almost Decroux I

importance by association with other practitioners included in the series, the likes of Pina Bausch, Bertolt Brecht, Jacques Copeau, Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor, Rudolf Laban, Vsevolod Meyerhold, and Konstantin Stanislavski. 5 The Decroux Sourcebook contains 198 pages. Similar publications, with a smaller font size, include: The Grotowski Sourcebook (1997) with 514 pages, The Collaborative Theatre: The Theatre du Soleil Sourcebook (1999) with 258 pages, The Brecht Sourcebook (2000) with 242 pages, and The Vakhtangov Sourcebook (2011) with 365 pages. There might be various reasons for the limited text in The Decroux Sourcebook, including the lack of material in English on the subject, but if quantity and size indeed mattered, the comparison reflects negatively on the French mime, if anything as regards visibility.

city) to the milieu that formed and was formed or, ignored or was ignored by Decroux. As a well-respected and well-placed scholar the professor was two

decades in the

same

-

-

excellent position to gauge the importance of Decroux. Maybe it is indeed the case that ‘the point in Decroux’ is hard

in

an

to see.

And yet it is difficult to not see the point in Decroux after reading Mimo e teatro nel novecento (1993), Marco De Marinis’s book

mime in the twentieth century, the current volume is based. on

It is best to start De Marinis is

a

on

which

by introducing the author because, though

well-known figure in theatre and performance

academic circles in

Italy and internationally (especially in Spain and South America), and though he has published

several books and articles which have been translated into

languages, The Semiotics of Performance (1982) only full-length volume in English prior to the current book. And if it is indeed true that Decroux’s visibility in the English-speaking theatre and performance communities reflects the extent of recognition and acknowledgement he enjoys, then the same applies to the author of this book. Marco De Marinis (b. 1949) is Professor of Theatre at the Music and Performing Arts Department (DAMS) in the Literature and Philosophy Faculty at the University of Bologna.

various

remains his

His

research, which

spans almost four decades of activity,

can

be classified into three major strands or phases: (1) the formidable elaboration of a semiotic

approach to theatre in his ‘semiological decade (1974-1984)’ (De Marinis 2011: 64), which is epitomised in the aforementioned The Semiotics of Performance (1982); (2) the study of the twentieth-century theatrical 6 experience, especially with regard to leading directors, to

6

In addition to Decroux, De Marinis’s expertise extends particularly to Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski.

corporeal mime, and to the so-called ‘New Theatre’ of the post-Second World War period; and (3) the development of a multidisciplinary ‘new theatrology’, a methodological viewpoint he calls his postsemiologicaf phase (2011: 64), which complements and is in dialogue with Performance Studies. 7 Even such an

a

idea of the

Here

we

have

a

concise outline should suffice to contexts

that inform this book

give readers on

Decroux.

scholar whose in-depth study of the corporeal

mime master is

complemented by

an

equally profound,

decades-long research into those aspects of twentieth-century theatre

history that can be associated with ‘the laboratory’. knowledge is arrived at and communicated via a strong theoretical and methodological perspective from beyond the field of theatre: initially semiotics and, more recently, ‘new theatrology’. It is worth quoting De Marinis at some length with regards to the final point because it comments on the methodological perspective that informs Etienne Decroux and His Theatre Laboratory : This

from a methodological viewpoint, I identify with what has been called for over 20 years ‘new theatrology’ (neue Theaterwissenschaft; new theatre studies), a theatrology that is postsemiological [...] multidisciplinary, and experimental, is considered necessary, involving an that fieldwork meaning close [...] relationship with artistic work. Another extremely distinctive characteristic of this new theatrology lies important, in the fact that its theoretical object is not spectacular products, in short, performances, but the processes of theatre production and reception, etc. the processes that initiate, surround, and -

-

performances. [...] scholarly research practice, Italy in the 1970s within the

constitute As

a

bom in

new

theatrology

was

circles of new theatre Cesare Molinari, Ludovico Zorzi, history (Ferruccio Marotti, Fabrizio Cruciani, Claudio Meldolesi, and others). As theory,

7 See especially his 2011 article in TDR, entitled ‘New Theatrology and Performance Studies: Starting Points Towards a Dialogue’ (2011), where he also introduces himself to his English-speaking readers (64-65).

developed explicitly in the second part of the ’80s, as the structuralist paradigm was superseded, thanks to the confluence of theatre history, human and social sciences, and theatrical practice. Semiotics underwent a transformation, going from a discipline with more or less totalizing ambitions to a metaor trans-discipline with epistemological and propaedeutic it

goals, essentially aiming to provide a general, conceptualterminological framework for a processual approach to theatrical phenomena. (De Marinis 2011: 64-65)

Multidisciplinary, fieldwork-based, and

a

focus

on

process

of the major elements that characterise his study of Decroux, written in the early 1990s, and updated for this translated edition in the 2010s. One would like to think are some

that both the breadth and the

thoroughness of De Marinis’s (and

complement the wide range of interests influences) and the systematic nature of Decroux. 8

research

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

Laboratory

is based

on

the

first part of De Marinis’s seminal book on mime and theatre in the twentieth century: Mimo e in

Italy

in

1993,

the word in

it is

terms

a

teatro

nel novecento. Published

monumental volume in every

sense

of

of

the scope of the subject matter, the wide range of sources used,

(1) (2) (3) the analytical approach adopted, The subject matter of the book aims to give a comprehensive account of the emergence of corporeal expression in the twentieth century, both as an art form on its component of theatre practice. The

own

merits, and as

is contextualised

subject historically, initially by tracing roots, overlaps, and similarities in European performance practices in the seventeenth and 9 eighteenth centuries, and then by considering nineteentha

8

See especially Chapter 3 for an account of Decroux’s influences. See the Introduction of the book, especially the sections dedicated to ‘Una vicenda tutta modema dentro una storia antica’ (An Entirely Modem Story within an Old History), pp. 14-17, and to ‘Diderot: la pantomime e la riforma del teatro (Diderot: Pantomime and the Reform of the Theatre), pp. 17-21. See also the wide9

century pantomime developments, before the century under review.

regards

As

sources,

besides

publications

focusing fully in

on

Italian, which

rich tradition of writings about twentiethcentury European theatre, De Marinis refers to various texts in different languages (mainly French and English), from

come

a

a

characteristic which gives the book a decidedly international

flavour and dimension. On this point, it should be noted that, possible, De Marinis opts to consult the original rather

when than

rely

on

translations. This is

importantly the

case

with

le mime, which De Marinis himself preferred to translate into Italian for his quotations rather than depend on Paroles the

sur

ones

available

at

In addition to

the time. 10

published

sources,

De Marinis makes

of archival material, including original typescript and handwritten documents (some by Decroux himself), held at

use

institutions such

as

the

Bibliotheque Nationale de

France

or

private collections such as that of former students Corinne Soum and Steven Wasson. The book also contains a wealth of

in

what

be termed ‘human sources’: interviews, discussions, and correspondence that De Marinis himself had with people can

who knew

or

worked with Decroux. 11

The bibliography at the end of this book reflects the range, quality, and quantity of the sources that inform De Marinis’s ranging historical overview of body-based practices such as acrobatics, commedia dell’arte, pantomime, and dance across Europe (footnote 8, pp. 38-41). Due to space considerations (and also to retain the focus on Decroux and the laboratory dimension of his practice), these sections have not been included in the current translation. Reference is made to them here to provide readers with an idea of the extent and detail of the eontextualisation in the original volume. 10 The Italian translation available at the time, edited by Valeria Magli (1983), was deemed by De Marinis to be frill of errors. A new Italian translation, by Claudia Palombi and edited by Clelia Falletti (2003), is prefaced by De Marinis himself, and thus has his approval. All quotations from Paroles sur le mime in this book are from the English translation of Mark Piper, edited by Thomas Leabhart, both former students of the master. 11 For an indication of these ‘human sources’, see the section on ‘Unpublished Texts and Other Material’ in the Bibliography, which does not include other, less

formal,

interactions.

investigation. Already comprehensive

as

it

stands, this

selected

(and updated) compilation of the 12 e teatro. Though the bibliography contains numerous texts in different languages (especially and understandably in Italian and French), and therefore could short-sightedly be said to be of little practical use to exclusive English readers, it serves two main functions: (1) to make accessible knowledge that was previously not available in English; and (2) to give a good idea of Decroux’s bibliography

is

a

various reference lists found in Mimo

status as as

assimilator of received traditions, new art form.

as

innovator, and

transmitter of a

Concerning the analytical approach of Mimo e teatro, I have already drawn attention to the ‘New Theatrology’ perspective that informs De Marinis’s work from the mid-1980s onwards. Etienne

Decroux

specifically

on

and His Theatre

Part One of Mimo

e

Laboratory focuses

teatro, which is entitled

‘Etienne Decroux: il mimo corporeo

come

utopia teatrale’

Corporeal Mime as Theatre Utopia). The translated text has been updated to bring it in line with new publications that have appeared since 1993. However, the principal updating drive in the book can (Etienne

Decroux:

be found in the Introduction, which is a new addition, based almost entirely on De Marinis’s contribution to a symposium on

the theatre laboratory held on the occasion of Odin Teatre's

fortieth anniversary in 2004. 13 This 12

updating

exercise is thus

subject areas, there are seven separate bibliographies (1) the historical-contextual Introduction; (2) the sixchapter part on Decroux; the chapters on (3) Barrault, (4) Marceau and (5) Lecoq; (6) the Conclusion; and (7) the seventy-two-page Chronology that timelines the Due to different

Mimo

e

teatro at the end of

development of mime in the twentieth century. 13 ‘Why a Theatre Laboratory? Risks and Anomalies

in Europe 1898—1999’ was three-day symposium organised by the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies (CTLS) of Aarhus University and Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret. In addition to De Marinis’s presentation on ‘Decroux Why a Theatre Laboratory?’, the symposium also included The Embodied Tradition Decroux’, a demonstration by Theatre du Mouvement. De Marinis refers to this symposium at the very beginning

a

-

-

of the Introduction.

Decroux’s practice from the laboratory perspective, in the process bringing the publication in tune with the Routledge/Icarus series on Theatre as a Laboratory also

a

(re)focusing

on

that hosts it. Like the other symposium presentations on Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Grotowski and Flaszen, Brook, and Le Theatre du Soleil, De Marinis’s intervention on Decroux was subtitled ‘Why a Theatre Laboratory?’ As Eugenio Barba clarifies in the

methodological

note

quoted below,

the participants were asked to follow a ‘risky’ strategy when approaching their subject-practice from the laboratory

perspective. Rather than outline De Marinis’s arguments on Decroux and his laboratorial dimension, which can be read in their fullness a few pages away from here, it is interesting to see

the parameters that De Marinis

was

responding to:

The aim of the symposium ‘Why a theatre laboratory?’ is to raise a number of questions. [...] Do theatres which defined themselves or which we consider as ‘laboratories’ share something in common? Or is it just a matter of a recurring name? Is it possible, by comparing the practice of such different theatres, to sketch the profile of a shared idea, a destiny, a social position, an attitude towards the craft and the art of theatre? Or are we, on the basis of our personal experience, merely projecting a non-existent category on the past and the present? We have chosen a few examples from Europe. They are very different both from the point of view of the historical period in which they were active as well as of the culture in which they were rooted. We have cast a stone the same question in each of these small ponds: ‘Why can we call that particular theatre a theatre laboratory?’[...] [...] We have rejected the apparently safe path: the path which might have attempted to give a theoretical definition of the qualification ‘laboratory’, and later verily its possible -

-

application to any of the examples provided by European theatre in the 20th century. By following the path of paradoxical questions, we run the risk of searching for what is uncertain by means of the uncertain. But the straight path which claims to start from the certain, often leads sure-footedly to the vast icy sea of tautology. (Barba 2004: 21)

pertinent sense, then, the Introduction in this book shaped by these questions, and therefore by considerations

In is

a

very

that emerge from the subject of the laboratory according to

matter

itself

(i.e. the

nature

Decroux), rather than being

prescribed from outside. This, I find, is particularly apt in the case of Decroux and his aspiration to make visible the invisible. 14 Besides Part I of Mimo e teatro, which is included in its entirety in this publication, some sections of the Italian Introduction have been moved

to

different

places

in the

English edition.

15

Furthermore, Part II and some other sections have been omitted, as has already been said, in line with the new focus of the book. 16 To

give

a taste

of how De Marinis followed his

chapters

Decroux, which in a way can be considered as the book that follows the current one, it is useful to provide at least an on

outline of Part II, entitled ‘Parabole del mimo contemporaneo’

(Trajectories of Contemporary Mime): Chapter 1 ‘Jean-Louis Barrault: mimo e teatro totale’ (Mime and Total Theatre) Chapter 2 ‘Marcel Marceau: l’impossibile restauro della pantomima’ (The Impossible Restoration of Pantomime) .

.

14 15

See my article on Lindh and Decroux on the subject (Camilleri 2013: 82-83). Section 1 of the Introduction as well as the one entitled ‘Premessa: alcune -

date ehiave’ (Premise: Some Key Dates) that introduces Part I in Mimo e teatro, now constitute the historical-placement prologue in this translation. Sections 6, 7, 8, and 9 in the Introduction of Mimo e teatro, which provide an overall consideration of Decroux in the history of mime and theatre in the twentieth century, can now be found in the conclusion of this book. 16 Besides Part II, other material in Mono e teatro that is missing in this translation includes: (1) sections 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the Introduction, which provide a historical eontextualisation of body-based practices (or characteristics in European performing arts) that have links with the emergence of corporeal mime in the twentieth century; and (2) the Conclusion of the book, which comments on the developments in mime in the early 1990s. Moreover, for the same reasons as (1) and (2), the following have also been omitted: (3) various footnotes (including some very long ones that span pages) and (4) some entries in the Chronology. -

Chapter 3 ‘Jacques Lecoq: il mimo e pedagogia teatrale’ (Mime and Pedagogical Theatre) Conclusions this chapter discusses offshoots and developments that had emerged (mostly in the 1970s and 1980s) or were emerging at the time of publication (the early 1990s). As can be perceived even from this outline, the subject of these chapters concerns the ‘legacy’ of Decroux, a legacy .

-

that rejects a

or

eludes the

master in various ways,

but which is

legacy nonetheless, and a strong one at that: with Barrault, the vision of a total theatre that synthesises -

all the

arts

marks

a

dilution

or a

blending of Decroux’s vision;

with Marceau, the attempt to turn back the clock to modern version of nineteenth-century pantomime can -

a

be considered

as

the

paradoxical negation of

Decroux

via Decroux;

with Lecoq, though the privileging of the pedagogical aspect of mime is closer to Decroux’s vision (albeit not from a former student), it was ultimately at the service of -

performing arts in general (eventually developing perilously close to a prescribed system) rather than aimed specifically at the development of corporeal mime. De Marinis touches upon this legacy in the Conclusion of this book, where he argues that it is only possible to see mime in contemporary theatre as a ‘betrayal’ of Decroux if we accept that it began with Decroux himself, that is, with the creative part of his practice that lends itself to adaptation in the actor’s work, and also with his too dogmatic approach that made it impossible, time and time again, to develop a lasting 17 working relationship with the most gifted of his students. The translation of this book has

discussion, 17

at various

provided

various

points of

stages, first amongst the translators

See also Camilleri (2013:394—96,402) where I discuss this point in the context of Lindh, who developed his individual practice in the final decades of the century and which is still being developed by his group, the Institutet för Scenkonst (Institute for Scenic Art).

themselves, John Dean and Bianca Mastrominico, then with me as editor, and finally with the author himself. De Marinis's style of writing, coupled with the complex and often elusive subject matter of the book, does not lend itself easily

translation into

particular attention had to be paid in transposing both content and style. Having native speakers in Italian and English as translators, and an editor with professional knowledge of publications in Britain and Italy, went a long way in measuring up to the challenge of translating Etienne Decroux and His Theatre Laboratory. Furthermore, the sensitivity required by the subject of the book, mainly the attention to terminology about the history and the practice of actor-based work, went beyond linguistic proficiency. In addition to working in academia, both translators and the editor have been exposed to and indeed have been developing their own theatre laboratory practices for a number of years. 18 This is important when dealing with theatres and writings driven by something beyond the technical, compositional, and aesthetic. Moreover, the fact that the translators and editor know De Marinis personally to

English,

so

-

-

facilitated the task of perceiving the man behind the writer ’. It is perhaps worth mentioning one instance of editorial intervention that characterised the

challenge of translating

only the text but also the voice of De Marinis. In Italian perfectly possible to have very long sentences, even onesentence paragraphs with multiple qualifications, whilst still making sense. De Marinis thrives on phrases which carry the weight of sentences, and sentences with the responsibility of paragraphs on their shoulders. In English, though possible in certain instances, this stylistic device had to be revised in favour of more concise syntax. However, through careful use not

it is

18

Dean and Mastrominico are the directors of Organic Theatre (www.organietheatre.co.uk ) and Camilleri of Icarus Performance Project (www.icarusproject.info ). Both groups were founded in 2001 following previous laboratory-based experiences. Dean and Mastrominico lecture at Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh), Camilleri at the University of Malta.

including the mighty full stop, we have tried to keep the qualities of inner dialogue and conversation-withof punctuation,

the-reader that characterise De Marinis’s writing. In the spirit of Decroux’s ethic/aesthetic, then, we hope to have translated not

only the

text, but also the voice of the author.

Frank Camilleri 7 AUGUST 2013

Notes

Author's Note

Bibliographical references and the

of the author

name

or

citations. The date

authors in the

alongside bibliographical

indications and citations refers to the year of the first edition of the text, article, or book in its original language. The numbers that follow refer to the pages of the edition of the text which has been consulted.

Unpublished

texts

asterisk. In the

an

separately

in the

The various

and other material

case

are

indicated with

of Decroux’s, these

are

collected

bibliography.

texts

from Paroles

sur

le mime

are

cited in

following way: original date of writing or publication number or numbers of pages relative to their place in

the +

the volume.

Except for a few justified exceptions, the newspaper articles cited in the

text

have not been placed in the final bibliography.

Editor's Note Every effort has been made translations of the various

to

find

published English

cited by the author, especially Italian and French, but also German and Russian. On the few occasions where this was not possible, the relevant quotations texts

English with the page references indexing the original text as listed in the Bibliography. The terms pantomime’ and ‘mime’ should be considered in the context of their use. De Marinis’s specific use of the terms distinguishes between nineteenth-century pantomime (sometimes called old French or traditional pantomime) and Decroux’s corporeal innovation of mime (sometimes called

are

translated into

mime). Other authors and editors use them differently, interchangeably, especially in translation, often depending on the context and the language (French, Italian, or English). In any case, ‘pantomime’ should not be confused with its development in the United Kingdom as a type of musical comedy generally performed during the new or

modern

some

Christmas and New Year

season.

INTRODUCTION

Laboratory Theatre and Dramaturgy of the Actor: The Case for Decroux

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613-1

Starting Points Etienne Decroux, the inventor of corporeal mime,

possibly only twentieth-century master never to use the word ‘laboratory’ in relation to theatre. This has also been confirmed to me by Corinne Soum, who worked with him for over six was

the

years between 1978 and 1984, first as a student and then as 1 an assistant (Soum 2004). Neverthless, it is quite obvious that

what Decroux

promoted for over half a century in Paris was a true theatre laboratory and that all twelve of Eugenio Barba’s theses on the subject (see footnote 1) perfectly suit Decroux’s way of working in theatre and his understanding of theatre

practice.

2

If anything, the even

difficulty

is in

an excess

of evidence

-

and

obviousness—which characterises the question ofwhether

actually created a ‘theatre laboratory’. In an attempt avoid the obvious, I will therefore try to point out in what specific sense Decroux gave life to a theatre laboratory, amongst Decroux

to

1

The notion of a theatre-laboratory has been the object of numerous discussions (International School of Theatre Anthropology) since the second half of the 1990s, culminating in the international symposium on ‘Why a Theatre Laboratory? Risks and Anomalies in Europe 1898-1999’ in Aarhus (Denmark), 4-6 October 2004. The symposium, organised to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Odin Teatret, brought together many specialists, mostly linked to ISTA. Each participant responded to the question of the title, ‘Why a Theatre Laboratory’, with reference to a figure or a particularly significant experience of twentieth-century theatre: from Stanislavski to Meyerhold, from Copeau to Brook and Mnouchldne, from Barba to Grotowski, from the US groups to those of Latin America and Asia. Decroux was assigned to me. Each contributor had received a letter from Eugenio Barba well in advance of the symposium containing twelve statements or questions on the notion of a theatre-laboratory. Contrary to the original plan, the transcripts of the conference were never published. In their place, Mirella Schino, who was responsible for the introductory paper of the symposium, published a book in 2009 (Alchemists of the Stage: Theatre Laboratories in Europe) for that which tries to account even if in an appropriately subjective way symposium and, more widely, for the vast collective discussion that had led to it, also outlining some of the papers: those of Ferdinando Taviani on Odin Teatret, Zbigniew Osihski and Leszek Kolankiewicz on Grotowski, Béatrice Picon-Vallin on Meyerhold, and Franco Ruffini on Stanislavski (see Schino 2009). The present introduction is a revised and updated version of the paper I presented on Decroux at Aarhus in October 2004. Schino’s book refers to that paper on pp. 63-68. 2 Barbas theses are published in De Marinis (2013a: 173-74). in the context of ISTA

-

-

Laboratory Theatre and Dramaturgy of the

Actor: The Case for Decroux

the many which proved possible in twentieth-century theatre. I will also try to show why it is useful to reconsider Decroux’s

experience and proposal from this particular perspective. To this end, I will start with an overall consideration of his work and contribution to twentieth-century theatre, which I have

presented

on

several occasions

during the last few

years under the title The Real Importance, or the True Place, of Decroux in Contemporary Theatre’. 3 These reflections

represent in essence what I believe I have understood about Decroux and his work in over thirty years of research.

snapshot, but a literary one. An image, or rather a series of extremely vivid images of his artistic venture which Decroux offers in several unpublished First

letters,

though,

not a

visual

written between 1947 and 1949 to his most

correspondent: Edward Gordon Craig high-spirited and childishly impertinent lived in Paris, before abandoning it climate of the Cote d’Azur.

-

important old, but still very

who in those years definitively for the gentler -

With the hope of cheering you up, I should let you know about the happiest aspects of our struggle. (1) Three regular pupils (2) A space in which one can receive and work with ease (3) A handful of real friends who follow our efforts with an often active interest. All this is an incentive. Eliane Guyon has three years of daily study, especially in gymnastics. Daniel Maximilien has two years of study. Then comes Maryse Lo Jacomo: she has followed our course

irregularly for three years. [...] notwithstanding her irregularity, a certain maturity has developed in her. [...] Here we are, then, like four pioneers: adolescent, a woman, a girl.

a

mature man, an

The harmonious diversity of these four additional opportunity. 3

people

is

an

See especially De Marinis 2001, 2003, 2011, 2013a. The first draft of these complete developments dates back to the paper for the Deeroux conference (7-9 November 1997), organised by the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth (Wales) for the ‘Pastmasters: Symposium & Workshops’ series.

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

Laboratory

Condemned until

now by the immaturity of the pupils represent choruses, we can now work on interindividual dramas. Also, I have never had a fixed and decent space: the lessons were scattered right, left, and centre in dull, foreign, and changeable places. Now, here we are in a large hall equipped with a stage. Then, little by little, a group of friends has formed itself around us. Some have followed us for two years, others for three, one of them for five. They are artists foreign to theatre: a painter, an anatomy

to

only

professor,

potters,

In addition to

glass artists... this, several pupils

from the wider school that is, not being part of the central group and who were with us last year, came back in October: there are five of them. We have never seen anything like this. And all this doesn’t take into account the new arrivals: pupils, relations, in greater number and quality than in

-

-

previous

years.

When

our

central group

saw

that this

new

spacious work-

place was of dubious cleanliness, they washed it all from the ceiling to the floor: the hall, the stage even in the most hidden -

put all the scenery in the loft, took down the curtain and cleared it out in its turn. Then they put on a new coat of paint, as much as they had available. It was a rough job, not yet finished as I write. The dance bars will be varnished a walnut colour and waxed. The wooden floor of the stage will be completely gone over with steel wool. Every Thursday, from 5pm until 8pm, we will open our studio for performances. Then, little by little, we will add everything that has to do with the art of movement, with comers

-

educational comments: Marionettes, slow motion cinema, magic lantern projections of statues, of photos of us, of our educational plans; and if we can: entire films on sport or dance. [...] We will also exhibit sketches of movement, of masks... In other words we will become the House of Movement. Or better still, of the Analysis of Movement. (From a letter dated 1 November 1947) Our life is

good

technique

of our

which permits

in the

us

sense that we advance each and we make a living from it: to live for it.

art

day in the something

one pays dearly for this advantage: the need for is constant. money Every minute is devoured and there is never time. enough Writing the interminable grammar of mime, its

However

interminable

commissioned conferences, them on without means, giving conceiving pieces, putting lessons to occasional students, hoping to keep one of them in the group, losing them, not wanting to neglect any of this because of the love for it all, feeling oneself permanently overwhelmed and yet always further forward, but also getting older. Today the struggle is waged between age and success. (From 4 a letter dated 31 December 1947).

philosophy, articles,

new

laboratory even though family run that we see vividly depicted in Decroux’s letters to Craig? I hope I will be able to demonstrate why and in what sense it is. But first let us start directly from Decroux. I cannot assume that everyone knows perfectly who he was, and I prefer to talk to everyone, not just to the specialists. After all, even if today Decroux is much better known than he was when I began to Is this

a

theatre

-

-

be interested in his work at the end of the 1970s, out of all the masters of the twentieth century, he undoubtedly continues to

be the least known.

biographical information, as I believe particularly useful to start with the biography. Amongst other things, this immediately brings to the surface a unique peculiarity of his professional history one which, for instance, prevented Mirella Schino during the First

then,

in Decroux’s

some

case

it is

-

opening of the October 2004 Aarhus symposium from citing Decroux amongst the examples in her interesting proposal to

clearly distinguish between the theatre laboratories

of the first half of the twentieth century, and those of the second half. Indeed, it is impossible to insert the inventor of

corporeal mime into just one of the two groups for the simple that he belongs to both (and not just for chronological reasons). reason

4

Both letters, together with others, belong to the Craig archive (Bibliothéque Nationale de France), where I read and translated them (see Decroux Ibis*).

Many Decroux Etienne Decroux, the creator of corporeal mime, 1898 and

was

still active in his school

in the 1980s. This

means

on

was

born in

the outskirts of Paris

he trained and developed during the

of the

early twentieth-century historical avantperiod garde, and then started his career as creator, researcher, and

great

teacher of theatre in the second half of the 1920s. He received his greatest

public recognitions (always relatively speaking)

in France and then in the rest of the world between the

mid-1940s and the

beginning of the 1960s, teaching almost

uninterruptedly for over half a century, first at Dullin's Atelier and then in his

own

school.

These

simple facts should already encourage us to be talking about Decroux in the singular, and, more even more so, when thinking of corporeal mime, or artistic and as of his pedagogical work, something broadly containable in one formula, totally definable once and for all. This caution is necessary for almost all the great figures of contemporary theatre but it is absolutely indispensable for the author of Paroles sur le mime. Not only is it necessary to remember that Decroux passed through almost a whole cautious when

-

-

century of revolutions of the stage, but also that he did an active and deeply involved protagonist, and above all

untiring researcher, always

and

continuously

so as as an

dissatisfied

the results achieved and intent on overcoming them

-

in

spite of a certain safe distance which very

to

put between himself and the rest of the world. Talking about Decroux with pupils from various

soon

by

and this

he decided

periods, reading their testimonies, almost always produces the discouraging initial sensation of hearing an individual evoked

or

in very different ways, and therefore difficult to ascribe to just one identity. It is true that this also happens for other

great artist-researcher figures of the twentieth century from Stanislavski to Grotowski. However, usually in these cases, at -

least their writings remain to document and certify the changes

(albeit with all the problems and difficulties that these pose). 5 In Decroux’s

case we

have just Paroles

though fundamental book

-

sur

le mime

and then the

-

‘legend’,

a

difficult,

or

rather

the anecdotes of an oral tradition fed

by many generations of pupils. In the middle lies the terrain vague of a fragmentary written, audio and visual documentation, dispersed and almost always difficult to access, whose ‘wild’ circulation has certainly not

aided the task of historians thus far. So there

are

many Decroux, which

can

be identified with

the various

phases of his very long theatre itinerary, from his apprenticeship at Copeau’s school, in 1923-24, until his death in 1991. Moreover, next to this plurality which we could call diachronic upon which some serious historiographic there exists a (no less important attention has been placed but still rather undervalued) synchronic or vertical plurality. This regards the different levels or planes on which Decroux’s artistic-pedagogic research moved, more or less consciously, consisting of those aspects of his work which are now possible and useful to identify from the point of view of the interests, concerns, and questions of those who practise or study theatre at the beginning of this century (and millennium). Regarding this synchronic plurality, I believe that it is possible to identify at least three different Decroux, that is, three differing (though obviously connected) levels or layers of his artistic-pedagogic research: (1) First of all there is the Decroux who invented corporeal mime as a new theatrical genre (a genre which is strongly codified a rare case in the West). (2) Then there is the Decroux who was searching for a pure (and essential) theatrical art, based on the expressiveaesthetic use of the body attitudes-gestures-movements but without strict rules of codification and without rigid —

-

-

-

-

divisions between genres.

5

See the contributions

on

Kolankiewicz, Ruffini, and

Grotowski, Stanislavski, and Meyerhold by Osiński and respectively in Schino (2009).

Picon Vallin

(3) Finally there most

is at least

important for

today:

us

third Decroux, perhaps the the one who, in the course of a

half a century, developed one of the most rigorous, indepth, and systematic investigations into the foundations of

over

the

of the

art

and its

that is, into physical action on stage, dramaturgies, and principles which not

actor

techniques,

-

-

only the twentieth century but also the whole Western theatre tradition has

ever

known.

On this third

level, the questions that the

creator

of

corporeal mime posed himself in the course of his long career as an artist and teacher, are essentially the same as those at of the work of other great masters of the twentieth century: What is it that allows the actor to act truthfully (that is in an efficacious and believable way) on stage? In what the

root

way own

can actors

become

creators or

actorial craft? And

so on.

dramaturgs through their

Even in Decroux’s case, the

relentless technical research into the actor, almost senseless and excessive for many, reveals his double, contrasting

potential

6

-

on

the

one

hand,

an

obligatory pathway to arrive

problems of scenic art, and on the other hand, privileged route that twentieth-century theatre has followed in order to transcend itself, that is to go beyond itself, beyond the performance even beyond art through a radical at

the heart of the a

-

questioning of its value and Without doubt the first towards Art

—

is much

Art. Nevertheless

albeit

more

its

meaning.

movement in

Decroux’s work

evident than the second

—

-

beyond

the latter is

strongly present in him, confirmed by the artistic paths of many

even

covertly. This is

-

6

Decroux passed more than fifty years experimenting and denominating hundreds and hundreds of hand, arm, and leg gestures, movements and physical postures, fixing in this way the incredibly meticulous lexicon and grammar of another’ body, rebuilt from the foundations. Then: hundreds and hundreds of exercises, these too named one by one, with names that were always very concrete and imaginative at the same time: ‘antennes d' escargot’ (snail antennas), 'ailes' d’aigle’ (eagle wings), ‘la belle courbe' (the beautiful curve), etc. (I refer, in particular, to the basic exercises gathered in an as yet unpublished notebook under the title Facultés radicates (Decroux 7*). See De Marinis

(1993: 117, n. 8).

of his

In this case,

pupils.

as

in

others, they have brought

present in their master,

elements

light already only implicitly or in embryonic form.

Towards Art: The Counterfeiting of the

Following these preliminary remarks,

to

though maybe

Body

it is necessary to make corporeal mime

another fundamental clarification. Decroux’s

reform the tradition of French pantomime but to revolutionise theatre. More precisely, it represents a response (extreme and utopistic in many ways) to the question implicit in the research of the other early twentiethcentury director-teachers (including his two masters, Copeau and Craig): 7 how can one make theatre into an art, that is, how does one raise the theatre from a profession, pertaining to the sphere of entertainment, towards a cultural and artistic was not

born

to

matter, and aesthetic creation. Even the reasoning that Decroux

developed, theoretically

but above all in practice, to respond to such a question is not different at heart from that of almost all the other directorteachers: if theatre is become

art

the

day

in which

fact, if it

existence. In

essentially the an art

actor, then it will

of the

only

actor comes into

is true that the actor is

essentially and

fundamentally presence on stage that is body in action then it is only through the work on the body that the actor can hope -

-

to

obtain

art.

This reflects the authentic

sense

of the famous

statement, which has so often been misunderstood, ‘mime is the essence of theatre, which in turn is the accident of mime’

(Decroux 1948: 15), and of its natural consequence: ‘the actor is nothing other than a mime’ (Decroux 1947b: 135). It is useful to insist on this point: corporeal mime constitutes the extreme (though consistent and rigorous) response to 7

See

Chapters

1 and 3.

this reasoning. Read outside any perspective of genre, in the twentieth century it represents the utopia of a pure theatre brought back to its original actorial essence which has at its and artists, adequately with both consciousness and knowledge of their

centre actors

equipped body.

who

both

are

creators

own

effective way of reading the aesthetic and the technical grammar of Decroux’s mime, we should investigate the double equivalence of theatre art = art of the actor = To find

of the

body, insisting precisely on the term ‘art’ which generally taken for granted though never by Decroux

art

is

an

-

to the stage. This is a word that recurs in often his writings, as it does, for example, in those of very Gordon Craig, his greatest theoretical inspiration.

when used in relation

What is art, what is an artist, according to Decroux? For him art presupposes a.full control on the part of the artist over one’s expressive means, over one’s material. Consequently, the work of art represents (with all due respect to Freud and his colleagues) the result of a free, voluntary, and conscious intervention which artists

perform

on

their

own

material, without being dominated by it but, on the contrary, dominating and transforming it, while reducing any accidental interference

to

Now, if this

the minimum. is true,

according to Decroux but also to Craig

before him, it follows that as a rule the Western actor is not an artist, does not make art, because the working conditions do

satisfy the essential prerequisite of full control over one’s own expressive means, that is, one’s own body used for an aesthetic-expressive purpose. not

Of do is

what Decroux, Craig before him, and others denounce the lack of the aforementioned body

course, to

consciousness-knowledge and therefore of

an

effective

technical tradition for the Western actor, similar to those which have always existed in Asian theatres. In any case it is

interesting

develops

on

to

the

follow the whole reflection which Decroux matter.

In his

lack

-

opinion, the reason why our theatre suffers from this which in turn prevents it from properly attaining the

dimension of

depends on an insufficient awareness of the double handicap of the actor as (aspiring) artist. According to Decroux (1962a: 84), compared to all the other forms of aesthetic creation not based upon the living human body, the most unhelpful peculiarity in the creative process of a theatre actor consists as Meyerhold suggests in that the ‘artist’ art

-

-

-

and the ‘material’ coincide; and moreover, this ‘material’ (the human body) is already provided with a form, which is also

(seemingly) unmodifiable, before the

intervention of the

artist.

general, Western theatre continues to assume this unhelpful peculiarity as an unavoidable fact, to be given in to without a fight, or on the contrary, and much worse as an illusory advantage to exploit with shortsighted laziness. However, in so doing, one cannot escape the embarrassing tautology of a human figure which is not capable of referring to anything other than itself. Therefore, it is impossible to In

-

-

find an

a way out of the impasse of an actor who cannot become artist because of the incapacity of modelling their own

presence

according

which do

not

to

forms that

are not

natural

(everyday),

pre-exist their own intervention. In order to reach the condition of being able

to

really

make art, Decroux considered only one possibility for actors: they must take the path of ‘dissembling the body’ and follow it

through. This

is the

key aesthetic operation of corporeal

mime, which Decroux also called ‘abstract mime’, and which opens onto the most rigorous and radical theoretical-practical side of his theatre

laboratory. According to Decroux, to body being reduced to imitating (presenting) just satisfied with reproducing forms which pre-exist the

avoid the itself

-

actor’s intervention, and therefore not attaining art ‘it is dissemble in its movements [and] is obliged to [contrefasse] -

bound

to

1962a:

85).

suffer in

dissembling [contrefaire]’ itself (Decroux

What does it counterfeit’ the

for Decroux, to dissemble’, to and its movements? Fundamentally, it

mean,

body

deform’ it, to ‘construct’ another which is fictitious, scenic, extra-daily, and is able to ‘dance in reverse’ (as Artaud had imagined for his ‘body without organs’). 8 In other words, means to

break the automatisms, utilising one’s own body parts according to very different modalities than those which to

are

used in

reality

-

biological, natural,

text-based theatre and traditional mime —

in order to

course,

usually based

produce expressive forms which

unusual, surprising, and abstract becoming formless. Decroux’s

upon which both are

-

to

are

artificial,

the point, sometimes, of

counterfeiting begins, of with the overturning of the physical hierarchy. This dissembling

or

overturning establishes the unnatural primacy of the trunk, and often amputates or, rather, disfigures the actor-mime,

‘erasing’ the face in various ways. Following this path, the dissembling can arrive at a complete concealment (masking), as for example in L'Enveloppe, a piece realised in 1962 which shows the dramatic dynamism of abstract forms, dehumanised yet animated, like those of a human body moving under an enormous sheet which wraps it completely. However, dissembling in Decroux’s mime concerns above all the particular modes that regulate the intracorporeal movements (the relations between the limbs) and the shifts in space that is, according to Decroux’s lexicon, ‘physical geometry’ and ‘mobile geometry’, which are based on the extra-daily principles of counterweight, imbalance, independence of the limbs, mechanical dynamism, dynamorhythms, and attitude just as powerful counterfeiting tools -

—

as

masks In

or

silk face veils. 9

reality, the whole mime grammar which Decroux tested a ‘grammar of dissembling’, that

and fixed can be conceived as

8 De Marinis See 9 See

(1999). Chapter 5 for a discussion

on

the principles of mime grammar.

is,

a set

of rules for the

learning and

physical dissembling, and therefore

a

application of set of preconditions for creative

the actor-as-artist and for theatre-as-art. As a

such,

contrainte

it is also evident that this grammar implies (Appia, Copeau), and even a certain degree of

suffering let us remember that in dissembling itself the body must ‘suffer’. This is what Decroux underlines exceptionally well once again when asserting the ‘right to unhappiness’ (Decroux 1951b: 57): ‘it is in discomfort that the mime feels comfortable’ (Decroux 1952a: 52). -

The Double Articulation: Dramaturgy of Body and Action Let

us

go

a

little further into the technical details of this

counterfeiting of body and action, which I propose as the key aesthetic concept of corporeal mime and, more broadly, of Decroux’s research into the art of the actor. This entails, first of all, underlining the fundamental importance given at every level to the work of segmentation, analysis, and de-composition. Decroux brings that work of double articulation, which double

I have identified at the root of the research of many of the

founding fathers of twentieth-century theatre, to levels of unparalleled orderliness and depth (at least for the West). This refers to the work on de-composition/re-composition regarding, firstly, the body of the actor, and, secondly, the physical action in terms of real-conscious-voluntary action which the actor’s body is asked to produce on stage. 10 Regarding this second level in particular (essentially corresponding to what Barba has called ‘organic or dynamic 11 in the work of the twentieth-century dramaturgy’), -

-

10

See De Marinis (2000) and (2006b), also for what follows, Eugenio Barba has distinguished between three differing dramaturgies (clarifying that they ‘should act contemporarily, but [...] can each be worked on 11

Meyerhold and Decroux, it is possible to observe the recurrent tendency to de-compose scenic behaviour into its most minute parts (atoms or cells of action) to then submit it to procedures of recompositionmontage, according to the horizontal axis of succession and, especially, to the vertical axis of simultanaeity. The logic of the procedures of recomposition-montage (which can seem very different from one case to another) is basically the same for all these masters: it is never about the logic of verisimilitude masters,

especially

in that of

and realistic imitation

-

that rather different

not even

for Stanislavski

which aims

logic life of the action, that which permits

-

to preserve

it to be

real,

but about the scenic

not

realistic,

for the spectator. As for Decroux, even those who did not see him perform or teach in his school can get a very precise idea of his way of

working on physical action, thanks to the oral and above all physical transmission assured by the various generations of pupils (notwithstanding the fact that, by choice, Paroles sur le mime does not deal directly and explicitly with technical issues). For example, it is possible to know in detail the work behind famous creations such

as

Le Menuisier

or

La

Lavandière/La Lessive, the first versions of which date all the way back to 1931.

These

two

pieces

involve:

(1)

an

extraordinarily

meticulous

analysis of real life gestures and movements of carpenters and washerwomen (at least when the latter still existed), progressively divided into ever shorter fragments; (2) extraordinarily detailed and complex work conducted upon every ‘atom’ of action. Each selected fragment is reelaborated, in depth, and finally edited with the others into separately’): ‘Organic or dynamic dramaturgy: the composition of rhythms and dynamisms that engage the spectator on a sensorial, sensual, and nervous level; narrative dramaturgy, which links the occurrences, the characters, and orients the spectators towards the sense of that which they are seeing; and finally what I have called dramaturgy of the mutations of state, when the whole that we show manages to evoke something different, like when from a song or music, through the harmonics, another acoustic line is developed’ (Barba 1999a: 17). See also Barba 2010 and 2012.

the double axis of succession and -

not in a

of

corporeal

simultanaeity. They follow

scholastic way the entire grammar mime: independence of the limbs, primacy of

mechanical

or

-

the trunk, counterweight, imbalance, dynamo-rhythms, etc. One of the pupils who contributed to the living transmission of Decroux’s who tells

techniques and

creations is Thomas

Leabhart,

us:

I worked with Decroux almost every day from 1968 until 1972 to learn Le Menuisier and La Lessive. The rehearsals were

difficult and consisted of trying to reproduce

exact

and

usually uncomfortable positions succeeding each other rapidly. Each second of the approximately seven minutes required to perform each piece was exactly choreographed in terms of line, dynamic quality, facial expression, breath and weight, and not a single gesture or placement of head, hands or feet was arbitrary. Everything was the result of choice, and the choice was usually made in relation to the physical reality of the action being depicted. (Leabhart 1989: 50) The artistic result is seen

in the two pieces in

an

abstract dance of energy,

as can

be

question performed by Leabhart or by

other

pupils (in particular those of Corinne Soum and Steven l’Ange Fou, creators of a very important performance, entitled L'Homme qui voulait rester debout: Hommage à Etienne Decroux [1992], which reconstructed thirteen pieces by the master). 12 From the point of view of the pantomimic reproduction, very little remains of the original everyday actions within this dance of energy, often almost nothing, but on the contrary much remains (probably the essential) on the level of the dynamic and rhythmic equivalences and the internal impulses: the joy and the glory of manual labour in La Lessive; the sorrow and suffering of the heroic, Promethean fight of man against matter in Le Menuisier, elevated à la Rousseau into a symbol of Homo Faber. Wasson of Théâtre de

-

12

-

A video exists of this performance created by the Theatre de l’Ange Fou. Fragments of different versions of the Le Menuisier, performed by Decroux and by Leabhart, can be found in Jean-Claude Bonfanti’s film Pour saluer Étienne Decroux (France 3, Athmosphère 1992).

not

the exterior

action but what is behind and at the root of it: the

thought, the

For Decroux, the most

important thing is

internal life, the invisible. Above all, this is what corporeal mime should endeavour to represent or, better still, to transpose into allusive, elliptical, and ambiguous plastic forms. Corinne Soum has observed

that

nearly

that,

almost unique exception

in all

probability, the fact

very short with the of Petits Soldats is not unrelated to

all Decroux’s creations

were

-

-

13

(Soum 2000*). I believe that there is truth in this, even if the short format certainly did not impede others (Marceau first and foremost) from returning to story and anecdote when desired. In any case, Soum is right in identifying here a challenge from Decroux which might be taken up: his refusal of narrative

What would have happened if he had the time or the desire to create a piece an hour and a half long? I think that he would have invented a new form of story, a multiple narration, non linear. It is what Steven [Wasson] and I try to find in our creations. I think that it should be possible to apply all Decroux’s procedures and transpose them onto a longer theatre piece. A piece in which one can witness the expression of different moments of life, of interaction between characters, without the need for stories, a bit like Kantor did in his own way. (Soum 2000*)

Interlude:

Regarding

Two

Misunderstandings

though Decroux’s place amongst the masters of contemporary theatre is by now widely recognised, misunderstandings and misconceptions about him continue to circulate. Decroux is often spoken of as being disinterested in Even

composition, more teacher than artist, a codifier and grammatician more than an inventor, rarely given to and we could go on. As usually happens improvisation with clichés, these do contain a grain of truth about him (and I will come to this shortly). However, taken at face value, they creation and

—

13

See also De Marinis

(2006a).

spread a strongly falsified and reductive image of his contribution to twentieth-century theatre. In reality, as his pupils from various generations unanimously sustain, Decroux was not only attracted to but even obsessed by creation, from the beginning and up to the closure of his school in 1987 (when he was 89 years old!). For him, the artistic question always took priority, even continue to

in the 1960s after his official retirement from the stage and

the definitive isolation within the walls of his

Boulogne-

Billancourt school-home.

Regarding the figure of the rigid grammatician and codifier who refused any form of improvisation, we disprove that (1) in general, there really is between the attitude towards and materials, and the

are now a

able

to

contradiction

fixing principles, techniques,

several levels, of improvisation (in the teaching, the training, and in the creative process); 14 and (2) in particular, there was disinterest or diffidence on the part of Decroux towards extemporaneous invention use, on

and spontanaeity in the actor’s work. In an important unpublished contribution, the already mentioned Corinne Soum, pupil and then assistant to Decroux (together with her life and work partner Steven Wasson) demonstrates that, in this case too, the truth is exactly the opposite of the common

perception: As far

as I know, there are no figures or pieces by Decroux that did not begin from improvisations. Few people know this because only a few participated in the elaboration of the pieces and figures; most limited themselves to following the courses, where everything had the air of being well regulated, and therefore ended up imagining that Decroux always worked in a very laborious way deciding all the moments beforehand, right from the start! But it was exactly the opposite. Everything was

14 In truth, the debate should have been cleared up by Stanislavski's time but today, after the elaborations of the new theatre of the post-war period (the second historical avant-gardes, as Claudio Meldolesi has called them) and after the exemplary transcultural comparisons of Theatre Anthropology, even the most sceptical should no longer have any cause for doubt.

at the beginning, and was only fixed when he decided that it was worth it. He never worked towards a real notation; he just took notes and filmed. In general it is difficult to associate precision and improvisation. But it is a bit like in music, in jazz for example: improvising does not mean producing notes that are out of tune. Improvising means allowing your own mood to filter through a language, and the more mastery there is, the more the improvisation is an authentic result of the unconscious; the less mastery there is, the more the improvisation seems like 15 an exercise, like scales in music. (Soum 1995*)

always improvised

The grains of truth that these misconceptions nevertheless concern Decroux’s difficulties as an interpreter

contain

on stage in relationship with the spectators, as well as the chasm between, on the one hand, his extraordinary talent as a researcher and the aspiration towards the absolute, and

the other hand, his (not exceptional) qualities as a mime actor. 16 It is also to do with the fact that the creative work, on

though fundamental, constituted for

Decroux the terrain of

experimentation and verification of the acquisitions that he making in his extraordinary journey into physical expressivity and pre-expressivity previously unknown at he in the least when 1920s. 17 began territory,

went on

-

Why

a

Theatre

Laboratory?

Seven Reasons I would

now

a

15

like

theatre

why proceeding a

series of

try answering the question ‘Decroux: laboratory?’ more directly. I will do so by to

perhaps a slightly fragmentary way, listing points, independent from Barba’s thesis for the in

Corinne Soum has also, amongst other things, written the introduction to the Spanish edition of Paroles sur le mime: Palabras sobre el mimo (Colonia Roma Sur: Arte y Escena Ediciones, 2000). 16 See also Chapter 6. 17 In a work from 1921, L’Oeuvre d’art vivant, Adolphe Appia speaks of the great unknown’ in relation to the ‘ignorance in which we still find ourselves regarding our own bodies, our whole organisms, from an aesthetic point of view’ (see Appia 1921; 217; italics in the orginal).

2004 Aarhus

stand

symposium,

even

if the

affinity will inevitably

out.

(1) Firstly, theatre laboratory because, in his theatre work, Decroux always swam against the tide, against the spirit of the times, against trends and success: ‘One must always be for what is against, and against what is for. [...] If you have success,

distrust it! One has

studying.’

18

to return to

which he

The

the work, go back to tired of levelling

reproach pupils, Barrault and Marceau, 19 themselves that exactly of‘giving up’ to success.

at

his

two most

never

famous

was

Characteristic of Decroux’s swimming against the tide were even of antimodemism.

certain aspects of a resistance to change,

This was not far from the revolutionary utopianism which drove him and which often, both within and outside the theatre, stood out as a refusal of the present in function of nostalgia. Of course, this was

not a longing

for the past but of an idealised future (e.g.

the search for the ‘work of art

to come

).

pedagogical primacy in his work. Indeed, in Decroux’s case, one should really speak of a true pedagogic vocation: ‘how can you not long to convert people?’ he once asked rhetorically during a conference (cf. De Marinis 1993: 122). This pedagogic vocation imbued all (2)

Theatre

laboratory

for the

20

the various forms and levels of Decroux’s practice, from the actual teaching in the school to artistic creation, and to the

theoretical-experimental elaborations concerning the art of body and its laws or principles. In other words, it is his own scientific and creative research on corporeal mime which configures itself as intrinsically pedagogic (but we could also put it the other way round). In reality, the different levels of Decroux’s work in theatre are inseparable from each other. Each level, or moment, is the

18

II faut

vous avez

toujours être

pour

ce

qui

est contre, et contre ce qui est pour. [...] Si se remettre au travail, retoumer à létude’,

du succés, méfiez-vous! Il faut

quoted in Mare (2003: 452). 19 See Chapter 2 for an account of the collaboration between Decroux and Barrault. For the one between Decroux and Marceau see De Marinis (1993: 231-54). 20 See also Chapter 4.

pedagogic, artistic, and scientific, and also broadly ethical-political. In this way of working, it is difficult to say where the teaching ends and the artistic creation begins, where the artistic creation ends and the experimentation and research on the principles might start. (3) Theatre laboratory because, in the case of Decroux, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between theatre and life, between teaching and life, and between artistic research and life starting from the fact that, especially from 1962 onwards, Decroux’s public and private existence converged into just one place: the Boulogne-Billancourt house (in the outskirts of Paris), where he spent the last thirty years of his long life, going out ever more infrequently. There he lived, worked, taught, experimented, created, and wrote, at

-

the

same

time

more

-

—

without interruptions. 21 In reality, the Boulogne-Billancourt house did

not

simply

host the mime school: it was the school; all of it, even beyond the spaces officially designated for the work with pupils and

collaborators, including the so-called private

spaces

21

like this. Those who

(living

there etc.), always for a long time and maybe even lived there (as often happened for the assistants from the 1970s on) know well what I am talking about. The testimonies all agree about this. The last is that of Corinne Soum, who has spoken precisely about the fundamental importance of the house in Decroux’s teaching, indeed in its transmission, and of its completely pervasive, totalising nature, ‘the twenty-four hour lesson: ‘Mime was everywhere, mime became an invisible and omnipotent eye, which observed you in each tiny gesture’ (Soum 2003: 464). In this way even washing the dishes could become the occasion for a precious (albeit extemporary) lesson on movement technique. room,

and it was

were

However, the letters written to Craig in the 1940s, which I have cited at the it was always like this, in some way.

beginning, prove that

(4) Theatre laboratory because have

a

theatre school but rather

therefore, of life:

at its centre, as

a

Decroux did not

just

school of behaviour, and

subject and object,

was not

the actor-artist but the actor-human being (as indeed it was for all those

twentieth-century experiences we now call theatre laboratories, but here with particular radicality). 22 What irritated Decroux most, and could spark off one of his famous rages, was not the technical inability or scarce talent of a pupil (even if he admired both ability and talent enormously, and he knew how to recognise and value them). What really set him off were lapses in behaviour, even small ones: bad manners, lack of attention, laziness. It might make one smile to read (again from Soum’s testimony) the list of small sins’ which he found intolerable, that sometimes appear be the parody of an old, pedantic school teacher:

to

In class he demanded everyone,

an

beginners and

extremely

sustained attention from

seniors. This translated into

an

impressive number of things to do and not to do even before attempting what we had the audacity to hope to undertake: mime! Do not fold your arms, do not look at the floor, do not raise your eyes to the ceiling, do not nibble the comer of your nail, and definitely do not scratch the tip of your nose, avoid yawning, unless you are at risk of suffocation, do not ask questions during the courses, do not exchange comments with a

colleague

in

a

comer,

mood. (Soum 2003:

do

not

have

a

perplexed

look

or a

bad

456)

However, behind those exaggerated prohibitions, and that slightly ridiculous severity in the manner of a Belle Epoque

teacher, 23 hides the first great lesson of corporeal

mime:

‘a subtle

appeal for a certain behaviour. [...] you had to be “there”, “present”, and “now”, with an open spirit, receptive’ (Soum 2003: 456). This is why, Corinne Soum concludes, ‘to 22

It is difficult not to understand the decisive influence which the experience with Copeau had for Decroux, between 1923 and 1925, first in Paris in the Vieux Colombier School, and then in Burgundy, in the community of Les Copiaus. See Chapter 1 for more on this point. 23 This was the case in the dance schools, and is often still today.

my eyes the “house” and the “tensions” formed the context of Decroux’s transmission (2003: 457).

The

totalising

summarised life

-

as

nature

teaching could be

follows: every aspect and every

in the school

mime from

of Decroux’s

moment

of

learn

impregnated by everything (even from little everyday things), and

what is learnt

as a

-

it. One

was

can

mime reverberates and reflects back upon

everything. One develops as an individual, a human being, over and beyond as an artist. (5) Theatre laboratory for the exceptional awareness of the enduring, interminable, unlimited nature of the research, intended as something that has to engage all the energies of an entire existence something for which a whole life is not even enough but in which, however, nothing worthwhile is -

without total dedication, devoid of recompense. 24 This was an aspect which Decroux was continuously and

arrived

at

almost

obsessively

a

aware

titanic, late-Romantic

of, charging

it

-

as

usual

-

with

emphasis, free from individualistic

narcissism due to his constant awareness of serving a task which

could transcend whoever carried it

out. As

Thomas Leabhart

underlines,

Decroux spent his life winning over young idealists

to convert

them

to

the Great Project,

to

the disinterested,

anonymous construction of the Cathedral of Corporeal Mime (Leabhart 2003: 467 ff.). He often spoke about the endeavour

through the image of digging a gigantic tunnel: ‘He was obsessed with the long and difficult work that is necessary to excavate a tunnel’ (467). He wrote once: A tunnel is made slowly. It alone goes towards the next day’ (468). (6) Theatre Laboratory because the awareness of the

of

corporeal

Great

mime

Project

means

that in Decroux’s work the needs of the

continuous research and

uninterrupted experimentation

always prevalent with respect to the artistic need to

are

construct-

compose-produce completed works, finished products. 24

'I shall die

108).

a

young

man

in the first stage of the Great

Project’ (Decroux

1962c:

always prioritised principles over performances: ‘Experimental theatre? If they want to have a real experience, they should get rid of the spectators’ (quoted in Leabhart 2003: 474). This priority was never really questioned (not even during the ‘golden age’ of 1945-62). Nonetheless it never translated Decroux

into

a

rejection of

artistic creation but rather

already clarified above

-

-

into its instrumental

as

I have

conception

of experimentation and verification, in short ‘essay’, or ‘demonstration’.

as a means a

‘study’,

as

large number of anecdotes for this too, beginning with the episodes recounted by Barrault: Decroux, We have

a

who would stop himself in the middle of a number, due to a badly executed movement or a missed support, and start

again from the beginning, going against the rules of the

profession, seemed

to

scandalise his

first collaborator. 25 Soum writes: ‘he

explain his research,

even

was not

his doubts’

elementary ex-pupil and

most

afraid

to

show,

to

(2003: 458).

However, in this too there was a surprising reverse side. On the one hand, it is true that with Decroux the performance inclines towards

study, with the inevitable

consequence of of his spectators. In fact, he

often

alienating the majority rarely created real productions. His multi-artform evenings, in which there was never a shortage of poems and songs as well as speeches and explanations, originated a genre that later gained a degree of popularity, thanks, for example, to Dario Fo

or

the

actors

of Odin Teatret: the Work Demonstration.

the other hand, the opposite is also true: that is, However, in Decroux the study inclines towards performance, due to on

his histrionic

personality and

as

evidence of the many fertile

contradictions with which his journey is 25

punctuated.

See, for example, Barrault (1972: 57). Regarding this, and also for other testimonies, see De Marinis (1993: 171). We know how Decroux would elegantly twist it: if all his pupils had been as gifted as Barrault, the art of mime would not have been able to be fathomed in depth, and its principles would neither have been discovered nor fixed.

stage, performance avenged itself with a permanent theatricalisation of the teaching (e.g. the wellknown use of songs in different classes). Once again, Corinne Penalised

on

Soum’s testimony is An actor to his

helpful:

he dramatised the studies, even this way we had the sensation of participating in a never-ending show for the pleasure of an imaginary and ideal public. (Soum 2003: 458) the

fingertips,

most austere ones. In

(7) Finally, theatre laboratory because Decroux’s theatre defined by the same work is deeply even if covertly transcendence that unmistakably marks many of the most -

-

important theatre experiences of the twentieth century. is about that movement

beyond

beginning.

usual, this

In Decroux,

as

art

that I

at

the

the

one

spoke of

movement

is,

on

It

hand, loaded with strong political connotations, and on the other, with a spiritual and even a slightly moralistic emphasis,

‘religious atheist’ (according to Leabhart’s apt definition [2003: 483]). If mime can make people serious, it is not just of interest to everyone, but to the whole World (Decroux 1947b: 135); ‘Mime is worth more than an entertainment. If it survives, the world will survive (quoted in Leabhart 2003: 26 482).

as a

It is not

surprising that this aspect of Decroux’s work by the two major proponents of

was

very well understood

the

theatre-laboratory

in the second half of the twentieth

century: Grotowski and Barba. It is an aspect that, at first sight, is less visible in Decroux than in other protagonists of the stage revolutions of the twentieth century (for example, Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, or Grotowski himself) but it is

less important for this reason. To try to demonstrate this, I will

no

position

on

the

true

return to

the overall

ex-

importance of Decroux in contempo-

rary theatre. 26

As Leabhart informs us, these words form part of a on his copy of Paroles sur le mime in 1972.

Decroux wrote

larger dedication which

Beyond Art: Poverty, Misery, and Wealth I will start from two

quotations taken from the article which Decroux wrote in heated debate with Gaston Baty in 1942: ‘I think that an art is all the richer for being poor in means’; and ‘I think that 1942b:

an art

is

complete only if it

is

partial’ (Decroux

28).

Let

beforehand that here Decroux is

us state

talking about

poverty and wealth in an artistic and not a financial sense even if the two have points of contact in theatre and elsewhere.

-

In any case, his affirmation is

something

very different from

the pure and simple exaltation of asceticism and pauperism in art; it is actually about the apparently paradoxical statement of a solid artistic common sense (which a lot of theatre very often

lacks). Fundamentally,

things: renouncing everything allow oneself the luxury (and

Decroux wants to say two

in art is the choice of

(1) Poverty not indispensable, to therefore the wealth) of not economising on that which is really essential. Concretely, in the case of theatre, for Decroux this means to focus oneself on the art of the actor, taking all

which is

the time for the training, the research, the rehearsals, and saving on the rest: scenography, costumes, music, etc.

(2)

On the contrary, too often wealth in art

choice of not

not

was

and is the

renouncing anything superfluous (or

indispensable)

to

then find oneself obliged

at

least

to save on

the

essential. In theatre, wealth has too often meant to generically aim for the show and save on the actual theatre, that is, on the art

of the

actor

and all its

preconditions: research, training,

long rehearsals. Therefore, from the point of common sense to

say

-

as

view of theatre art, it is

Decroux does

that the rich theatres

(artistically speaking) poor of means, and vice versa. As I have already pointed out, the expression poor are

of means’ refers alludes

to

those which

-

to artistic means, not

are

financial

ones

since this

the extreme, radical choice of corporeal mime

(with

just the body, Of course

at

‘amputated’) against which Baty railed.

even

the

same

time

experience teaches that financial

in the choice of artistic poverty.

poverty can help However, one might ask: does the poverty of means the artistic, expressive ones by itself guarantee artistic wealth in the work, in the results? I would say definitely -

—

Indeed, there is no certainty that the poverty of means always translates, automatically, into artistically rich results in

not.

the theatre. The

if we accept Decroux’s approach (and also Grotowski’s, twenty years later) is that this constitutes a necessary but not sufficient condition. Why? most we

could say

-

-

always the danger lurking that the poverty (of means) degenerates into (creative and artistic) misery. What is needed to avoid this happening? Because there is

Let

us

go back

again

to Decroux

and his debate with

Baty: ‘Before being this or that, you have to be. Before being complete, art must be’, which is also the title of the article (Avant d’etre ceci ou cela, il fautêtre. Avant d'être complet, un art

doit exister’

affirmation which goes

[Decroux 1942b: 28]). I would like

next to a

famous

something

can

phrases

be made

are

oneself. deep and

27

from Jacques Copeau, to give oneself, the

The

implications contained they single crucial issue (which

various. However, here

to converge on a

I divide into two

put this

like this: in order

actor must first possess

in these

sentence

to

points):

exist, cannot be, without actors who that is, who exist as such, who own themselves as theatre actors;

(1)

are

a

theatre

cannot

—

(2) to own oneself as such, the theatre actor must first work technically for a long time to be then able to work creatively (even if in practice there is no rigid division between these); that is, the actor must work on oneselffor a long time.

27

The exact phrase is the following: ‘For the actor, the whole art is the gift of himself. In order to give himself, he must first possess himself’ (Copeau 1990: 77).

Work

Oneself and Mime Political Theatre

on

as

That the actor’s work is first and foremost work

on

oneself

of the great

guiding notions proposed and practised twentieth-century theatre from Stanislavski onwards. This is also supported by important external influences such as the esoteric or spiritual research conducted by ‘life masters’ like Rudolf Steiner and George I. Gurdjieff, who all begin from the body and from movement. 28 represents

one

in

us

What did the great masters of contemporary theatre teach about the actor’s work on oneself, from the Russians to

Copeau and Artaud,

principally actor as a

up to Grotowski and Barba? That it is

technical work which, however, involves the ‘total human being’ (Steiner): body, mind, and

spirit, external and internal, expression and feeling. So it is technical work, but which on the one hand implies ethical preconditions (patience, dedication, discipline), and on the other hand should

produce if conducted correctly very strong effects (or resonances) of an ethical-spiritual kind, -

in terms of ‘retrieval of

call it,

or

awareness’,

of self’ and

‘memory

—

as

Feldenkrais would

‘reawakening’

in

Gurdjieff’s

terms.

In my

opinion,

oneself that

we

it is indeed in the actor’s work

should look for the

strongly political

deep

traits which Decroux

reason

(an

on

behind the

old anarchic

unionist, follower of Agit-prop theatre and the Popular Front experiences of the 1930s) annexed to his research on mime.

spoke of ‘militants of movement’: to be a mime means to be a militant; a militant of movement in a world that has sat itself down’. 29 He also stated that the art of mime ‘is political or Promethean in that it opposes itself to religious art’, with the latter restricting itself to contemplation or passivity (the He

28

See De Marinis

29

See Corinne Soum’s contribution in

(2000) and Schino (2001 2004). Veiga (1994 : 68), ,

same can

be said for dance, hence the reason why Decroux to be a fundamentally religious art). Mime acts

considered it and

produces reality instead of imitating it; it creates its own passively entranced by the given reality. Therefore, for Decroux, mime is not just an art but a philosophy of life and a philosophy tout court; that is, a true vision of the world, of the nature and destiny of the human being (De Marinis 1993: 132). If we take out everything that has a certain preachy emphasis which Decroux often indulged in, both as a teacher and orator we can find exactly what many other twentiethcentury masters have discovered and practised: The ethical-spiritual (and therefore also political) reperworld instead of becoming

-

-

-

cussions’ of the technical work of the The

actors on

themselves.

possibility techniques in the guise of‘techniques for personal discipline’ (cf. Taviani 1997: 145), as in Grotowski’s research on ‘Art as Vehicle’ (cf. Grotowski 1993, Richards 1997). In writing about Decroux, Barba specifically underlines these two points: ‘He did not merely teach the “scientific” principles of acting, but a way to position oneself which from posture and movement radiated to an all-embracing ethical and spiritual stance’ (Barba 1997: 29). 30 This brings us back to what was said previously about movement beyond Art, in short about transcendence, as an aspect deeply embedded in Decroux’s journey, even if more covertly than for other -

contemporary

of using acting

masters.

Regarding this ‘ethical and spiritual stance’, there is episode about Eliane 31 Decroux’s principal female collaborator in the Guyon,

a

little known but rather relevant

second half of the 1940s, who

was

the inspiration for and the

30

Barba adds the following significant phrase in the same article: ‘In other words, for him, mime art and the art of living were one and the same’ (Barba 1997: 32). 31 See ‘Eliane Guyon, the thesis of Barbara Bonora (University of Bologna, DAMS,

1996), partially published

in Bonora

(1999 : 23-64).

interpreter of the mobile statuary’ cycle still have Etienne Bertrand Weill’s

we

of which

luckily splendid photographic —

documentation. 32 After

taking leave of Decroux in 1949, Eliane created original and poetically crafted performances made of an organic contamination of corporeal mime, masks and puppets, and she also trained actors who proved greatly gifted, both humanly and technically. In 1962, due to a serious illness which had forced her to suspend almost all activities for some time -

—

and which led her to her grave five years later

Guyon gathered round her

wished

a small group of pupils who mime. Her secret intention was to revisit

study techniques and the aesthetic conceptions of Decroux’s corporeal mime in the light of the long experience she had had (from 1957 onwards) as a member of the Gurdjieff group in Geneva, directed by Jeanne de Salzmann, one of the principal collaborators of the master from Alexandroupoli and his designated heir. However, to keep her little group of passionate, restless and stage-struck young individuals together, Eliane had to continually use the hypothesis of performances as declared objectives. Obviously these projects fell by the wayside, one after the other, which allowed Guyon to make explicit, or rather to bring to the fore, a dimension of spiritual research, and of work on oneself, which is certainly present in Decroux but without ever becoming the declared objective of his mime investigation. In this case too, as in many others, it is through the work of the pupils who followed one another during over forty years of teaching that Decroux’s research has developed to the point of revealing all its potential, including that which was most unsuspected. Again Barba is right when he says: ‘One may say that still to this day Decroux is a hidden master, one who reveals himself in his own pupils’ (1997: 32). to

the

32

See the list of illustrations of the new Italian edition of Paroles

(Parole sul mimo, 2003), and also the photos

in De Marinis

sur

(1993: 35-36).

le mime

Conclusion: Decroux and Grotowski As I have

already said, Grotowski was the other master who deepest aspects of Decroux’s research which we are here calling transcendental. Not the Grotowski of the performances in the 1960s who in that period did not know Decroux and engaged briefly with Marceau’s mime before quickly distancing himself from it but the Art as Vehicle researcher. In particular, the occasion for the Polish master to adequately make amends with the inventor of corporeal mime was the lecture series he gave in France understood those

—

-

between 1997 and 1998, when he was awarded the Chair of Theatre Anthropology at the prestigious College de France. Rather than refer directly to those lessons, which are available in audio format from the

which is

perhaps

College, I prefer to proceed in a way strictly philological terms but

debatable in

which is of evident interest. That is, I will refer to the

account

of those lectures

published by

Thomas

Leabhart, who was

among those present

476

Decroux’s

pupil (see Leabhart 2003:

ft).

Leabhart remembers that Grotowski

spoke about Decroux

from the

right inaugural lecture, saying that ‘Decroux searched for the laws of life which flow, and which eventually, in an advanced stage of the work, organise themselves, structure themselves, and become perceptible to others.’ In a

successive conference he observed that ‘even in Decroux’s

and unwell, he saw something that we could call

though old

infinite power,

body an spiritual force, an “enlightened 33 in a shattered body’” (Leabhart 2003: 476). purity still according to Leabhart’s notes In another lesson while analysing the Southern Italian phenomenon of Tarantism studied by Ernesto De Martino, Grotowski, apparently without connection to corporeal mime, remarked a

—

-

33

This refers to the lesson of 2 June 1997 at the Theatre de l'Odéon.

that ‘Decroux, thanks to his extreme competence and his aspiration towards that which goes beyond the spectacular, amongst those who could move [bouger] for God, to exceed themselves, instead of acting to impress the spectators’.

was

A comment from Leabhart:

definitely what Decroux wanted to say [...] when he wrote that “corporeal mime is worth more than an entertainment (Leabhart 2003: 482-83). It is

”’

PROLOGUE

1945 and Other Dates

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613-2

1945: 'At

Last

a

Creator in the Theatre'

begin with an event and a photo. They do not completely coincide but are interconnected. The event is the ‘Séance de Mime Corporel’ that took place on 27 June 1945 at the Maison de la Chimie in Paris, with Gordon Craig attending

We will

guest of honour and with Etienne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault as the main protagonists. The photo was taken by

as

Etienne Bertrand Weill

on

the occasion of

Craig’s

visit to

Decroux’s school two years later, on 15 November 1947, and it portrays them together, surrounded by pupils (De Marinis 1993: photo 1). 1 For once, the guest of honour had been

appropriately chosen, and the poster of the

event

underlined

stating that Jean Dorcy, the

master of ceremonies, would ‘the doctrinal link from highlight Craig to Copeau, from Copeau to Decroux, from Decroux to Barrault’, also ‘evoking’

it

the work of Adolphe Appia

2

(Dorcy 1958: 68-69). Craig, Appia, Copeau: a triad of founding fathers of modern

theatre, promoters of the rebirth of the actor’s art, also had a

strong influence on the reinvention of contemporary mime. in the case of Appia, the action had only been indirect,

If,

mediated can

principally through Copeau, for the other two we effectively speak of Decroux’s discipleship. Copeau was

Decroux’s first and decisive master, who allowed him to see application of the idea of an art of representation ‘through

the

body movement’ at the Vieux Colombier School (Decroux 1948: 15). Craig, on the other hand, was the ideal master chosen by Decroux as his theoretical guide and, later on, as patron of his own school, to the point of believing corporeal mime to be an adequate response to the demands set by the 1

See also De Marinis (2012). Dorcy’s book contains a copy of the programme of the evening. A description of the numbers presented by Decroux and his school on this occasion can be found in Leabhart (1989 : 48-52).

2

1945 and Other Dates

great English director’s famous

(Decroux

1947a:

8).

theory of the Supermarionette

3

However, this Parisian evening in June 1945 does not just have the symbolic importance of producing the 'inevitable’ encounter man

who

between the

was

his

most

creator

of

corporeal

profound inspiration.

mime and the It

was

actually

the first great public baptism for the new mime art cultivated almost in secret by Decroux for many years. It also happened be the first great success of Decroux as a mime artist, who managed on this occasion to hold an audience of a thousand to

people, while up to that point he had performed almost exclusively in private and always for a handful of spectators at a time.

Due to this evening, and to the considerable interest it created, the world of theatre and the press finally noticed

him. 4 Two years later the world tours would start, with performances, conferences, and periods of teaching (at the Piccolo Theatre in Milan and the Actors Studio in New York, Decroux would be able to stop working as a stage and screen actor in order to dedicate himself entirely to his own research. Nor should it be forgotten that

amongst

others); and

the first, prestigious critical recognition arrived thanks once again to this fateful ‘séance’ and from Craig himself, who

journal in August of that same year, with a very eloquent and flattering title: ‘At Last a Creator in the Theatre’ (1945). Last but not least, these were artistically the most fertile years for Decroux, in which he devised some of his most important works: in particular,

wrote an

3

See

4

In

article

published

in the Arts

Chapter 3 for the relationship between Craig and Decroux. reality Decroux’s work had already been well known for several years in the restricted circles of Parisian intellectuals and artists. Several prestigious names were amongst the very few spectators admitted to each of his private showings in the early 1940s (Picasso, Cocteau, Dullin, Achard, Hébertot, etc.). In 1942 Decroux had given two public performances and had been involved in an argument with the director Gaston Baty, with whom he had worked at the beginning of his career in 1925. After having seen one of his performances, Baty accused him, in an open letter published in the Aujourd’hui magazine, of ‘mutilating’ theatre, the greater art, ‘for the benefit of a manifestation which is [...] minor’ (Decroux 1942b: 28). See also the Chronology.

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

Les

Arbres, L’Usine, L'Esprit malin,

La

Laboratory

Statue,

Petits

Soldats,

all created between 1946 and 1950.

Therefore, if we had to choose one date to indicate a decisive turning point in the twentieth-century history of mime, we should think of 1945, in particular this Parisian event. Besides, if it is

true

that the

public adventure of Decroux’s

mime

began the Maison de la Chimie, then we could even say that Barrault's mime career effectively finished on the same at

occasion. Barrault had been the first to

divulge the expressive results of the new art with his own initial performances: Autour d une Mére (1935), Numance (1937), La Faim (1939), and at that point in time he was still prominent within the Comédie Française, while from the following year he was at the helm of his

own company with his wife Madeleine Renaud. In any case this was the last artistic encounter between Decroux and the man who, at the beginning of the 1930s, had

been his most gifted pupil and first collaborator, and who later took

a

different

path, aiming

at

the

(problematic) integration

of mime into director-led theatre. The Ancient Combat, which the two executed almost nude as the highlight of the

evening

in front of

Craig and the other thousand spectators,

had been for

prepared a few months before as an intermezzo Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra at the Comédie

Française. However,

its initial draft dates back to 1931, the

year in which they met and the then very young Barrault had taken part in a new version of the first ever Decroux creation: La Vie

primitive.

Marcel Marceau did

attend the 27 June performance due to military service, but at that point he had already been a pupil of Decroux for more than a year actually one of not

-

the

most

‘Mobile

brilliant, alongside Eliane Guyon, who created the

Statuary’ numbers. The photo of Craig’s

visit to the

school, two years later, shows Marceau half hidden behind Decroux and another pupil (also recognisable are Guyon, Decroux’s future

son

Maximilien, and Pierre Verry, Marceau’s faithful

collaborator).

Marceau himself often recalled how

Marcel Carné's Les

Enfants du Paradis (shot in 1943-44 and 1945) had been important for him. In this film Decroux and Barrault worked together for one of the last times, but in this case, slightly paradoxically, in order to revitalise the glories of nineteenth-century French pantomime and of Jean-Gaspard Deburau (the next year, 1946, Marceau himself would interpret Harlequin in the theatre version of one of the pantomime pieces from the film, directed by Barrault). I say 'slightly paradoxically’ because it would be difficult to imagine anything more distant from that pantomime based on facial expressions and the hands than the corporeal art of released in Paris in March

Decroux with its veiled

neutral faces, expressive primacy of mass’), anti-naturalistic and anti-narrative

the trunk

or

(or ‘body principles, researching a non-descriptive but allusive and symbolic gestuality, an essential plastic transposition of the inner human world. In the context of that 27 June event,

one

might think of numbers such Matériaux dune piéce biblique (Materials for a Biblical Piece), Statuaire mobile (Mobile Statuary), Choeur mimé symboliste (Mimed Symbolist Chorus), Différence entre Admiration-Adoration-Vénération (Difference between Admiration-Adoration-Veneration), and MaladieAgonie-Mort (Illness-Death Throes-Death) by Barrault, and La Volonté (The Will) by Decroux and Barrault (Dorcy 1958: 68-69). as

Decroux, Barrault, Marceau. As we can see, three of the four protagonists of the French school of contemporary mime

by the event and/or by the photo from which we started. Only Jacques Lecoq is missing, although in reality, in

are

united

that first war-free Parisian spring, he too was not far away and these were decisive months for his future career as well. If

Lecoq missed the evening

the Maison de la

Chimie, in that same period he did however attend another performance by Decroux and his pupils. Many years later he would recount that he was left rather unconvinced by the geometrical abstraction and exasperated technicality of corporeal mime, which he felt

to

at

be very far from his idea of

movement as

the essential 1987:

108).

principle of life, of every living reality (Lecoq a few months, Lecoq accepted an invitation

After

from Jean Dasté to join the Compagnie des Comédiens in Grenoble. Thanks to Copeau’s old collaborator and son-inlaw he discovered improvisation and the mask, and in this albeit indirectly with that Vieux way came into contact -

-

Colombier School from which Decroux

first, decisive inspiration. 1945. I am insisting that this

is

a

too

had received his

particularly significant

date in the

history of contemporary mime but what is its ‘true’ meaning? In other words, what is the ‘real’ sense of the -

episodes from which we started? If we were asked to formulate hypotheses purely on the basis of what happened that year we might be inclined to imagine a very different future for Decroux’s career and corporeal mime than that which actually occurred. That vast Parisian audience might lead us to expect future of recognition and successes that Decroux’s work would actually never acquire, nor would he ever search for it a

(it was not because of him that mime became a popular art form with a large international audience, quite the opposite he had a lot to recriminate about when this happened [Decroux 1953: 67]). However, I do not believe that the French master had very many illusions at that point either. Craig certainly did not as an old fighter of many lost battles (which he also won, although in another sense and on another level), he was not taken in by the -

-

favourable response from the Maison de la Chimie audience. In the article written soon after the event, he felt obliged to warn, over

and above any

triumphalism, that Decroux’s battle

had just begun and that it would have been anything other than easy.

Craig himself had already chosen which side

to

take, and

he stated it with his usual, brutal frankness: For my part I am entirely convinced by what I saw on 27 June of this year of liberation. Next to the work of Decroux and Barrault, the operas and other state theatres of Europe seem ridiculous. Anything but liberated, ‘bound hand and foot’ would be a better term for describing them. (Craig 1945: 25)

A Brief Chronology 1923-24: Etienne Decroux attends

Jacques Copeau’s

Vieux

Colombier School in Paris, where, amongst other things, he has the opportunity to take courses in silent improvisation with neutral masks and attends the dress rehearsal of the Noh drama Kantan

well

as

the final student presentation.

as

in his attempt to set up a mime company, Decroux dedicates himself to the creation of his first mime number, La Vie primitive, which he presents together 1930-31:

Having failed

with his wife, Suzanne Lodieu,

June

at

the Salle Lancry

13

on

1931.

1931-32: At the

beginning of 1931, Jean-Louis Barrault

arrives at Charles Dullin’s

Atelier, where he seals

artistic association with Decroux, who had been

teacher in that theatre since 1926. In

more

two set

which Decroux had been

mime,

to

passionately for

some

an

intense

actor

and

two years

of

down the fundamental

collaboration, the the

new

than

an

time.

By the

principles of devoting himself

autumn

of 1931

at

the

Theatre de l’Atelier, Barrault had already participated in the private presentation of a second version of La Vie primitive and the

new

number La Vie médiévale.

Taking leave of both Decroux and Dullin, Barrault puts on three performances of his own (Autour d'une Mére in 1935, Numance in 1937, La Faim in 1939), in which large inserts of non-spoken scenes constitute the first public 1935-39:

appearances of the

new

mime art.

1940-41: Decroux opens his school in Paris, in

rue

de la

Neva, and creates a small company with which in 1941 he presents his first collective mimo-drama, Camping, at the Comédie des

showing.

Champs-Elysées,

in

a

one-off private

1944-45: In 1944 Marcel Marceau arrives at the Atelier

(which had by that

time moved to

Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt) pupil along with Eliane Guyon. The marks the public consecration of Decroux as

and becomes Decroux’s

following

year

a creator

and

that took

place

a

master, thanks above all to the mime session’ at

the Maison de la Chimie,

1963: The Parisian

on

27 June.

publisher Gallimard prints

a

wide

selection of Decroux’s writings, under the title Paroles sur le soon becomes

mime and edited by André Veinstein. The book

popularly accepted as one

as

the ‘Bible’ of contemporary mime and

of the fundamental

texts

for the theatre culture of the

twentieth century.

Although the chronological references could be much more numerous, the date game needs to be played with moderation in order not to become futile or counterproductive. Accordingly, the dates listed above mark the decisive moments of Decroux’s artistic and pedagogic career, and therefore of the twentieth-century history of corporeal mime for which Decroux was not only the inventor, but also the main creator of its grammar and its most rigorous interpreter. Besides, these dates mark Decroux’s encounter with all the personalities that, in

one

way

or

onwards contributed new

indirectly, from the 1920s the birth and the development of the

another, directly

mime: from

to

Copeau

to

or

Dullin, from Craig

to

Barrault

and Marceau.

Taking journey

an

it is

overview of Decroux’s very

possible

to

identify

at

long professional fairly distinct

least three

5

phases. (1) 1923 to 1945: this is the phase of Decroux’s apprenticeship and of his double career, the visible career as an actor 5

Of course, each of the three phases could be subdivided further concerning the technical, expressive, stylistic, and thematic aspects of Decroux s mime research.

These will be taken into account elsewhere

in

the book.

of

spoken theatre and cinema, and the ‘secret’

career

of the

inventor and codifier of corporeal mime.

phase of the public adventure of diffusion, thanks to the tours and to the schools which flourished seemingly everywhere due to his and his pupils’ initiative. This is also, inevitably, the phase of the influences, the imitations, and the ‘betrayals’, which were followed by disregard and oblivion. However, more than anything, this is for Decroux the epoch (2)

1946 to 1962: the

Decroux’s

new

mime and of its international

of the reunification of his to

he

the mime

two careers. In

fact, from 1946, due

performances and, especially, had the need

be

to

to

a

the

teaching,

theatre and film

longer a living. Finally, this is the period in which

no

actor to

Decroux puts and theories in writing. Apart from very conceptions after few exceptions, he wrote only having fully elaborated earn

his

own

the grammar and the aesthetic of corporeal mime, from the mid-1940s onwards. These were mostly commissioned texts written for

particular occasions (tours, teaching, etc.), only needed once his work finally emerged into the open, after its long underground life, and, therefore, after 1945. This circumstance significantly affects the way these texts and the volume that collects them together are presented. However, despite appearances, and contrary or texts

which Decroux

to

what has sometimes been claimed, Paroles sur le mime a strongly homogenous and systematic book. In this

constitutes

seemingly fragmented body of work,

not

free from repetitions,

it is difficult to detect any substantial discontinuities inside the theory and its elaboration. Obviously, this does not exclude the

possibility of contradictions or aporias, which should however be considered as constitutive to Decroux’s ‘system’ (as well as the effect of an extremely dense, aphoristic and metaphorical writing style) rather than being connected to radical detours 6 or sudden diachronic adjustments of his research path. 6

In the preface to the first Italian edition of Paroles sur le mime, Giorgio Strehler speaks of a ‘difficult book [...], great and severe and even obscure, [which] throws the merchants out of the Temple [...], which burns the impure’ (Strehler 1983: 8).

(3) which

1963 to 1987: this marks the third and final

begins

with the

return to France

the USA, the aforementioned the reopening of the school in

after

a

period,

long stay

in

publication of his book, and Boulogne-Billancourt (which closed definitively in March 1987). From the 1960s onwards Decroux’s activity increasingly (and eventually exclusively) concentrated on teaching and was dedicated to the systematic deepening of the principles of corporeal mime from both a pedagogical and creative perspective.

1

The Vieux Colombier Tradition

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613-3

1.1 Sources

vs

Apprenticeship

deeper level the various components that gave birth to corporeal mime are almost inextricably bound together, for greater clarity it is best to begin by keeping

Although

on a

the direct and indirect

sources

from Decroux’s actual theatre what will be refers

to

the

analysed sources

indirect, explicit

or

in

more

of the

apprenticeship. Anticipating depth in Chapter 3 if one ,

of Decroux’s mime

implicit

-

mime art distinct

new

the list

-

whether direct

ought

to

or

be somewhat

longer than that which Decroux himself proposes in his brief 1948 ‘autobiography’ (Decroux 1948: 12-16): the caféconcert, the boxer

less in this sources

Carpentier, and Jacques Copeau (more

order).

We should at least also

or

gather the other

declared here and there in Paroles

sur

le mime: in

Craig’s theories, then Noh theatre, the Russian Chaplin, classical dance, sculpture (in particular statuary, from Michelangelo to his favourite Rodin), and symbolist poetry; as well as, outside the artistic sphere, gymnastics, sports, and manual jobs. Beyond the sources the first place

directors, Charlie

in Decroux’s

which

should also add modern dance, for declared admirer of Isadora Duncan) he

book,

(though

a

we

nurtured contrasting feelings, but whose technical and aesthetic affinities with corporeal mime appear evident, even we

if in

general he does

forget the influence

cultural

movements:

Voltaire

-

it

was

on

not mention

them. 1 Nor should

Decroux of the two great French (with Rousseau preferred to

Illuminism

actually Émile which inspired one of his first

famous creations, Le Menuisier) and Surrealism, whose many exponents he met and visited, especially Breton, and

most

1 In addition to the disciplines and the artists that had directly influenced Decroux’s work, or which interested him in diverse moments of his long life, it should be said that all the research of the historical avant-garde (from literature to music, from visual arts to cinema and, of course, theatre), with its antinaturalistic, antinarrative and abstracting experimentation, informed the organic context for Decroux’s developments of corporeal mime. See the Chronology at the end of this book.

The Vieux Colombier Tradition

Picabia, Aragon, and Artaud always sharing the most radical ideological and political choices from within the movement. If instead we talk about Decroux’s theatrical apprenticeship in the strictest sense, then only one name is truly important —

for the future elaboration of mime, that of Jacques Copeau, to which we can add though on a very different level those of -

-

Charles Dullin and Louis Jouvet. The debt towards the Vieux Colombier School and its patron has always been recognised

by Decroux in explicit and absolute terms. In his 1948 ‘autobiography’, he admits that the ‘idea of a performing art that represents through body movement’ (1948:15) had already been found and applied at Copeau’s school and adds: ‘I only invented the belief in it’. But already in 1939, recalling the endof-year school performances of 1924, he wrote: ‘Productions which astonish people today in no way surpass and do not always equal what was done in that show’ (Decroux 1939: 5). The situation is different for Dullin, who is never sur le mime and with whom Decroux

mentioned in Paroles

capacities, an acquaintance which lasted over twenty years (whereas with Copeau he stayed for little more than twelve months). Only many years later, did Decroux, had, in

various

by then almost eighty,

pay tribute to his second patron by trio together with Copeau and Jouvet,

inserting Dullin into a albeit on the suggestion of his interviewer, Thomas Leabhart: I was won over, doctrinally, by the acting of Jouvet. [...] Dullin took me in a completely rudimentary form, he instructed me, he formed me. [...] His acting excited me more than anyone else’s. But that doesn’t mean I liked it as a doctrine! From the point of view of doctrine, the idea (for mime) comes from the Ecole du Vieux Colombier, from Copeau, and the style came to me with

Jouvet. (Decroux

1.2 At first

given

to

glance,

1974:

14)

Jouvet, the Actor-Marionette one

might be surprised by the recognition

Jouvet, who

was an actor

and teacher

at

the Vieux

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

Laboratory

Colombier until 1922, and with whom Decroux only worked for a few months, in 1925, after abandoning Copeau’s group in 2

Burgundy. Again,

in the

interview, he had said:

same

I felt in his work the

beginnings of, a taste for, the marionette [...] a certain way of turning the head, of using his neck, a certain

way of

taking

articulated

his

man.

place

on

(Decroux

the stage. One sensed in him the

1974:

14)

Around the time of this interview, in another conversation with Leabhart (of which only an audio recording is available)

deeper into the idea of Jouvet as an actor-marionette, telling us that nothing in his way of playing was casual or uncalculated. Jouvet entirely ‘constructed’ Decroux went

his

even

the gestures and the movements, with precision. point of view, Jouvet can be without doubt at the opposite pole from Dullin, the

own

part,

even

From this

extreme

placed

instinctive actor par excellence. Decroux also remembers that he observed a Knock scene in which Jouvet washed -

his hands was

infinite number of times from the wings. It exactly the same, down to the smallest details, as

-

always

an

if it had been fixed in

a

musical

score.

Also, however precise

they were, his gestures on stage not only did distract from the lines of the text but, on the contrary, amplified their perception, and therefore their efficacy, for the and intense

not

spectator.

Jouvet’s acting, it wall relationship between Decroux

Having taken note of this homage now

be useful

to examine

the

to

and Copeau, and then with Dullin, because as I have said it was within these encounters that the future re-inventor of —

mime covered the

—

3 important stages of his apprenticeship.

2

Decroux worked with Jouvet’s company at the Comedie des Champs-Elysées interpreting, amongst other roles, the Tambour de ville in Knock by Jules Romains. 3 It is nevertheless worth remembering how Jean Dorcy a witness and participant -

in the events which

of the few historians of the new mime was not in agreement regarding the recognition of Dullin’s and Jouvet’s influence on the rebirth of mime art in the twentieth century. In his opinion, this is exclusively the merit of Copeau and his school. See also Dorcy (1958: 56-59; 1961; 6-14). concern

us,

and

one

-

1.3

'Corporeal

Mime'

at

Copeau's School

Decroux arrived at the Vieux Colombier School in autumn

1923, when signs of its ‘institutional crisis’ (Aliverti 1988: 251), which would lead to its closure within a few months, were already evident: Jouvet had left some time before (at the end of the 1921-22 academic year), the writer Jules Romains left the running of the school and the teaching of the public courses right at this point, and the Fratellini clowns had downsized their commitment. On the other hand, new teachers emerged, recruited from amongst the pupils Jean -

Dorcy, the future

historian, embraced the inheritance of the Fratellini as teacher of circus techniques; and, from the apprentices of the third year, Jean Daste (who in 1928 would marry forward. 4

mime

Copeau’s daughter, Marie-Hélène)

Decroux’s experiences

at

the Vieux Colombier

came

proved

to

be decisive for him in that first and only year of his stay, during which, amongst other things, he followed Suzanne Bing’s

improvisation with inexpressive masks. Decroux himself gives an account of this period, which forms one of course on

the

famous passages of his book: it is an article written in 1939, already imbued with that ‘myth’ of Copeau’s school

most

July

which he, in his turn, had also done much 4

to

foster.

At the

beginning (1921-22) the pupils were divided into three groups, or beginners, with young people over twelve years old in their first experience of theatre; B Section, the graduate students, composed of young people over eighteen years old, who wished to complete their technical education in a three-year course; and C Section, for pupils and observers who were interested in making use of the school’s teaching even without wishing to become professionals (young writers, authors, critics, amateur actors). In the following year (1922-23), B Section was abolished and A Section welcomed three particularly gifted and serious members of the Bs, i.e. Jean Dorcy, Aman Maistre, and Clarita Stoessel. At the same time Copeau organised separate courses for his company; something that increased the tensions and the jealousies between theatre and school (Aliverti 1988: 248-51; Kusler Leigh 1979 : 27-34). As Dorcy recalls, Decroux, on his arrival at the school in autumn 1923, became part of the ex-group C, now B Section, ‘that is to say, sections: A Section, the

with the amateurs, with those who did not intend to make the stage into

(1961: 43).

a

career’

Corporeal

Mime at Vieux-Colombier

(School)

We called it the mask.

Unlike Chinese masks, ours were expressionless. were as bare as decency would allow. An indispensable measure. For, once the face was obliterated, the body needed all of its parts to replace it. We mimed simple actions: a man pestered by a fly, wants to rid himself of it; a woman, disappointed by a fortune teller, strangles her; the actions used in trade or a sequence of movements made by a machine. The manner of playing resembled the slow motion of film. But while that is the slowing down of fragments of reality, ours was the slow production of one gesture in which many others Our bodies

synthesized. already intelligible, was beautiful. We reproduced noises of the town, of the house,

were

This process,

of nature, the cries of animals. All of this with the mouth, the hands and the feet. three minutes at the most the In a rapid consultation made a sketch which they performed on the spot. pupils up knew what alone to They expect or not to expect from this therefore had to be their own playwright. of type playing: they At the end of the ’23-’24 season, they gave a performance before an invited audience. -

-

Having completed only one year, I was not allowed to participate. Sitting quietly among the spectators, I beheld an astonishing show. It consisted of mime and sounds. The whole

took

performance

without a word, without any make-up, without costumes, without a single lighting effect, without properties, without furniture and without scenery. The development of the action was skilful enough for them to condense several hours into a few seconds, and to contain

place

several

places

in

one.

Simultaneously before our eyes civilian life, the sea and the city.

we

had the battlefield and

The characters moved from one to the other with total credibility. The acting was moving and comprehensible, of both plastic and musical beauty.

We

were

in

June

1924.

Productions which astonish people today, in no way surpass and do not always equal, what was done in that show.

July,

1939

(Decroux

1939:

4-5)

probable that this recollection is affected by the legend created around the Vieux Colombier and, especially, its school, right after its sudden closure. As Cruciani writes, ‘it was the “myth” of the school which, substituting itself for the “myth” It is

of the theatre, laid the foundations and gave meaning to Copeau’s successive action (1971a: 159). This was an operation conducted by Copeau himself and his group: it suffices to read the transcriptions of the two 1931 conferences brought together

under the title Souvenirs du Vieux Colombier. At

more

than

years’ distance, Copeau had the following to say regarding the end-of-year performance of the Noh drama Kantan: seven

The performance was ready to open. If it had taken place, maybe would have overcome a lot of resistance, maybe our destinies would have been different. [...] Yet I cannot hesitate in saying that Noh, as it appeared at the dress rehearsal, remains for me, for the depth of the scenic harmony, for its measure, style, and quality of emotions, one of the jewels, one of the secret riches of the Vieux Colombier productions. (1931: 66-67) 5

we

However, (self-)mythicizing apart, the Noh performance and the mime-vocal exercises with neutral masks which the

twenty-six-year-old Decroux witnessed, truly represent a point of arrival. These

were

the

more mature

results of

a

decade

of

pedagogical experimentation by Copeau, who began to address the problem of the school and actor training while he theatre in 1913, even if due to various reasons and difficulties he was only able to begin the courses in

was

creating his

own

experimental form in 1920 and officially the following year. The publication, though incomplete, of the Registres and some important studies (which avail themselves of an

5

The public debut had been made impossible due to a knee injury of one of the performers, Aman Maistre, who should have played the part of the leading character (Rudlin 1986 : 49). young

unpublished material; see especially Kusler Leigh 1979 and Aliverti 1988, 1997), makes it possible to get a sufficiently clear idea not only of what the Vieux Colombier School was between 1920 and 1924 (the organisation, the courses, the exercises, and so forth) but also of the theoretical-practical elaborations which preceded it. Through these elaborations Copeau progressively improved the focus of his own ideas regarding actor training, physical education, and theatre pedagogy (also thanks to the meetings in 1915 with Craig, Dalcroze, and Appia), to the point of seeing the school not simply as supplementing, or complementing the theatre, but as a way of going beyond it. Copeau

these elaborations from the first attempt with the Vieux Colombier company, brought

starts

laboratory together in July-August 1913 in his summer residence in Limon (ahead of the opening of the theatre in the autumn) and which undertook the following activities: study of the pieces in repertory, sight reading, text explanations, physical exercises, to then move on to the first practical experiences at a

with

group of a dozen children at the Club de Gymnastique Rythmique in Paris, under the guidance of Paulet Thevenaz a

and Suzanne Bing in the autumn of 1915. Copeau then proceeds with the reflections on children’s play and the relations between

play and theatre (which acquire

a

more

complete form in the 1917 New York conference, entitled Children in Theatre, with his ‘absolute affirmation of the presence of children in theatre’

[Aliverti

1988:

236]).

includes the first organic school project, which

He also

was set out

between January and February 1916 (Copeau 1988: 56-65), influenced by a recent trip to Italy, and which shows traces of

Copeau’s infatuation with Jaques-Dalcroze’s Eurythmics, to which he assigned the role of foundational discipline. There are also the disappointing pedagogical experiments with the actors of his company during the American residency at Cedar Court (although, in this period, the physical training becomes enriched and

more

precise:

next to

training based

gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and dance, directed first thing in the morning by Jessmin Howarth [Dalcroze’s pupil], on

in the late afternoon various types of exercises find a place, the most important are transcribed by Copeau in his Cahier

of

notes

about the school: exercises

without props, the expression of

improvisation exercises). Finally, 1920

a

we

regarding silent action feeling or emotion, and

have the

notes

(gathered together by the Italian translator

of August

Maria Ines

Aliverti under the title ‘The Actor’s Education’

[Copeau 1988]), which represent a fundamental stage in Copeau’s pedagogic reflections, according to which the school now had to serve to déborder l'acteur (overwhelm the actor). In these unstructured yet extraordinarily dense notes, Copeau’s training project reaches its zenith. On the one hand, he reaffirms the idea of an articulated teaching intended not so much as ‘a meeting point of diverse techniques’ but as ‘the result of one general method’ and on the other hand, he takes his distance from the cabotins (exhibitionists) of muscle and affectation which the new methods risked producing. 6 In so doing Copeau brings into focus the primary aspects of actor training: ‘the knowledge and the experience of the human body’, with a view to its mastery, and through these, the search for a state of ‘sincerity’ (intended as calm, release, silence, immobility) as the indispensable ‘starting point for expression’, in order to reconcile the actor’s external action and internal state within physical actions and reactions undistorted by excessive premeditation (quoted in Copeau 1988: 77-80). -

-

The organisation of the Vieux Colombier School in its three 7 years of official life from 1921 to 1924 is now well known: the 6

The reference to Dalcroze’s Rhythmics appears explicit here, with respect to which he declares: 1 made a mistake a while ago in believing I could find the starting point in rhythmic gymnastics’ (Copeau 1988: 76). 7 Even if the school officially opened in the 1921-22 academic year (with its home at 9 rue du Cherche-midi), the real opening had taken place in February 1920, with

initial division of the pupils into three groups, later reduced to two; the articulation of the courses in public, open, and closed sessions; the inclusion, next to more traditional’ subjects, of in the courses in theatre and general culture, and especially —

wake of Craig, Stanislavski, Dalcroze, and others disciplines aimed at a more complete physical,

—

of technical

gestural, and

vocal training for the future actor. According to Decroux’s list the pupils were taught: ‘ground acrobatics, stadium athletics,

ordinary gymnastics, classical ballet, corporeal mime, voice production, ordinary diction, declamation of classical chorus and of Japanese Noh, singing, and sculpting’ (1939: 1). The teachers (some famous, some not) were: Jules Romains and the aforementioned Fratellini clowns, the dancer Lucienne Lamballe, the musician Daniel Lazarus, the sculptor Albert Marque, the poet Georges Chenneviere, Lieutenant Hebert, and others, also recruited from amongst the actors

including especially Suzanne Bing and Louis Jouvet. According to the 1921 brochure, the closed classes of ‘Physical Culture’ directed by Lieutenant Hebert9 and to which Copeau assigned the highest importance envisaged ‘Hygiene and training of the body. [...] Suppleness. Breathing. Endurance. Stability’. On the other hand, this is the programme planned for the closed classes in ‘dramatic instinct’ (which the following year became ‘Dramatic Training’ and was the school’s key teaching from the beginning): of the company, 8

-

-

a course for young people held by Suzanne Bing. Furthermore, 1920-21 was an experimental year during which Copeau could only run some of the courses (Kusler Leigh 1979 : 20-21; Aliverti 1988 : 244-17). 8 About the trio who actually directed the school (Copeau, his daughter, and Suzanne Bing), Decroux wrote: ‘In Copeau’s authority there was theocracy, in Suzanne Bing’s there was asceticism. / This could have made our lives morose. / Thanks to Maiene [Marie-Hel&ne Copeau], who inherited three-quarters of her smile from her mother, this was not the case at all. / What a happy trinity!’ (Decroux 1939: 3). 9 According to Kusler Leigh, Lieutenant Hébert never taught in person, delegating the task to one of his assistants, Louis Moine, who the following year officially assumed responsibility for the course on physical training (1979: 33-35). Regarding the ‘natural method’ invented by Hébert, see Ruffini (1994: 63—88).

Jacques Copeau and Suzanne Bing Cultivation of spontaneity and invention in the adolescent. Story-telling, games to sharpen the mind, improvisation, Instructors:

impromptu dialogue, mimicry, mask-work, tation of the various abilities course

of their

general

acquired by

instruction.

(Copeau

etc.

Stage

presen-

the students in the 1990:

43)

However, until recently much less was known about the actual content of the courses and the type of work done within them, and about the exercises created within the more technical

classes, dedicated as we have just seen to physical and psychophysical training, and to improvisation. This gap has been filled by the partial publication of the school documents in the sixth volume of the Registres (Copeau 2000), of which luckily there were already several ample extracts available thanks to Kusler Leigh and, especially, Aliverti (in Italian) and Rudlin. Through these we learn that, in the 1921-22 course -

on

-

‘dramatic instinct’, work on the neutral and preparatory developed, and that training in improvisation with

state was

inexpressive masks began (these were devised by the pupils guidance of Albert Marque and Marie-Helene Copeau). In this way the mask entered the school, and,

under the

together with something that we can already call ‘corporeal mime’ (albeit in inverted commas for the sake of caution), became from that point onwards the principal technicalexpressive

means

for the exercises and dramatisations

-

of

always within the progressive pedagogic framework which will be discussed further ahead. 10 As Aliverti recalls, course

10 In addition to Decroux’s testimony reported above, one should also consider the accounts of two other pupils: Dorcy (1961: 42-51) and Dasté (1987 : 88-89). Dorcy, in particular, recounts that they themselves called those exercises ‘mime’ and coined the expression ‘shoeing the mask’ (nevertheless he also remembers, for the same improvisations, the term ‘masked play [jeux]’ [1961: 63]). However, the most important documents on this matter are obviously the unpublished notes by Marie-Hélène Copeau and Suzanne Bing, only partially published by Aliverti (see also Copeau 2000: 298). On the basis of these accounts it is possible to gain a good (though provisional) idea of the exercises adopted by the Vieux Colombier School. The exercises seem to belong to two major groupings: those dedicated to mime and the mask, and those aimed at developing the dramatic-choral dimension (regarding the latter, it should be recalled that Copeau attached the greatest importance to

the mask training comprised a series of exercises [...] which by degrees brought the pupil, from stillness and silence with the neutral masks,

to more

articulate choral dramatisations,

eventually using more complex masks. (1988: 251) At the beginning the expressive masks

would have risked

influencing

the

were

avoided as they

and

distorting their

pupils

collective scenic action, and spoke of the chorus as the image-symbol of an ideal To these should be added what can be called the abstract' exercises, created to ‘develop the physical qualities necessary to carry out the most complex mime and dramatic exercises’ (Aliverti 1988: 290-91). Let us take a look at a few of these exercises (1988: 291-94): 1. Exercises of body technique: exercises on the variations of rhythm in the movements of entering (the stage), walking, running, etc., undertaken by pairs of pupils, or by two groups, and completed at another time with voices and other gestures; 2. Exercises for the education of the voice: e.g. seated in two rows, facing each other, the pupils pass an exclamation to each other, trying to keep it the same from beginning to end (from Suzanne Bing’s notes on Technique corporelle referring to work done in 1920); 3. Exercises of animal imitations: a sequential imitation of crows, bears, lions, and tigers, ending with a battle between the lion and the bear, victory for the lion, and the crows that descend on the body of the dead animal to devour it (from the notes of pupils on the Exercices d’animaux, 1923); 4. Exercises on the direction and continuity of the action: these consist of making a movement which continues in a certain direction, towards something, first indicating which part of the body is pulled and which should guide the movement.

company).

For

example: Exercise done by Maiène: the part of her body which is pulled is the ear; her place from where the sound emanates, and the intensity of her movement is regulated by the intensity of the sound. a. beginning: she ‘shoes’ the mask; b. absence of action, or other preparatory action: she is seated on a chair next to a table, with her legs crossed, and weaves a basket; c. she hears a sound, raises her head from her work rather brusquely, turns it slightly towards the side where the sound comes from (movement directed by the ear), listens restarts her work again a sound that reaches her from another direction makes her lift her head, and turn it she listens, then, while listening, the sound starts again from somewhere else, and soon after it repeats from a third place (these sounds, repeated at ever shorter intervals, lead to a growing acceleration and intensity in the movement); d. the fear makes her put the work down she gets up; e. the sounds start again more or less strongly and more or less nearby, the ear attracts the body which leans in different directions successively. The whole behaviour is that of attention and fear. It tends to become a dance. (From the notebook of Marie-Hélène Copeau, Exercices de masque movement has the direction of the

-

-

-

-

et

improvisations,

1921-22

[Copeau 2000, 304-05])

way of working, imposing a certain ‘manner of being’ upon them. Years later Marie-Hélène Copeau wrote about this:

[beginners] need to be started off as closely as possible to themselves and until they can be completely sincere, their faces should be covered, they should be given protection behind an impassive face, have their grimaces wiped out. [...] For this mime education, everything that might lead to a ‘manner’, a ‘manner of doing’, a fabrication, needs to be avoided, and right from the start. [...] An expressive mask (for this kind of work, and save perhaps for some rare exceptions) would risk the person who covers their face with it, to borrow another face which would impose a ‘manner of being’, which would make them ‘simulate’. (Copeau 1988: 295) -

However, it is worth referring to Bing’s notes taken when she started working on masks with the apprentices during the 1921-22 academic year. These observations are important because they reveal how clear the creative and formative

possibilities of the mask already were to Copeau’s main teaching partner. These possibilities were later relentlessly investigated and developed by many practitioners in the course of the century (though not before Craig and the Russians): From the moment in which the pupil is masked, they free themselves. They experience their personal depth even better. In the ‘waiting’ exercise, for example, they let themselves go to

It should not be forgotten that, in addition to movement and silent actions with masks, the pupils carried out crucial work on diction and voice with Bing and other teachers. These mime exercises, with or without mask, were often accompanied by physical percussion and vocal sounds (Decroux 1939: 4-5). Decroux reminds us that they ‘reproduced noises of the town, of the house, of nature, the cries of animals [...] with the mouth, the hands and the feet', and speaks, for the end-of-year show, of ‘mime and sounds’ but without any words (1939: 4). It seems that it was the pupils who first created the name grommelots (from grommeler, gabbling) for exercises which dealt with non-articulate sounds, vocal emissions in a sort of primitive and animal-like language (Cruciani 1971 a: 236; see also Frank 1925 : 588, who does not use this name). It is certain, though, that these experiments of grommelotage, or Vocal mime’ as Dorcy called them (1961: 20), were continued and developed later on by Les Copiaus and then by Barrault and Daste and interested Decroux as well (see Chapter 5, and Leabhart 1989 : 47). On the use of the mask in Copeau’s school, see Leabhart (1995) and De Marinis (2000: 158-80).

feel

hope,

delusion, or joy.

or

So much

so

that the exercise does

of showing these emotions, but in allowing the pupil to experience what happens when they feel them (what occurs on the outside of that which is felt), to verify that feeling them

not consist

condition, in order to have them to show, and that, before every action, there is a state. With the mask they also find which signs have been part of their state, and which others have been artificial or superfluous, and that the interest or emotion of the spectator (the other pupils, taught in this way through observation) is in direct relationship to this sincerity. Masked and more intrepid in their movements, they become even more so in the subject and in the form of their is the first

improvisations. [...] In the mask exercises the

them

more

fully,

pupil discovers them and feels

and

they assimilate them more completely principles of movement which give form to

[referring to those the action]. The dramatic exercises with the masks reveal the dramatic action to the pupil in relation to themselves, or rather it reveals the pupils to themselves in relation to the dramatic action. As the most perfect state of dramatic representation is that of the most complete identification, it seems that the exercises put the pupil on the path towards dramatic truth from the very beginning. (Bing quoted in Copeau

1988:

293)

11

Already in the first year, after having become familiar with the neutral mask, the pupils dedicated themselves, amongst other things, to exercises in allegorical mime (on the themes of tiredness, hunger, fear, etc.), which would form the basis for improvisations and dramatisations in the coming years and which were also used in the work of Les Copiaus in Burgundy. Through group improvisations the pupils also worked on

character-types of the New Comedy (one of the fundamental objectives of Copeau’s

non-human

11

movement

and

on

the

also reprinted in the second critical anthology edited by (see Copeau 2009: 214 for the cited passage). The previously unpublished materials, which were first published in Italy in 1988, and then just partially edited in Volume VI of the Registres, are gathered in the School Exercises section (Copeau 2009: 207-23). These notes

are

Maria Ines Aliverti

research

as a

whole), also integrating the

mime studies with

phonetic and verbal exercises. All these exercises were connected with the study of Greek theatre and culture which the pupils were carrying out in various open courses under the guidance of Jouvet, Chennevière, and Copeau himself, and which resulted in the staging, for the end-of-year show, of a version of the myth of Psyche, collectively composed, acted, danced, and sung (Kusler Leigh 1979: 31-32). In the second year (1922-23), the Dramatic Training class (in connection with others, in particular Theory and Diction) continued the work on masks and mime and on dramatisations of fairy tales, myths, and proverbs. The most important projects concerned two fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty and, above all, Le Chant du Jeudi (Thursday’s Song), written in verse by Chennevière. Both projects incorporated what by this time according to Kusler Leigh (1979: 37) had become the basic concepts of the School’s doctrine: stylised movement (traditional French pantomime), masks, and rhythmic composition. The third and final year (1923-24) saw the apprentices engaged in developing the research on mime, masks, voice, grommelots, and the improvisations with character-types, through new, more complex exercises and 12 longer scenarios (Kusler Leigh 1979: 44). This work (also -

-

12 It is relevant to point out that Decroux, who arrived at the school in the autumn of 1923 and so could not take part directly in this work, was nonetheless allowed to follow it as an observer (Kusler Leigh 1979 : 44). He was instead part of the ‘Scenic Instruction group directed by Georges Vitray, for which lessons of gymnastics, choral singing, diction, declamation, and dramatic exercises were planned (1979: 40). Apart from Decroux’s account (on which I will have to make some clarifications), very little is known of the work actually carried out by this group. One can get an idea by reading the unpublished notes made by Vitray prior to the beginning of the courses: ‘(1) The use of masks to increase “consciouness of the body’s possibilities”; (2) “Putting oneself in a state of readiness”; (3) Continuity, direction of movement; the part of the body most affected leads the movement; (4) Developing a sense of timing and the shape of a scene through improvisations with two to four people, clearly establishing a beginning, climax, and conclusion; (5) A study of the relationship of parts of an action or improvisation “idea of dramatic construction”; (6) Mime and choral work stressing sensitivity to other actors’ space, and adherence to basic structure through games, charades, and stories as well as improvisation (in Kusler -

Leigh

1979 :

42).

used in

productions of the theatre, in particular for a danced interlude in Rene Benjamin’s play, Il Faut que chacun soit à sa place) converged in the two performance pieces which concluded Copeau’s pedagogical experiment at Vieux Colombier: they were, as already mentioned, the staging of the Noh drama Kantan and an anthology of various pieces presented as an end-of-year performance. Both had the new pupil Decroux as an admiring spectator. The episode regarding Kantan is well known, partly because of the importance attributed to it by Copeau himself, and also due to the judgements of illustrious spectators such as Harley Granville-Barker and André Gide, even though the latter was rather sceptical. It is not difficult to understand why Copeau and Bing were so fascinated by the reading of the Noh dramas in the English translation by Arthur Waley and the French version by Noël Peri, both published in 1921. As Bing wrote in her work diary, some

of the

Noh theatre appeared to us as the application of the musical, dramatic, and plastic studies with which we had nurtured our students for three years, to the point in which their various improvisations, the aim of these studies, were stylistically connected to Noh theatre more than to any other contemporary work, (quoted in Pronko 1967: 90; see also Copeau 2000: 392) As for

Copeau, this

‘why Noh?’

is how he answered the

in his Souvenirs

question

few years later: ‘Because this form is the most rigorous that we know and requires an exceptional technical training on the part of the interpreter’ a

(1931: 66); in other words, Japanese theatre was viewed as a challenge and as a formidable test of three years of intense teaching. The greatest difficulty Bing encountered during the staging consisted in finding French equivalents (beyond an As for Decroux’s account

(1939: 4-5), his adherence

to the type of work carried

out in the final year by the apprentices and at their final show is striking. It leads one to think that, reminiscing on the experience with Copeau after several years, Decroux might have ended up mixing together the activities of his group and those of the apprentices, which he followed I repeat only as an observer (see also -

Decroux 1939:

2-3).

-

artificial

impossible to create) for the rhythm of the Japanese language, and analogous equivalents for the declamation, singing, and music of Noh theatre (regarding which, the knowledge available in the West at that time was rather scarce). Concerning the acting more specifically, once again Bing’s notes come to our aid: caique,

it

was

The faces were neutral, the gestures were slow and solemn; a fine discretion, a pleasing control regulated the expression, to the point in which the simple gesture of the father who places his hand on the shoulder of the lost son produced an emotion intense enough to bring tears to the eyes. We cleansed our gestures. We made our postures noble, trying to create a melody of noble and beautiful poses, one generating the other in accordance with the logic of the drama, (quoted in Pronko 1967:

92)

Much less has been said, however, about the anthological end-of-year performance which the pupils proposed months later, in May, where they presented some of their mime-vocal compositions. This was perhaps ‘more

two

representative of the school’s style and development’ than the famous Kantan, and also a better precursor of the work which 13 Copeau’s group was to do later in Burgundy. Even Decroux, who in the above recollections does not distinguish between the two performances, when pressed by Kusler Leigh in 1971, on the one hand praised Kantan for its vocal research (‘the only time in my life when I felt the art of Diction ), yet on the other hand defined the pupils’ creations as ‘the most beautiful thing I have seen in the theatre’. He also acknowledged that in these dramatisations he had already caught sight of the principles that he was later to develop in his mime research (Kusler Leigh 1979: 48). 14

13

This

was

Jean Dasté’s opinion as expressed in a 1971

interview by Kusler

Leigh

(1979 : 48). 14

It is now time to clarify once and for all that contrary to what is believed and usually said (e.g. Leabhart 1989 : 31) the performance that Decroux speaks of in his 1939 text is not Kantan, but, of course, the later and much less famous end-of-year show. The dates: Decroux indicates June while it is certain that the dress rehearsal -

-

In order to create the dramatisations for this second

performance, the apprentices worked themes than the

expressive years at

means

on more

up-to-date

chosen beforehand, using all the experimented in the course of their three ones

the school: masks, movement, mime, rhythms, and and vocal sounds. Two of the creations, in particular,

physical caught the

attention of the spectators (Decroux included): Le Marin and La Guerre. These were almost exclusively mimed

pieces, with some sound and very few words (speech was only used in Le Marin). Here is the description by Parijanine, the critic of L'Humanité (15 May 1924), in the context of a wider article on the end-of-year show at the Vieux Colombier school: Jacques Copeau presented his pupils,

in their end-of-year show, friends of the Vieux Colombier. [...] Gymnastic exercises appear in the first section of the programme and are pushed as far as acrobatics. Lightly clothed young men and women, arms and legs nude, scamper across tables and chairs and do somersaults like kittens. Then they act the play. But they do not begin by speaking. First they have to learn how to make use of their four limbs and to express a feeling, for example, by bending a knee. They themselves are the inventors and

before

some

for Kantan took place on 24 March. It is true that, in any case, he makes a mistake because the end-of-year show was presented on 13 May. However, it is equally true that at a distance of fifteen years an error of one month is easier to explain than that of four months. As for Decroux’s description: (1) he remembers a performance ‘without a word’, but Kantan had a text, declaimed and sung by the pupils (which Decroux praised for the art of diction in an interview by Kusler Leigh); (2) ‘without any makeup, without costume, without lighting effects, without props, without furniture and without scenery’: but the staging of Kantan certainly used at least props and costumes because stagehands were needed (Japanese style) to help the actors in the changes (Kusler Leigh 1979 :47); (3) Decroux does not make any allusion to the slowness of the movements and the pauses (which struck all Kantan's spectators) and speaks instead of procedures of condensing time, which seem a far cry from the dilated rhythms of the Japanese performance; (4) the places of the cited action (battlefield and civilian settings, sea and city) coincide perfectly as we shall see with those of the two mimodramatic pieces of the end-of-year presentation (Le Marin and La Guerre) but not with those of Kantan. On the other hand, Dorcy (who, as an older pupil, ought to in some way have participated in both the ‘performances’ in question) writes very clearly about the end-of-year presentation: ‘At the commencement exercises of the A Section students, which Decroux was permitted to attend, the Mime was revealed to him’ (Dorcy 1961: 43). -

-

that we see them interpret, with a sound (few or no words) and incessant appeals to the complacency of the imagination. So in a little drama entitled Le Marin they mime the painful waiting of the wives on the shore, the impotence of the men, the return of the survivor and the recounting of the shipwreck. And they manage to communicate the terror of the ocean. In another piece, which they have called La Guerre, they represent the peaceful life of a family of workers interrupted by the terrible call of the drum. The enemy appears at a turn in the road ferocious, yet he too trembling from the terror of being discovered. A fight suddenly creators

of the small

minimum of props,

scenes

some

-

starts, in which we understand very well that the adversaries think more about defending themselves than attacking. But the father of the family is killed and his assassin moves off in horror at the involuntary crime. In the meantime the women, pushed by a premonition, wander the dark and silent countryside. And suddenly they catch sight of the corpse. And the bride cries for her man. We have understood, we have seen, even though there was nothing other than a stage made up of tables, without lighting effects and without any words at all. The end of the drama, which had started a little slowly, is very beautiful,

(quoted in Copeau

2000:

407-09)

This is how Copeau summed up the school’s in the Souvenirs:

methodology

The method develop the

ought to have allowed the pupils to naturally play instinct [instinct du jeu], limiting itself to encouraging them, providing them with footholds, giving them the means to express themselves according to their taste, their

imagination, their need for fun. First we made their bodies docile. Then, they passed progressively from gymnastics to the notion of internal rhythm, to music, dance, masked mime, words, elementary dramatic forms, conscious acting, scenic invention, and poetry. The teaching, uniform for everyone at the beginning, should have differentiated itself as personal tendencies revealed themselves within the choral unity. (Copeau 1931: 63) This excerpt represents the retrospective a

pedagogical project which,

and clear

in

reality,

was

statement

of

already present

Copeau from the mid-1910s, and therefore from the first, organic hypotheses of a theatre school and from to

the first related

practical experiments.

It

was a

progressive-

evolutionary conception which, starting from the deep, primary identity of theatre and children’s play, would allow the pupil to retrace, in ontogenetic terms, the principal stages of the phylogenetic evolution from ritual/play to poetic drama. This is very evident in the plan for the school, elaborated in 1916: The secret from which my method will be derived can perhaps be found in some intersection of gymnastics and natural play. In some moment of rhythmic expression, spoken expression will perhaps appear on its own, inevitably first and foremost the cry, the exclamation, and finally the word. At some stage of -

improvised play, the drama in its

(Copeau It is

1988:

acted improvisation, dramatic improvisation, novelty, in its luxuriance, will appear to us.

62)

against the backdrop of such

a

conception that

we

should re-read the programmes of the Vieux Colombier School, as

well

their openness towards the various disciplines of expression and education, plus the recognition of

as

physical rhythmic gymnastics and successively the Physical Culture of Hebert, as the keystone of the training method. The following is from the Vieux Colombier programme for La Locandiera (January 1924), printed on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the theatre, which would

soon

prove to

be the final year of the Parisian school: The

education of the body (musical, games of strength and skill), with a progressive initiation into craft skills (drawing, modelling, decorative art, costume and props), singing, both choral and solo, exercises in dramatic expression (mask-work, physical games, physiognomy, mimicry), then to improvisation (plastique and with dialogue), to elocution, diction and declamation, to general education and to dramatic theory (laws of dramatic expression, study of the great epochs, scenic arts and crafts). Ultimately, free play gives way to small-scale productions for which the pupils are left entirely to their own devices, as creators and workers.

teaching

is based

on

gymnastic, acrobatic, dancing,

(Copeau

1990:

46-47)

As for the

poetic and dramatic texts, Copeau’s project envisaged not starting from them but arriving at them, or more precisely returning to them, after having in some way

brought the actor back to a child-like state that is, after having recovered the aptitude for play (which for Copeau is the same as dramatic instinct in embryo) and the willingness to express without clichés and cabotinage, and after having remained ‘as long as possible in a state of freshness, if not -

innocence, in relation

to

oneself and the

art

that

must

be

practised’ (Copeau 1988: 60). In particular, from 1916, Copeau brought into focus the idea of temporarily taking the text away from the actor, substituting it perhaps with scenarios upon which they could be pushed to improvise, in order to give the text back later ‘when the pupil will have found the natural accent, the movement and enthusiasm of life’ (Copeau 1988: 63). As Odette Aslan wrote, ‘Copeau

bringing the actor back to the state of a child who does not yet speak [...]. This entails making him temporarily mute, forcing him to feel the internal need to

wanted

express

to

try

himself, and then

to express

himself with

means

words’(1974: 60): with the body, with the help of 15 music, shouting, dancing, miming, etc. It is therefore clear that the knowledge and experience of the human body, which the school ought to provide, does not constitute an end in itself for Copeau (and this marks the principal divergence between Decroux and his ex-teacher). In fact, according to Copeau, these two aspects should not other than

be directed towards the elaboration of an autonomous

or at

least as

15

prevalently physical expressive form. Rather, intended means, they ought to serve the actor’s access to the

This framework of evolving progression can be found at the root of almost all the other pedagogical and theatrical experiences which were, more or less directly, derived from that of the Vieux Colombier, starting from Dullin’s Atelier and the Burgundy school of Les Copiaus (Cruciani 1971 : 235-36), continuing with Chancerel, Saint-Denis and the Quinze, Daste, and then Barrault and Lecoq (but significantly not Decroux, as we shall see).

authenticity’ of dramatic interpretation, to an ideal condition of ‘sincerity’ which on the one hand constitutes the point of departure for the actor’s expression, a sort of pre-expressive condition, and on the other hand also represents the point of arrival for the interpretation as a synthesis of sensitivity and rationality, of passive abandonment to the role and of lucid, active control

(Cruciani

1971a:

186-90).

The American critic Waldo Frank

was one

of the first

who understood the

pedagogical and artistic project of those strange exercises and curious, almost silent dramatisations, which were presented by Copeau’s school at the end-ofprovoke ironic and perplexed published in 1925, Frank wrote that these exercises, primitive and elementary as they were, ‘go already beyond pantomime and diverge radically from the dance’ since they represent ‘a beginning of drama’ (Frank 1925: 589). He continues: year

shows, and which reactions. In

never

an

failed

to

article

Copeau seems to be proving what may one day appear a fundamental law in the revised theatre which we all expect; that the essence of drama is symphonic: that it exists unitarily in a single form of which body, body movement, body group and voice plasticity are ingredients; and of which the Word is a sort of constant zenith possessing the ideal, serene quality of a culmination.

In this

(1925: 589) text, the reference to

Copeau’s ambition of returning to the phylogenetic sources of a living theatrical expression becomes explicit when Frank speaks of an organic and physical genesis of the words and of the consequent same

necessity

—

when the link’ between words and their source’ ‘to go back, as has Copeau, to a fresh body-drama whence new luminous, fruitful

has been broken recreation of the

-

words may once again uprise’ (1925: 589). In the ‘Autobiography Relative to the Genesis of Corporeal

Mime’, after recognising that the

through physical at

movement

had

of representing purely already been discovered

art

the Vieux Colombier School, Decroux nevertheless adds

that: ‘This

study of mime was regarded by Jacques Copeau as but a small part of the study of spoken theatre’ (1948: 15). In effect, even if the page of the Souvenirs quoted earlier might suggest the opposite, Copeau never thought seriously about school that catered for future dancers, mimes, singers, etc. His objective had always been a multidisciplinary education,

a

whose unique intrinsic aim, however, had to be ‘that of preparing actors who could be an inspiring means for a modem dramatic

poet’ (Aliverti 1988: 290). Such a conception decidedly rejected the possibility of disassociating a particular aspect from the totality of the training, to the point of creating a separate artistic genre or a self-sufficient art from it (as Decroux tried to do with mime after he left Copeau). 16 Any excessive cult of specialisation and technique had always been extraneous to Copeau’s pedagogical project. This is what he wrote in his diary in August 1920, in the months immediately preceding the opening of the School: ‘The teaching that I want to give the pupils must not be a meeting 16 However, in 1916, discussing improvisation and eommedia dell arte with Jouvet, Copeau drifted into reflections which Decroux could well have proposed later as the manifesto of his autonomous endeavour (see Copeau 1988: 68 for an interesting and advanced definition of traditional French mime). Again in 1920 he seemed to admit the possibility that the evolving-type of education which he had in mind might develop in the direction of 'silent drama’ (mime) as well as 'spoken drama’ (1988: 84). Not to mention the section of the Souvenirs I have just referred to in the text: ‘according to individual inclinations, one person might have found themselves pushed towards music, another towards the invention of dialogue, someone towards improvisation, someone else towards acting and another towards directing, etc. So that when the group had finished developing, we were gratified to gather, germinated from the same general culture, soaked in the same spirit, nurtured by the same sap, like fruits from the same tree: the poet, the musician, the dancer, the mime, the protagonists and the chorus, all the craftspeople of the stage, all the servants of the drama’ (Copeau 1931: 63). All this should not surprise nor be considered contradictory; rather, it serves to explain how Decroux could have found a manifestation of the new mime (though embryonic) in the Vieux Colombier School. Evidently the theoretical and technical knowledge which was at the heart of the school, and through which the school was developed and enriched in considerable measure, would permit multiple possibilities and results, also in directions not personally recognised by the theatrical poetics and the dominant concerns of the patron. At the same time, however, see also Copeau’s illuminating retrospective reflection (1937) on the misunderstandings provoked by the organisation of his school, and the analysis of it further on in the current chapter.

in

point,

them, of diverse techniques.

It needs to be the result

general method’ (Copeau 1988: 76). A year later, when Copeau was officially launching the school, describing it in the brochure as ‘a technical school’ which ‘proposes to give its students a professional induction which is as methodological and complete as possible’ (Copeau 1990: 42), in the second

of one

and final Cahiers du Vieux Cobmbier -

he

was

-

dedicated to the school

also proposing ‘to break the excessive specialisation always limited the actor’ (Cruciani 1971a: 153).

which has

He affirms that actors should be educated not ‘in the

of their

and

practice

the refinement of their

speciality, technique [...]. Only a general culture will give them back the highest human qualities and the dignity to call themselves artists’ (quoted in Cruciani 1971a: 154). Copeau’s position on this became more rigid in the period following the closure of the Paris school (also because of the religious and populist character of his theatrical poetics), leading him to argue with his own Copiaus, guilty in his eyes of making performances which were too direct an expression of scholastic techniques not even in

and which remained, with their mimed, sung, and danced scenes, halfway between an exercise and a finished work. This

especially the case with Les Copiaus’s last two performances, La Danse de la ville et des champs (1928) and Les Jeunes Gens et l'araignée (1929), which contained amongst other things over twenty minutes of continuous pure mime (Gontard 1974: 212). In an article from 1937 reflecting on the new realities of the French theatre scene Copeau was able, with particular clarity and a hint of self-criticism, to return to the delicate was

-

-

question of the difference between means and ends more

precisely

between the

and Dramatic Art

means

in

theatre,

of the actor’s education

only, irreplaceable objective (Copeau 206-08). Why (self-)reflection? Because he came across theatrical approaches (e.g. those of the Compagnie des Quinze formed entirely of his ex-pupils, or the young JeanLouis Barrault) which he felt he could not accept without 1990:

as

its

this

(amongst other things for the excessive space they and gestuality) but towards which he knew he had some responsibilities. Hence Copeau’s necessity to once again clarify the intentions behind his decision to grant so reserve

gave to mime

much space in the Vieux Colombier School to the research corporeal expression and to wordless improvisation.

Copean recalls that the starting points had been his

‘surprise’

and

‘disgust’ regarding

on

own

the actor’s routine and lack

of a ‘serious education. As of

providing

the

actor

a reaction, this gave him the idea with ‘a total education, not only by

improving his mind and stimulating his imagination, but also by increasing and multiplying his physical pliancy through gymnastics, mimicry, rhythm and dance’ (Copeau 1990: 207). For Copeau it was never about ‘in any way diminishing the importance of words in dramatic action’. The objective had always been to work in a way that made, or rather returned, words

to

being ‘right, sincere, eloquent and dramatic’.

To

that end, necessary that the articulated

speech,

words, result from thought felt by the

actor in

the enunciated his whole body, and from the flowering of both his inner attitude and the bodily expression which translated it. (Copeau 1990: 207) it

was

This is the a

reason

that had

primordial importance’

upon

pushed him mimicry

to

confer

in the school’s

exercises, even making it ‘the basis for the training of the actor, for he must be above all else on the stage, the one who acts, the

personality

in motion. However, for him it had

always long periods pedagogy at Vieux Colombier had been ‘nothing else in its principles and researches but a school for physical interpretation’ that ‘these didactic explorations, meant to give the actor a new “poetics ”, did not represent for us anything but a restorative method [rafraîchissement], a step in his education, and not an end in itself’ (Copeau 1990:207). However, Copeau continues, what happened was that the young people he involved in this educational experience mistakenly believed that they been clear

-

even

in the

in which the

-

possessed ‘a complete art’ and that ‘this training confirmed them in the area of their discoveries at the edges of drama and dance’: I fought against this error for which I was, in part, responsible, but with no success. These young actors dreamed of nothing but the Japanese Noh and Cambodian dances. They envied the technique of the Jooss Ballet, of Meyerhold’s or Tairov’s Russian troupes, and that of the Russian inspired Palestinians. (Copeau 1990:

207-8)

He concludes that it is from this

‘excesses’ des

misunderstanding that the

derived, which his ex-pupils of the Compagnie later fell into, as did Jean-Louis Barrault, who

are

Quinze

from the

school and who

inspired by tendency, but who took its consequences even further because of his more perfect [refined] technique’ (1990: 208).

comes

the

same

was

same

All this does

not

take away from the importance of the

contribution (could we say, at this point,

perhaps involuntarily?)

by the

Copeau

the

Vieux Colombier School and

indeed Decroux himself

mime, repeating in the course of his new

as

to

the birth of

never

tired of

long career. I began this chapter

by recounting the acknowledgements of this contribution in Decroux’s writings from the 1930s and 1940s. Now I would like

towards the conclusion

by referring in more depth to the conversations gathered by his ex-pupil Thomas Leabhart in the mid-1970s. In one of these in particular, to move

dedicated

to

relationship own

on

came

which

the

over

successive research. Here Decroux focuses with

precision that

the theme of the mask, Decroux goes

between the Vieux Colombier School and his the

new

some

perspectives and technical contributions

from the exercises and the masked dramatisations

Copeau’s pupils carried

out in

the

early

also Decroux 6*): their faces, actors were (1) firstly, covering express themselves with the whole body; Decroux 1975: 39-40;

1920s

(see

see

pushed

to

(2) the pantomimic

convention of the gesture, which attempts to translate words, was completely passed over in

favour of

pre- and trans-verbal action,

expressively semantically autonomous; (3) there was work on the dynamic quality of the movement, on its rhythms and its intensities (it is at the Vieux Colombier that Decroux remembers having seen en fondu movements, ralentis, and explosive gestures followed by sudden stops, for a mute

and

the first time!;

(4) those exercises and dramatisations already contained discovery and a first, even if rudimental, use of the principle of a muscular and articular independence of the body, the

which became If

we

one

of the

cornerstones

add those points which

of the

can

new

mime.

be deduced from

Decroux’s 1939 text, we should be able to get a more complete picture of the technical characteristics of the ‘mime’ practised

Copeau’s school: (5) another fundamental principle of the future corporeal mime was already operational in the exercises and dramatisations of Suzanne Bing and the pupils. It was the raccourci, that is, the condensing of space-time, which radically broke with the two old classical unities (‘The development of the action was skilful enough for them to in

condense several hours into several

places the

(6)

in

only

one’

pupil-actors

enacted

a

few seconds, and

[Decroux

were

1939:

4]);

also authors ol the

scenes

which

at the (‘In rapid most the pupils made up a sketch which they performed on the spot’ [Decroux 1939: 4]), prefiguring Decroux’s mime artist as their own dramaturg.

they

consultation

to contain

a

—

three minutes

—

All this relates

the contributions, or at least the technical suggestions, of Copeau’s school. But there is more. As Leabhart himself has reiterated, almost all Decroux’s numbers and mime pieces found their distant origins in to

the exercises and dramatisations of the Vieux Colombier, incessantly reworked from then on (Leabhart 1989: 50). For

shall consider just two themes, the trades and the machine movements, which Decroux cites in the

now,

though,

we

recollections of 1939, and which are the basis of important creations from his repertoire: from Le Menuisier to La Lessive and

to

L'Usine

the other métiers to La Voiture

the choice of these

(professions), from

La Machine to

embourbée. It should also be said that

subjects on the part of Copeau and his collaborators is anything but casual. In fact, in the previously cited Journal of August 1920 (one of the absolute peaks of his reflections on education for the actor), Copeau provides concrete examples of what he intended as the ‘knowledge and experience of the human body’ which actors were usually lacking and which his pupils should instead acquire: he refers explicitly to the attitudes and movements of craftspeople and two

workers in the practice of their trades’. He points out that it is not enough to have observed them from the outside but that 17 experienced them for oneself’ (1988: 78). The same subjects return in the performances of Les Copiaus in Burgundy and, in particular, in the previously mentioned Danse de la ville et des champs (1928). In this performance, according to the recollections of Léon Chancerel, ‘young chorus members’ mimed work in the fields at the beginning of spring, becoming ploughs, harrows, wind, rain, lightning,

‘one needs

to

birds; made

have

trees appear

and hand gestures

before the spectators with just arm think of Les Arbres by

(how Decroux?); impersonated washerwomen (again Decroux’s La Lessive); and even transformed themselves into moving flames (Le Feu). They finally proposed ‘the depiction of the can we not

mechanisation of the city with the man-mechanisms which fit together on command and according to the rhythms imposed

by the brain-motor, under the turbine of the centrifugal 17 It should not be forgotten that all this is about themes (the trades, the gestures of the manual labourer and worker, the machine) which have fascinated generations of artists worldwide, in theatre and elsewhere, starting mainly from the second half of the nineteenth century' with the decisive affirmation of the industrial revolution.

regulator which dominates the whole [again La Machine and L'Usine]’ (quoted in Cruciani 1971a: 233—34). However, the decisive influence exercised by Copeau upon Decroux’s mime research goes well beyond the technical

acquisitions and the thematic suggestions that have been discussed so far. It is a greater and deeper contribution, ascribable to what I

see as

the three substantial and long-lived

acquisitions of Copeau’s research

in the years of the Vieux

Colombier theatre and its school:

(1) the creative actor at the centre of theatre; (2) the necessity of a school to provide the new actors with a complete education and enable them to adequately carry out their new tasks, through the attainment of a high and rigorous conception of their own craft, which must be ethical before being technical, as an ‘art in the most religiously serious sense of the word’

(Cruciani

1986:

23);

(3) the conviction that ‘the first stage of training is corporeal education: Repeating the practice with a great number of individuals has us to the conviction that, as drama is primarily action and, in its essence, a dance, the primordial operation of actors in their research for a technique is not intellectual, but physical, corporeal. (1927, in Copeau 1988: 96) led

These 18

three fundamental and irreversible acquifor Copeau himself (notwithstanding the shifts and were

sitions, involutions of the 1930s and

1940s), and above all for his pupils, who would make them the undeniable and undisputed basis of diverse (and often even divergent) theatrical journeys. The Copiaus, Michel Saint-Denis and the Compagnie des Quinze, Léon Chancerel and the Comédiens-Routiers, Jean

Dasté, Jean Dorcy and the

Proscenium group, and finally, Decroux. The latter would soon find himself in disagreement 18 These were, of course, assumptions largely shared by the great director-teachers of the first half of the twentieth century but which in Copeau’s tradition find themselves marked in an unmistakable way by the aesthetic ‘Jansenism’ of the patron.

with his ex-teacher

regarding fundamental questions, such as relationship and the relation between word and gesture, and in particular, the possibility of creating an art of representation through the movement of the body.

the actor-writer

1.4

and

Improvisation

'Plastics'

at

Dullin's Atelier

If the Vieux Colombier had been just a brief (if dazzling) experience for Decroux, his relationship with Charles Dullin and the Atelier lasted, in various ways, for over twenty years. Decroux arrived at the Atelier in 1926, after detaching himself from

Copeau’s group in Burgundy and after having already started working as a professional actor, first with Gaston Baty and then with Jouvet. He left the Atelier only in 1947 to dedicate himself

to

his

own

school and

to

the international

dissemination of mime. During these twenty years, Decroux was at first, between 1926 and 1933, an actor in the company and, when required, Dullins assistant director; after this

period he was almost continuously a collaborator of the school annexed to the theatre, in charge of the physical training, and later of the mime

courses.

long period coincides with the laborious, secret’ elaboration of corporeal mime, the codification of its grammar, and the first public presentations of examples of the new art form. Obviously, such a circumstance is not enough to This

make Decroux’s collaboration with Dullin and his stay at the Atelier an important or even decisive factor in the birth of

corporeal mime. The question to ask is if Dullin’s contribution goes beyond the objective (though not negligible) merit of allowing Decroux to carry out his research at the Atelier in full autonomy, when he was free from other duties within the company and the school. To this end it is necessary to

briefly take into consideration

the organisation of the Atelier school, its courses, and the space

physical disciplines (mime techniques in particular), which in turn entails a quick look at Dullin’s conceptions of actor training, and more specifically, the physical education given

to

of the

actor.

The first thing to say is that the Atelier underwent essential transformations in the course of its long existence between year of its foundation by Dullin, together with the company, in a deeply Copeau-like gesture) and 1949 (the year 1921

(the

of Dullin s death, just Through the years it

a

few months after that of Copeau). 19

gained

higher and

a

more

important

scope than that which Dullin considered ideal for truly fruitful pedagogic-creative work. Right from the beginning,

the

(as

physical training in all the

new

was

very much part of the curriculum

theatre schools which had

in

Europe

in that

programme

printed

in autumn

opening

period).

opened

1921, which indicates the

division of the students into three groups: (1) preparatory classes: two improvisation a

courses,

mechanical diction course, two rhythmic gymnastics courses;

(2)

Year

gymnastics a

or were

This is evident in the

1:

an

improvisation

courses, a

diction

course,

course, two

theory course; (3) Year 2: proposed launch of

new

rhythmic

two

acting

courses

courses,

of dance,

mime, and staging. As for mimicry in course was

of. Nor

particular, we do not know the year the effectively started, or what it specifically consisted

are we

able

Decroux’s arrival above back

though,

we

to say if its launch can be connected to the Atelier in 1926. From the programme can see that the intention of starting it goes

at

the opening of the school. The information published in the school’s brochures, or in the little Correspondance to

magazine (which was issued between 1928 and 1932), is always very succinct and says little

or

nothing about the subjects and

19 The death of its founder and tireless leader did not however lead to the closure of the Atelier, which survived him thanks to the efforts of Lucien Amaud.

the teachers of the various

chapter, thanks

to

courses.

Barrault

we

As

we

will

see

in the next

know that Decroux tried

recruit mime students from the Atelier at the

to

of the

beginning already part of Dullin’s teaching staff or if as is more probable this activity took place at the margins of the actual school. According to Surel-Tupin (1985: 239), Decroux taught at the Atelier from 1935, in conjunction with an upgrade and enhancement of the courses. The teaching week was organised as follows: Mondays were devoted to improvisation under the direction of Sokoloff, a pupil of Stanislavski; on Tuesdays, Marcelle Jeanniot (Dullin’s wife) held the course on modem theatre; Wednesdays were dedicated to diction under the guidance of Lucien Amaud; the physical training was concentrated on Thursdays and was divided between Hebertism (the method already followed at the Vieux Colombier School) and Decroux’s teaching (about which nothing more is known); on Fridays, Sokoloff again directed the acting course; and on Saturdays 1930s, but once again we do

not

know if he

was

-

-

the week concluded with Dullin’s With the Atelier’s

move to

course on

the classics.

Theatre Sarah Bernhardt in

1941, the school underwent a reorganisation. The direction taken on by Lucien Amaud, who also took on the courses

was

of acting, improvisation, and diction. The teaching of mime was entrusted Courses

to Decroux

on

and that of music

to

Alfred Abondance.

fencing and classical ballet were also offered. The

included Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone Jollivet (these last two employed, until 1944, to teach theory courses) (Surel-Tupin

teaching

team

1985: 240, 236; Arnaud 1952:

119).

Regarding Dullin’s conception of the actor’s physical eduexpression, we can begin by referring to SurelTupin’s observation on improvisation in general: ‘fascinating though it may be, it is none other, for Dullin, than a simple method of preparation’ (1985: 230). Surel-Tupin also refers to cation and

a statement

from 1935: ‘art is the opposite of improvisation,

but improvisation

as a

form of gymnastics

might lead

to

art’

(1985: 230). complete and articulate of Dullin’s theoretical regarding the question of actor training is certainly ‘Advice to a Young Pupil’, published in 1946 in the volume Souvenirs et notes de travail d'un acteur. Reading this text leaves no doubt about the merely instrumental view that Dullin had of physical expression in theatre. It also reveals rather conventional ideas on the subject of pantomime and gestuality, which were by then somewhat out of date. Moreover, the ‘Advice’ appears much more significant (even in negative terms) if we consider that, unlike Copeau’s programmatic texts, it represents the summing up of a long The

most

texts

experience which

way has to take into account the many years of work carried out by Decroux at the Atelier (or at its margins) as well as the new artistic proposal that had in

some

stemmed from it in the meantime. It is useful, extensively from this text:

then,

to

quote

Yes, improvisation is by far the best training for the acquisition of a gestuality in theatre. [...] The gestuality that suits dance does not suit theatre any more than the art of the singer suits the actor. Thus we arrive at the art of pantomime. Yet we must remain on the level of theatre, to not lose ourselves in a mix of genres. Pantomime has its laws, its rules; it has to express everything through gesture; it can and it must also, like dance, be composed of external aspects; it is the whole drama. In theatre, gestuality is at the service of the interior drama; its quality and its uniqueness depend upon a judicious respect for this nuance. To obtain this result, I repeat, the pupil must undertake, in parallel,

physical training: ballet, tap, fencing, pure pantomime. This training should be the equivalent of mechanical diction lessons, its serves to prepare them, to make them agile: it is a means not an end. (Dullin 1946: 177-79) a

This is

key excerpt which brings together the two points one hand, we have the purely instrumental use of disciplines of the body and physical forms a

I mentioned earlier. On the

of expression. On the other hand,

we

find

an

interesting

distinction between the

gestuality of actors, dancers, and rigid separation of genres, according to which dance and pantomime are still seen as the product of conventional gestures (rigidly codified, and therefore external) while ‘in theatre gestuality is at the service of the interior drama’. It is probably inappropriate, as well as unfair, to judge this conception as outdated in the mid-1940s. However, by that time, Decroux’s (and Barrault’s) corporeal mime was already a complete and well-known reality in Paris. In any case, there is a striking contrast between the ideas of Dullin and the extremely advanced ones (predating Decroux) which Copeau had elaborated on the subject of pantomime from mime artists based

1916

onwards,

on a

in the

with Jouvet.20 This reductive and

course

of the aforementioned debate

genre-based consideration of corporeal

expression becomes more accentuated during Dullin’s later years, together with a growing scepticism about his old conviction that the ‘actor’s

training that

regeneration would also take place

possible. Dullin not only might by physical and vocal training not be enough to form good actors but it could even be damaging insofar as it might jeopardise the possibility of recognising what is essential in the craft. In a page of his Cahier personnel, kept between 1944 and 1947, through

a

was ever more

we

find this

was as

tormented

complete

as

his doubt that

note:

One has to choose between

becoming

In the kind of education

a

mime-actor-singer

have looked for, in create too we neglected the to often actors, complete trying essential to the advantage of this or that speciality. I remember, at the point in which Copeau’s school closed, having accepted actors who knew a huge amount of things, except for the actor’s craft, (cf. Surel-Tupin 1985: 240) or

playwright.

After

so many years there is still in Dullin’s words; but we have

20

See footnote 16 in this

chapter.

an

we

echo of old

seen

how

disagreements Copeau’s position

had for too

some

time become

(or perhaps it had always been) not

dissimilar from that of his

ex-actor. Even

Copeau had very

distanced himself from any excessive enthusiasm for physical techniques as well as any form of specialist division. soon

The pages from Dullin’s text which I have referred to belong to the chapter of his ‘Advice’ dedicated to improvisation, the theme

to

This is

a

which Dullin’s

common

prolific contribution

is linked.

thread which connects the diverse

moments

most

of Dullin’s creative and formative experimentation at the Atelier, and within which lies the intimate reason behind the

high pedagogical (and universally recognised) value of his doing as an actor and his being an actor. The motivating impulse which pushed Dullin towards the choice of improvisation a

creative

It is the

propaedeutics awareness

is

training method and basically the same as for Copeau. as

a

that the actor’s

true enemies

(once

liberated from the opposite danger of amateurism) lie in routine and cabotinage, that is, in ‘insincerity’ (Dullin 1946:

Seragnoli summarises well, ‘the task assigned to improvisation is, consequently, extremely precise: to support the conquest of sincerity through self-knowledge and a long process of self-control’ (1986:213). Dullin therefore identified 163).

As

improvisation

recognised ‘actor

=

as

the tool which Copeau believed he had play = theatre’ and

in the double identification

child’, and

in

a set

of

physical-musical methods

considered capable of reactivating these original identities, in order to bring the actor back to an initial state of instinctive childlike

play.

All this seemed quite clear to Dullin, from at least 1921 (as he was about to begin the Atelier adventure), when he wrote

develop a good actor, it is necessary to take away the safety-net of a tradition, a model to imitate, and a secure text to rest upon: ‘I try to develop the dramatic instinct in them [the pupils] through improvisation. Instead of working on written texts, they work on emotions’ (from a letter dated 1922, in that,

to

21 Surel-Tupin 1985: 219). At the end of his long artistic and pedagogic career, in his Advice, Dullin attempts to theorise the notion of improvisation as methodically as possible, trying to find within it the right place for a great variety of exercises devised in many years of work with actors and pupils:

When talking about improvisation one immediately thinks of Commedia dell’Arte; now, what I mean by improvisation is not the modem renewal of this lost art, but a living method of teaching the theory and practice of dramatic acting, and benefitting the development of each pupil’s personality. Current theatre teaching is for the most part based on mimesis; the pupil imitates the teacher and the older pupils, and in this way falls into artificiality and conventionality. Improvisation obliges the pupil to discover their own expressive means.

(Dullin

1946:

173)

According to Dullin, to help the actor-pupil to take the opposite path from the usual one of imitation and exterior virtuosity,

it is necessary to do

which makes

virginal to ‘feel an

a

pupils

a

condition of

kind of preparatory work tabula rasa, bringing them back to a

availability.

It

means

helping them

emotion before trying to express it, watch and see before trying to describe what has been seen, listen and hear before answering the interlocutor’ (Dullin 1946: 173). In

other words, it is about putting the external world back in communication with the inner world, our ability to perceive and express the external

(that which

is outside

us) with the

ability to perceive (hear) and express that which is inside us. ‘expression, Dullin continues, is bom from the meeting between the ‘voice of the world’ and ‘our own voice’, according to a two-part binary process: The

One

can

immediately observe that improvisation

is

binary

in its

and consequently in its practical application, because of this double current which comes from inside the individual (our own voice) and from things connected to the outside world essence,

21

This was substantially the expedient, already projected by Copeau, of the temporary removal of the text from the pupil-actor.

(voice of the world), which, meeting the internal and individual countercurrent, stimulates it, fertilises it and at the same time crystallises it. At a certain moment comes the synthesis, and it is then that one can pass to the practical application of expression which, let us remind ourselves, is an operation implemented in two

parts.

Improvisation is therefore an action performed in two parts: imagining of the highest possible order; in the second part, expressing with the maximum possible force. This action is itself indicative of a binary character in demanding: A. a research of oneself; B. confronting this oneself with the external world. (Dullin in the first part,

1946:

174)

Further ahead

we

will be able

to

appreciate better the

importance of these reflections,

corporeal

mime.

However,

it is

especially in relation to slightly peculiar to read (in

the testimonies of ex-collaborators like Lucien Arnaud, or ex-pupils such as Artaud and Barrault, as well as in his own

writings) the kinds of exercises created or adapted by Dullin, already knowing the future that most of them would have later on, not only in theatre workshops but, in particular, within mime schools. For example, the ‘observation exercises’ (already present in Stanislavski’s work), and exercises such as the ‘discovery of the world’, imitation of animals (with half-masks), and identification with natural elements, which 22 we can find, identically, in Jacques Lecoq’s teaching. The same goes for the walking exercises (‘as for gait, I can declare that there is not even one beginner who knows how to walk on stage’ [Dullin 1946: 175]), which for decades have 22

In reality, readers will remember encountering exercises similar to these in the previous pages: they are those devised by the Vieux Colombier School (for example, the animal imitations described in section 1.3 above) and then picked up and developed by Les Copiaus both on a pedagogical level and within the performances (in particular in the Dame de la ville et des champs, with the actor-mimes who become trees, ploughs, fires, rain, sun, machinery, and so on). The links between

the exercises in use at the Vieux Colombier and those which in the same years were established at the Atelier by Copeau’s ex-actor (who had left the company in 1919 during the American tour) are still to be investigated in detail.

constituted the ABC of any mime training, 23 or the exercise of fording a mountain stream, which also has a long history. Dullin himself remembers

having noted in his work diary that it was carried out for the first time by Antonin Artaud and Marguerite Jamois, at the beginning of the 1920s, and that it was revived later by Barrault (1946: 180); it is probable that this constitutes the archetype, so to speak, of the Marche dans l'ean, Marceau’s classic ‘style pantomime’ (pantomime de style). As said

at the beginning of this section, an evaluation of Dullin’s real influence over the elaboration of corporeal mime

is very controversial. On the

one

hand, there

is

a

silence

or an

the part of strict observers of

explicitly negative judgement Copeau’s practices: ‘contrary to what has often been asserted, Charles Dullin contributed nothing to the development of modern mime’, writes for example Dorcy (1961: 38), for whom Dullin’s plastique was nothing other than ‘little sketches of jeu, ‘corporeal pretensions’. On the other hand, on

find enthusiastic recognitions, in no uncertain terms, on the part of two of his ex-students who undoubtedly counted

we

for

examining: Barrault and Marceau. Nevertheless, both agree in pointing out that the most fertile legacy of Dullin’s experience lay not so much

something

in the events

we are

generalised theoretical-technical elaborations but in his way of working as an actor, of being an actor on stage and in in

rehearsals. In Réflexions sur le théâtre, Barrault writes that for him the most instructive thing was ‘to watch Charles Dullin at work’

(1949:17). In Souvenirs pour demain, he adds that at the Atelier ‘the really fascinating moments were the rehearsals’, where Dullin communicated almost without speaking (1972: 23

Further ahead I will touch upon the effort that Decroux and Barrault put into the codification, in the early 1930s, of the marches and, in particular, the marche sur place (walking on the spot). Indeed, all the great theatre teachers of the twentieth century agree on the fundamental importance of the way of walking on stage, starting from Stanislavski, who dedicated very interesting pages to the theme in The Actor’s Work (see Stanislavski 2008).

56). Similarly Marceau (who arrived at the Atelier in 1944), after having included Dullin in his triad of masters alongside Decroux and Chaplin, finds nothing better to recall about the great actor’s teaching than the powerful emotion he felt whilst watching Dullin s prodigious interpretation of Volpone, in particular the final scene (Marceau 1987: 89). Dorcy’s opinion on Dullin’s ‘plastics’ is probably too harsh and dismissive; nevertheless it does have a number of facts on its side. Firstly, there is Dullin’s already mentioned aversion towards any

the

hyper-specialisation on the part of detract from one’s overall education.

which

might Secondly, there is the impossibility for his company to develop the experimentation of the early years due to production commitments ( I am persuaded’, Dullin admits in 1930, that if we could have had the means to proceed actor

with

our

first studies,

would have gone much further expression [Arnaud 1952: 188]). This

in terms of dramatic

inevitably produced

we

divergence between the work

a

theatre and that in the school which did

not

in the

benefit either,

and made the

productive benefits and repercussions of the individual circumstance, left to the initiative of

learning an single actors, more than something planned and systematic. Finally, we should consider the reductive (and very cautious) way in which Dullin used the new expressive techniques in his performances, in particular those which he termed plastics’. For him it was about, on the one hand, ‘finding rhythmic movements which plastically underline the text’

and, on the other hand, managing to ‘extract a great variety of expression from a small number of actors’ (Surel-Tupin 1985:

103-04). A few

(1928), in which Dullin tried to pick out the essential elements that characterise the movements of the animals (‘the to use

examples:

Les Oiseaux

all the work of the school

silhouettes of the birds and groups

are

are

formed

patterns’ [Surel-Tupin

drawn, picturesque and strange,

according to incessantly renewed 104]); La Paix (1932), which was

1985:

striking because of the

(a critic wrote: ‘whether the groups are in movement or immobile, sitting, lying down or embracing each other, singing, shouting or in silence, they are always alive, exciting or entertaining, without any superfluous gestures’ [Surel-Tupin 1985: 104]); the opera Médée (1944), which offered Dullin the chance to ‘study plastic expression in a new way’, also thanks to his collaboration with the choreographer Serge Lifar (curiously Simone de Beauvoir spoke of‘movements which are more akin to mime than dance’ [Surel-Tupin 1985: 104]); and finally Les Mouches (1943), an example of Dullin’s late tendency towards a more accentuated stylisation of postures and movements (‘the silhouettes of the actors, transformed by masks, seem like strange little figures assuming accurately studied poses assembled in naive and decoratively sketched tableaux’ [Surel-Tupin 1985: 104]). I believe these examples will suffice to get a sense of how Dullin’s use of corporeal expression, rather than renewing or making the most of the actor’s creative possibilities, increasingly aimed instead towards the spectacular. As he himself said in 1947, the aim was to give the performance back all its visual value’ (Surel-Tupin 1979*: 360), complying with ’that need for action, sense of rhythm, and taste for plasticity which characterises our epoque’ (text from 1930, quoted in Amaud 1952: 189). Therefore it is not so surprising that, on this level, Dullin was not able to go much beyond the ‘physical pretensions’ that Dorcy chastises him about, and that these were often cited as examples of those ‘director’s expedients’ against which Dullin himself had more than once voiced his disapproval. Furthermore, it is not the first time (and it will not be the last) that we see corporeal expression regress from a possible keystone of ‘a regeneration of the actor’ (to use Dullin’s words from the 1921 manifesto) to an additional ingredient in the staging, and just another skill of the actor and director. This had already happened with Les Copiaus and the Quinze; we will see it again with Jean-Louis Barrault, whose proposal of a total theatre will effectively group

scenes

become the forerunner, from the mid-1940s onwards, of this eclectic-spectacular line. If

we now return to

Decroux

paid

follows the

to

ones

the

(rather belated) tribute which

his old patron in 1974, we realise that it by Barrault and Marceau. In fact, Decroux

recognises that Dullin had refined him CDullin took

me

in

and had instructed and

completely rudimentary form) (as a prose actor) above all through example, and stage during rehearsals:

a

trained him

on

He showed me what it was to give my all, and he kept me from overshooting the mark. He tried to give me what is called good taste the taste for just enough, while still having passion. How 24 exciting it was to work with him! (Decroux 1974: 14) -

However, he soon adds the already mentioned point about the primacy of the influence of the Vieux Colombier and Jouvet on corporeal mime, when it comes to the doctrine, the ‘idea’, and the

‘style’.

Another merit which Decroux attributes to Dullin in this instance

concerns

the

extreme openness

towards his mime

research, which Dullin supported in every way without any envy, even though he was always somewhat diffident towards

Talking about this diffidence, it is worth concluding with an enjoyable anecdote which Decroux told in 1980 on the it.

24

Leabhart confirms this when he writes that: ‘Decroux admired Dullin’s acting, and found him exciting to work with. A photograph of Charles Dullin in Les Frères Karamazov at the Theatre des Arts in Paris in 1911 gives some indication of why Decroux was so enthusiastic. The intensity of Dullin’s acting is evident in the whole body. Several hallmarks of the technique that would later be known as corporeal mime can be seen in it. The weight is thrust forward onto one leg: a plumb-line dropped from the centre of the trunk would cut the ankle, showing a forward gravity that is one kind of counterweight. The diagonal line from top of head to tip of left foot would be called a “heroic diagonal” by art historian Kenneth Clark: this is the diagonal Decroux noticed as typical of statues which date from the period of the French revolution as well as other periods of political and physical engagement. Decroux saw in it the line of a body which risks itself. The independent and clear movement of the eyes adds to the crispness and clarity of line. The stance is an actor’s choice, not chance. This choice is infused with a dynamic; it is not just a pretty statue. We can see in this photo what moved the young Decroux as well as the more experienced Copeau to enthusiastic praise of Dullin’s acting’ (Leabhart 1989 : 38).

occasion of a its anecdotal a

better

speech

on

Dullin and the Atelier. Even within

limits, this small episode

understanding

not

only gives us relationship

of the ambivalence of the

that united Dullin and Decroux for

so

long and

in various

capacities, but it is also a further confirmation of that moderate attitude which Dullin always displayed in his choice of solutions for the stage, in

particular in the use of corporeal expression, notwithstanding the increasingly strong call of the spectacular. We are at the Atelier during the rehearsals for Aristophanes’ Peace in autumn 1932. Amongst other things, Decroux had been given the small part of a winged insect (a beetle) which at a certain point should fly off with Dullin-Trigeo on his back. Decroux became very angry when he found out that this flight was going to be resolved ‘realistically’ through a wire

pulled from the flies: ‘although I was young, both in age and in the profession, carried away by my indignation I dared say to Dullin that to give the idea of lifting into the air, it was possible to remain on the ground while I acted the flight through undulating my arms. He accepted’ (Decroux 1980: 167). The next day, the patron had second thoughts and there was a new

clash:

Your idea from

yesterday does not work... because it is abstract’ oh Dullin saying ‘abstract’! ‘Anyway, we have to go back to the wire’. He saw my face, beyond delusion, accusing him of ‘moderatism’. He counterattacked: ‘Also, the ancient Greeks themselves had stage machinery’. I objected: ‘It wasn’t for this reason that they made History’. My response came so quickly and its tone was so calm as to appear insolent. It was too much. So, with that unexpected force which his modest voice sometimes had, he exploded: Ah, you’re getting on my nerves!’

-

(Decroux Third

1980:

167)

day, third exchange and one final compromise:

me to one side: ‘Listen, we can do something. The wire, ll get rid of it; let’s go back to your idea; but mind you, not completely. This is how we could sort it out. On stage we put

He took

we

we’ll see. I’ll mount you like horse and you, with your feet still on the ground, start your arm movements. After this, it will go dark and thunder will be heard in the darkness. In the meantime you’ll go up two steps. When the lights come back on the spectators will already find us a bit higher, until we arrive at the top, and that is up in the air. [...] Do you like it?’. ‘Yes, I like it’. And that is what we did. a

ladder; with how many steps?

...

a

(1980: 167-68) It is worth also

quoting the end of Decroux’s tale:

the doctrinarian in me and this horrified him; and for he was impressed. He knew me to be an ‘anar’ [anarchist] and still believed himself to be one as well. He loved me and he hated me and, then, he re-loved me. I too loved him and hated him. To end up re-loving him. (1980: 168) He

saw

the

same reason

2

Decroux and Barrault

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613-4

'Cutting

off the Theatre's Right Hand'

2.1

1931

the

was a

events

very

relating

year his first mime a

stand-alone

year in Decroux’s

important to

career

the birth of corporeal mime. It

number, La

performance

on

Vie 13

of his wife Suzanne Lodieu. It

and in

was

the

primitive, was presented in June with the participation

was

also the year of his first

theoretical text, published in the journal Gestes et Jeux, distributed by the Proscenium group, directed by Jean Dorcy. Above all, this

the year of the arrival at the Atelier of the twenty-year-old Jean-Louis Barrault, and the beginning of his was

close association with Decroux, which would last almost two according to Barrault’s own years and at the end of which -

declaration

-

It should

‘mime had been born

immediately

(Dorcy

80). everything

1958:

be said that almost

we

know about the Decroux-Barrault collaboration between 1931 and 1933 is due to

books: demain

particular to two of his le théâtre (1949) and Souvenirs pour Barrault,

in

Réflexions sur (1972) At the same time, before resorting to Barrault’s .

evidence,

it is useful to try to understand the point that by the start of the 1930s in his practical

Decroux had reached

and theoretical elaboration of physical expression and mime, and more generally, his ideas about theatre.

Unfortunately we know very little about his work on mime

before

1931. There is

no

mention of it in his

book, which

generally sparing with biographical dates, and the

is

two most

accredited historians of the'genre’, Dorcy and Lorelle, only touch on it. The little information we have on Decroux’s work for the

period following his separation from Copeau’s group tells us about his work as a professional actor with Baty and Jouvet Dorcy,

in 1925, and then with

Dullin; his participation, with

in the activities of

semi-professional yet politically such as Une Graine and Premices (which he engaged groups himself would later judge as ‘on the level of amateur socialist propaganda’ [Decroux

1939:

3]); the collaboration with Artaud

Decroux and Barrault

the Théâtre Alfred Jarry in 1928; 1 a project with a mime company that same year; and the decision, once this attempt had failed, to dedicate himself to work alone, with his wife’s at

help,

on

La Vie

primitive.

2

As for the work with Dullin’s

company, in 1930—31 Decroux came to the attention of the critics as an actor already possessed of a strong personality

and

original and rigorous style, interpreting Sancho Panza Quichotte by P.Frondaie (October 1930), and Trotsky in Tsar Lénine by F. Porché (October 1931). Introducing the memory of Decroux in his Souvenirs, Barrault an

in Le Fils de Don

writes that when he arrived at the

‘there was

one

[...] who

Atelier, amongst the

always stylised

his part and

as

actors

good as

danced it’

(1972: 56). Luckily we are now able to get a standing of the ideas on theatre and

precise under-

more

actors

that the still-

in those years,

by reading his first article which, thirty years later, he thought was worth including in Paroles sur le mime. Dated 1931, ‘My Definition

young Decroux

was

maturing

of Theatre’ is the oldest piece in the entire collection before the aforementioned recollections of Copeau’s school, which date from 1939. It is

a

very

important

text

for

us

(and not only

historical point of view), even if the word ‘mime’ (or 'body') is never mentioned. Yet, if we knew the Decroux of that

from

a

1 Decroux took part in particular in the staging of the third production of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry, Strindberg's A Dream Play (which ran in matinees only on 2 and 9 June at the Théâtre de 1’Avenue), interpreting the part of the quarantine inspector a handwritten note by Artaud praises ‘Mr Beauchamp and Mr Decroux who have composed solid silhouettes’ (Oeuvres Complètes, II, 270, n. 28). In an interview by Odette and Alain Virmaux in 1968, Decroux recounted some vivacious (even if not always very precise) anecdotes about A Dream Play, with the protests of Breton and companions, the police raid, etc. He also remembers that, in 1935, Artaud had offered him a part in The Cenci, but he had refused it. As for the relations between their respective theatrical visions, Decroux declared on that occasion that theirs had been a ‘dialogue of the deaf’, because ‘the theatre for me is primarily the actor; for Artaud it was first and foremost the staging’ (Virmaux and Virmaux 1986 : 161). 2 It is Dorcy again who tells us this, adding however that La Vie primitive ‘was not yet the Mime’ (1961 : 53). As already noted, Barrault appeared in the second version of La Vie primitive and in the new number La Vie médiévale (or La Vie artisanale) in the autumn of 1931. -

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

time

purely through this article

Laboratory

it would

perhaps be difficult

imagine the ambitious mimo-dramatic project which he had been undertaking with great tenacity for several years, and to

of which he would show the first results just a few months later (the article came out in January 1931, and his first mime

performance took place in June of that same year). It might ‘only’ seem to be the ironic reflections of an intelligent and disenchanted actor, substantially unhappy with the theatre context in which he worked (like many others who, coming from the experience with Copeau, had to then adjust themselves to what was available in order to earn a living). However, if placed in relation to the incomplete information about Decroux from those years, and above all if read in the light of the successive elaboration of his praxis, this article becomes much

more

significant, revealing implications previously imperceptible first glance. Adopting that sarcastic and paradoxical tone which later became typical of his way of writing and speaking, here Decroux proposes his own definition of theatre, adding a project of radical reform to it as a logical consequence. The definition. Using a procedure to which many great theatre ‘revolutionaries’ also resorted, 3 in particular Grotowski (1968: 31-33), Decroux translates a historical at

realisation into

(from painting the

art

of the

a

to

theoretical definition: unlike other

architecture, music, and

actor is

the

only

as a

which has

one

consequence it is the necessary to it.

theatre,

even

only

one

arts

literature),

never

which is

failed

truly

We have seen above all and this is decisive that the actor is the only artist eternally present in the theatre. Such a statement eliminates all the other arts. -

3

One

can

read, for example, what Meyerhold

programme of the courses of the

of Three Oranges: ‘having

-

wrote in 1914,

presenting the

Borodinskaya Street Studio in his journal The Love

removed the word and the costume from the actor, the stage, the theatre building and the wings, leaving only the actor and the movements he has been trained in, the theatre will remain anyway: the actor will communicate thoughts to the spectator through movements, gestures, miming’ (Solivetti 1976 : 36).

Indeed, a definition contains no properties other than the essential, and the essential is without exception the vital property of a thing. Since all the arts except that of the actor have suspended their services, at least for an instant, none other is the essential of theatre. Put another way: none can be included in its definition. That leaves us to find logical form of this definition, which we shall express in substance as follows: Theatre is the actor art. [English translator's note: Decroux's original l'art d’acteur is as awkward in French as ‘the actor art’ is in

English.] (Decroux

1931:

25-26)

4

In this way the advocates of theatre as a are taught a lesson. Decroux adds,

arts’

that this does

not mean

that

anything

ipso facto, be forbidden. What it

means

other elements in function of the

synthesis of the condescendingly,

not

is to

essential should, always use these

only element that

is

really

necessary: the art of the actor. Yet if this is what theatre is (or rather should be), then, according to Decroux, we can

observe the

a

general disconnect between this definition and

reality: the

arts not

essential

to

theatre have taken

over

the actors’ territory, forcing the latter to feel like unwelcome guests in their own home. There is therefore an urgent need for of

a

a

reform that puts things in order, reaffirming the rights 5 ‘pure theatre’, which the art of the actor can achieve.

It is in this

turning point of Decroux’s argument that the

fundamental

reason

existence to the

4

which

pushed him to dedicate his entire actor clearly emerges: that which

study of the

See also the conference

on

Craig which I will be discussing extensively further on

It is necessary to clarify that the definition which Grotowski arrived at is similar but not identical to Decroux’s because it includes the spectator

(Decroux 1947a: 5-11).

as well: ‘We can thus define the theatre as “what takes place between the spectator and actor”’ (Grotowski 1968 : 32). See Chapter 6 for the difficulty that the decision to exclude the spectator from his research created for Decroux. 5 It is interesting to note that the expression pure theatre’, used twice by Decroux in this article, would recur repeatedly in Artaud’s article on Balinese theatre, written just a few months later in October 1931. Amongst other things we read that ‘the Balinese produce the idea of pure theatre with the greatest exactness, where everything in concept and production is valued and only exists through the degree of its objectification on stage' (Artaud 1931: 36).

appeared to him

as

the

only indispensable element in theatre that point the most neglected (and the

had also been up

to

least

in Western theatre.

investigated)

Decroux's

article-manifesto

concludes

with

the

presentation of a thirty-year project of reform with the aim of cleansing the theatre of the accumulated non-essential (and

damaging) elements which suffocate its vitality, and allow their correct reintroduction after an adequate

therefore also

to

period of ‘exile’. Here is the

remedy: period of thirty years, the proscription of every alien art. We shall replace the drawing-room setting with the setting of the theatre itself, our intention being solely to provide a background for all imaginable actions, [clear reference to the 1. For

a

Vieux Colombier fixed

set]

2. For the first ten years of this

thirty year period: proscription

of any elevation on stage, such as stools, staircases, terraces, balconies, etc. The actor will have to give the impression that he is higher and his partner lower, when in reality they are side by side, [here we find a sketch of one of the key principles of mime, already applied by the pupils at the Vieux Colombier School: to suggest with only the body, elements or situations that are absent, not visible, or perhaps in contrast with what is actually seen] Later, the authorisation of certain forms of elevation on the condition that they create even greater challenges for the actor.

[Appia, Copeau’s contrainte] 3. For the first twenty years of this

thirty-year period: the of vocal sound. any proscription Later, the acceptance of inarticulate cries for five years, [probable allusion to the exercises of grommelotage which were practised at the Vieux Colombier School and were reused by the Copiaus and the Compagnie des Quinze] Finally, words accepted for the last five years of the thirty year period, but invented by the actor. 4. After this in the

period of war: stability. Plays shall be composed

following order:

Rough outline of the written action serving as a basis for work. B. The actor miming his action, then accompanying it with inarticulate sounds, then improvising his text. A.

C. Introduction of a

dramaturg [littérateur] to translate the choice language, without adding a word. D. Reappearance of alien arts, but practised by the actors. And when the actor is master in his own home he shall see to the employment of dancers, singers and musicians for indispensable and well-defined tasks. And then we shall see on the poster: text arranged by Mr Secondo. (Decroux 1931: 26-27) text into

There is

doubt that Decroux is here

referring (not pedagogical projects such as Copeau’s, centred as we have seen on the expedient

without

a

no

hint of intentional

parody)

-

to

—

of a temporary subtraction of texts. It is just as clear that, in referring to these projects, Decroux completely overturns the

meaning and the intentions, forcing them towards much more radical outcomes. Indeed (for Copeau, but also for Dullin), the temporarary suppression of the text and the opening towards the various training and physical techniques had the exclusive

(or

at

better

poet)

least the

the

serve once

principal)

the

aim of

itself

text actor

enabling the future

actor to

(and therefore the littérateur, the

6 gets it back. Here, in Decroux, the words, and on the littérateur, instead

twenty-year ban on serves to bring theatre back

natural order, establishing once and for all the primacy of the actor-author as well as fixing the conditions under which literature and the other arts could again have the

certainly

right to citizenship upon the stage

of, and under the direct control of, the not by chance that the writer is given the

is, in service is

to its

-

that

actor. It name

of

Mr Secondo.

6

Most of the great teachers who were protagonists of the theatrical rediscovery of the body in the first half of the twentieth century are in agreement on the subject of the purely instrumental function of corporeal education and expression. From Dalcroze, who asserted that ‘Rhythmics is not an end in itself, but a means to fight clumsiness, inhibitions, and to rediscover a lost harmony’ (Aslan 1974: 54); to Meyerhold who, following the use of Biomechanics for the staging of the Magnanimous Cuckold (1922), returned this training to the laboratory to use it only as a ‘pedagogical function’, trenazh (training). Decroux himself, as we shall see in Chapter 4, always distinguished between ‘actor’s mime’ and ‘mime’s mime’, with the latter indicating ‘pure mime’ or his research for an untranslatable corporeal specific, understood as an end in itself.

The conclusion of this first piece of writing by Decroux, provocative and aggressive according to the manifesto-style of that period, tends towards doubt when he asks himself ‘But is this

really the remedy?’

His response

take the risk

even

if there is

though

is yes,

one

guarantee of success: ‘It is a matter of cutting off the theatre’s right hand’ (Decroux 1931: 27), he affirms conclusively, introducing a motif which must

no

became very dear to him later on, that of amputation, which in his opinion is indispensable for any art to become truly so. years later, his pessimism in this respect seems to have been confirmed and reinforced: ‘Theatre is the actor’s art,

Thirty

which proves that, as an art of the beautiful, theatre does not exist’ he writes in 1962, in the marginal notes for the book -

publication of the older article (Decroux

1931:

27).

2.2 A Controversial Collaboration

analysis of Decroux’s first important theoretical text, we know regarding his strong interest during those years in the art of the actor, in particular physical expression, provides some points of

The

combined with the few other facts

reference

to

evaluate Barrault’s rather unilateral testimony

of his collaboration with Decroux between 1931 and 1933. It is very difficult to think that this

re-proposed

more

than

once

testimony, revised and

from the end of the 1940s

by Barrault’s break-up from his ex-teacher (which had occurred halfway through the previous decade but did not prevent the two from working together on some important artistic occasions thereafter) and of his

onwards,

is not influenced

consecration, in the meantime, as one of the most important post-war French theatre makers. All this leads us to suspect that Barrault’s account, though invaluable, does justice to the role Decroux played in the events:

not

do full

Étienne Decroux was one of the Atelier company and had come from the Vieux Colombier. His friends were very fond of him but

always talked of him with a little sidelong smile. They looked on him

as an eccentric. And indeed he baffled me quite a bit, too. The first time he deigned to speak to me he wounded me to the quick. I have forgotten his exact words but I know they were highly unpleasant, if not cruel. Some days later he asked me, in a discouraged and notdaring-to-hope tone of voice, if by any chance ‘bodily expression’ interested me. I suppose he expected me to shy off, like the others. He had already caused many to flee! I answered that it did interest me. The following day Decroux gave me my first lesson in mime. Decroux had picked up his first notions about miming from the Vieux Columbier and especially from the excellent and disinterested efforts of a woman to whom we owe much:

Suzanne Bing.

With Suzanne Bing, Decroux had especially studied masque and he spoke of her with constant admiration and

playing

respect. [...]

quickly passed on to me what he already knew; he the benefit of the work he had already mastered, and we soon set to work together. For nearly two years we shared an almost communal life. Nudist and vegetarian. What fun it was and what laughs we had! Decroux

gave

me

[...] Sometimes

we

boiled semolina. Decroux had

revolutionary.

alternated salad and lemon juice with

not

smoked for

He cultivated the

two years. He was a

puritan

more-than-perfect.

Until that time Decroux had stood alone against those who laughed at him; then, for nearly two years, there were the two of us; and of those who laughed, and us, it was we who became the stronger. We were unable to go on working together. Which of us was to blame? Perhaps neither. We were wild and at large. Our incessant leaps dangerously shook the theatre boards. It took us three weeks to perfect the step called the ‘sur place’, a step we have done so often since. Each performed in turn in front of the other, who criticised. We were complimentary to each other. Decroux, with his sure analytical sense and exceptional creative intelligence, could pin down the improvised variations that I executed more

spontaneously.

The

problem of walking, just walking, engrossed us. Nothing is more difficult than walking, and a man may betrayed by his walk.

be

Our advanced studies in

walking put me so on my stride that walk normally again (and even sometimes...!) (Barrault 1949: 21-23)

it took now

I

me a

good

ten years to

The narrative outline and the

sense of the story seem clear Barrault is the artist who had received the gift enough. young from the Gods of physical expressivity (‘It was undeniable

that I

gifted in bodily expression. And I say it so easily sincerely believe that we are in no way responsible for the gift’ [1949: 22]) and who met in Decroux the person able to recognise this talent, bringing it forth and making the was

because I

most

of it

to

fulfil his

own

mime

research,

as

well

as

giving

form, expressive repertory and a grammar. Nevertheless he admits repeatedly, and with a clarity which

it

a concrete

an

later would

gradually abate, that he had been completely ignorant of mime (and every other acting technique) before meeting

Decroux: Those

were

my first steps in the art of

mime. That

was my elementary education' (1949: 29). In the Souvenirs pour demain the narrative outline and the

sense

of the story do

not

change that much either. Barrault partly

up what he had already written in the previous book and in part adds new and colourful details about the scepticism that sums

the Atelier, Decroux’s bizarre personality and his difficult relationship with the public, the reasons surrounded them

for their

at

disagreement, and the break-up.

research undertaken in those

two years,

As for the type of

the increased passage

of time blurs the precision of the details, leading Barrault to define in blunt and therefore bolder terms the importance of that work, the

successes

gained as well as the failures:

Very soon we were like two accomplices who had

set out in search of mime. Decroux is the seeker par excellence. He possesses the genius for selection. He lets nothing slip past. I would improvise before him: he would choose, classify, retain, reject. And we would begin again. In this way the famous walk

for a

new

art

without changing place took us three weeks to work out: losses of balance, counterpoises, breathing, isolation of energy. Thanks to him I was discovering that limitless world, the muscles of the human body. Its fine shades. Its alchemy. We began to codify a new sol-fa of the art of gesture. We established the difference between wordless pantomime and silent mime. [...] We drugged ourselves chiefly with our own bodies: searching for ways of keeping balance, of slow motion, contraction-decontraction-relaxation, push-pull: the whole gamut. We would have liked to invent the impersonal masque, the music without expression. We did not succeed in that. [...] Objective mime, subjective mime the walls of the Atelier were -

shaken

by our leaps. (1972: 56—57)

It is therefore not easy to get a sense of the work done and by Decroux and Barrault during their

the results achieved

intense collaboration. If in memories cannot be

fact,

accepted

on

the

hand, Barrault's

one

in full and

uncritically, on the to my knowledge

other hand, it should be stressed that Decroux never made any public statement -

-

on

Furthermore, Decroux’s presentations of the

the

matter.

mime

new

remained very private for the whole of the 1930s and very little filtered out until halfway through the next decade,

basically until the famous evening in 1945. As for the out

his mime

at

the Maison de la Chimie

writings with which

theory,

these do

not go

Decroux

back

to

began

to set

earlier than the

if the substantial organisation of the think that corporeal mime had might encourage already been fully elaborated at the point in which Decroux 1940s.

Therefore,

texts

even

us to

disseminate it, the full decade which separates this theorisation from the laboratory with Barrault prevents us,

began once

to

again, from establishing with enough precision how

much of this

‘system’ had already been put

years 1931-33

and, above all, the respective

in

place

in the

merits of both in

this collaboration.

Fortunately

we

have

some

direct testimonies. First and

foremost that of Jean Dorcy, Decroux’s friend since the days of the Vieux Colombier who, like many of Copeau’s pupils,

was

also committed

and gestures

on

to

researching the integration of words

stage. He writes:

How developed was the Mime in 1931? Or, to be more accurate, how far advanced were Étienne Decroux’s efforts at codification? La Vie primitive (authored by Decroux) gives us an answer. Performed byÉtienne Decroux and his wife, this work gave evidence of very rhythmical but still embryonic

gymnastics. (1961: 53)

Therefore, according

to

the Mime’

he did

Dorcy,

primitive ‘was not yet the second version with

La Vie

(although Barrault), as it lacked all the essential principles: raccourci, 7 counterweight, classical dance canons. Rather, in his opinion, Decroux’s work in that period was strongly affected by his collaboration with dancer Anna Stephann, which was interrupted quite quickly due to irremediable disagreements (1961: 53). On the other hand, in the same text, Dorcy sustains

that, again in 1931,

his codifications,

not see

Decroux made Barrault

aware

of

them ‘an

defining arguably very complete corporeal inventory’. His conclusions bring us more or less

back

starting point: 1931, ‘Decroux and Barrault, two dedicated souls, worked practically without interruption. to our

The Mime 1961:

was

to

be the result of their efforts’

(Dorcy

54).

important testimony is that of another Burgundy veteran, Leon Chancerel, the leader of the ComédiensOne

more

Routiers group in the early 1930s. Publishing the first monograph on Barrault in 1953, he obviously could not avoid

mentioning the relationship with Decroux at the beginning of 7

Dorcy’s version, whose authority should not be underestimated, contrasts with the general opinion, which probably has its origins in Decroux’s school. According to the latter, the first category of corporeal mime to which Decroux dedicated himself, initially alone and then with Barrault, was that of the counterweight (see Marceau 1987: 32-33; Soum and Wasson 1989a*: 5). According to Lorelle (1974 : 108), probably influenced by Barrault's account (1949: 22-24; 1972: 56-57), the ‘discovery of the counterweight, which in its turn derived from the identification of the laws of balance, represented one of the most important results of the Decroux-Barrault collaboration, together with the marche glissée, or sur place.

Barrault’s with

career.

He recalls Decroux

as

Copeau’s pupil (albeit

inaccuracies), his successive entry into Dullin’s company, his personal interest in corporeal expression and mime, the great difficulty of recruiting followers for this, and a

few

with Barrault, the first their collaborative work:

finally the

encounter

disciple’, and

They remade all the familiar exercises from the Vieux Colombier School and perfected them together; this muscular activity was accompanied by analytical comments and by observations from philosophical, political and social dissertations, of a ‘cosmic’, even metaphysical nature, conducted in a manner no less passionate. The ‘problem of the walk’ appeared to them to be the essential problem; they needed to resolve this first and foremost. (Chancerel 1953: 16-17) In Chancerel’s words in a

general,

certain desire to accentuate

possible to pick out the role played by the pupil it is

in these events and to reduce that of the master. This is in

line with the choice that Barrault himself made first book, 8 and which reached its

right from his

peak with the interventions

of Andre Frank, Barrault’s secretary (who had worked previously for Artaud) from the mid-1930s onwards. Frank’s

monograph is exemplary in this, even reusing previous writings: he completely glosses over the episode in question, citing (almost in passing) Decroux’s name amongst those personalities which counted at the beginning of Barrault’s 1971

8

We can trace a true chronological crescendo in Barrault’s testimonies, which tend progressively to reduce Deeroux’s role, blurring the differences in theatrical experience, both general and specific, which existed at the time between the two, and attributing the principal technical-aesthetic acquisitions of the new mime ever more to their collaboration, almost on equal terms. In this regard, the differences between the Reflections and the Souvenirs are evident and, even more so, between these two books and some of the statements of the 1970s (see the interviews of Weiss 1979 and Dobbels 1980). However the declaration gathered by Dorcy (1961: 45), dated to the period of La Faim, is already very explicit. The point of arrival is certainly established by a very brief recollection published on the occasion of Decroux’s death, from which every mention of differences in experience and roles between them had disappeared by this time: they were two of Dullin’s pupils who found a very strong friendship, almost fraternal, notwithstanding the great difference between their characters, and together they invented corporeal mime (Barrault 1991: 10).

suggesting that, on a technical level, for him, Dullin had been more important than Decroux or Artaud (Frank 1971: 15, 20).

career, even

do have more evidence (reasonably certain, of though indirect) the importance of Decroux and Barrault’s collaborative work at the beginning of the 1930s, and of the However,

we

relative

accomplishments achieved. In fact, it is strangely ironic that it was actually the ex-pupil, the ‘deserter’, who publically presented the first examples of the new mime art in his debut performances as a director: Autour d’une Mère (1935), Numance (1937), and La Faim (1939); the first two defined (in the already cited Maison de la Chimie programme) as ‘spoken dramas with mime inserts’, and the third, ‘a drama where speech and the mime are closely mingled’ (Dorcy 1961: 45). It will be sufficient to remember how according to -

reliable spectators such as Dorcy and Artaud the non-verbal scenes contained in these three works broke entirely with -

traditional pantomime. These scenes demonstrated that they regulated by different and original technical principles

were

based

on

the priority of the trunk

over

the face and hands,

range of non-naturalistic rhythms, and a use of gestuality which was prevalently non-anecdotal or illustrative. The a

convincing document on this subject is undoubtedly the director’s script for Autour d'une Mère, in which one

most

can

trace many

unambiguous references

notions of Decroux’s

new

to

fundamental

grammar: from the marche

sur

the persistent use of stillness (individual place, glissée, or collective) to the continual variations of intensity and speed to

or

in the movements. Much less informative in this

regard is the

script of La Faim, a piece which on the other hand seems to have marked according to Dorcy (1961: 45) a clear growth -

in the mimodramatic 1935 and

-

quality of the gestures (see Barrault

1939). (not too) paradoxical circumstance of a pupil who quickly achieves success by introducing his master’s work to the public for the very first time. However, it is a kind This is the

of circumstance which

might lead someone towards more or less involuntary misunderstandings. Still, within the restricted circles of Parisian avant-garde theatre makers in the 1930s, quite a few people should have known how things had really gone. This is confirmed by the testimony of one of the most prominent figures of this milieu, Sylvain Itkine, a very active director who

was an

and Barrault in this

old and close friend of both Decroux

period and therefore well placed

to

be

reliable witness. 9 In writing Propos sur la mise en scène in 1942, where amongst other things Itkine lists the names a

of the

most

he does

significant French directors and performances,

not seem to

have doubts about the real

terms

‘collaboration between Decroux and Barrault from earlier if he

can

Decroux who in to

write in

developed

a note: a

can we

technique

mime

to

say about

perfection

private, if not that both he and Artaud were beneficial Barrault, who assimilated their research and, sometimes

popularising it, ensured them 1942: 240). In

‘So what

of the

ten years

a

wide audience?’

conclusion, while reaffirming that,

relationship was

that of

on

the

one

(Itkine

hand, the

between Decroux and Barrault in 1931-33 a master

and

pupil and

so cannot

be treated

as

collaboration among equals, and that, on the other hand, by the mid-1930s, the fundamental principles of the new a

already existed (as the first pieces directed by Barrault prove), we still know very little about how much of this grammar had been outlined by Decroux before the encounter with his pupil. mime grammar

To reach

a

tentative conclusion

the matter, it is worth facts about Decroux. In 1931, and before

restating some meeting Barrault, he already had

on

at

of intense mime work under his belt

9

For

an

account

Migliore (2001).

least three

(aside

four years from his previous or

of Surrealist-trained director and author Sylvain Itkine,

see

experiences at the Vieux Colombier School and

in

Burgundy) already created many of the mime numbers with which he composed his first two pieces, La Vie primitive and La Vie médiévale (or artisanale), presented respectively in the spring and autumn of that year. They were numbers mostly linked to the improvisations done with Copeau (imitations of natural elements and animals, fight scenes, workings of machines, professions such as carpentry, and jobs such as washing clothes), many of which later found a permanent place in Decroux’s repertory. 10 It is exactly this last circumstance, even though we know that such pieces were later re-elaborated and had

and refined many times from a technical point of view, which enables us to deduct that by 1930-31 he had already arrived at a

definition

mime:

-

albeit approximate

-

of the basics of corporeal

counterweight, balances, primacy of the trunk,

It is not my intention to diminish in any way the

etc.

importance

of the contribution which Barrault, however young and inexperienced, might have made (thanks to his enormous

talent) once he enlisted enthusiastically in the cause of mime (a contribution recognised by Decroux himself, at least verbally and in private). My aim is simply to denounce the risks of the prevailing tendency of reorganising the terms of this story by reading a little too much into it in hindsight, letting ourselves become conditioned more than might be appropriate by the dazzling career of the pupil and by the humbler (though strongly sought) destiny of the master. It is very probable that the principal reason for the breakup with Decroux was actually Barrault’s decision to dedicate 10 According to Lust (1974: 16), La Vie primitive represented a sort of approbation of the good savage’ à la Rousseau, who lives happy in a harmonious relationship with his own body and with the environment that surrounds him. Amongst the activities represented, there were those of climbing up and down trees, breaking open coconuts, wading across a river. The version with Barrault also contained a fight scene between them (rivals in love), the first draft of Combat antique. La Vie médiévale (or artisanale) centred upon the figure (also Rousseau-like) of the carpenter, with a washerwoman for a wife. La Machine was also conceived in the same period, thus completing the triptych on the three ages of man entitled La Vie du XX sièle (or La Vie moderne) (Lust 1974: 16).

himself to prose theatre, creating performances which mixed mime and spoken text (following a poetics that had already informed many of the experiences derived from Copeau, from Les Copiaus to the Quinze, from Dorcy’s Proscenium to

Jean Dasté), and which, later on, he would explain in terms of total theatre’. Indeed, Decroux’s ideas about the relationship between mime and

spoken theatre

were

already heading

different direction, even if his writings present several oscillations and deviations, as he continued to distinguish

in

a

between ‘the actor's mime’, on the one hand, and ‘the mime’s mime’ or ‘pure mime’ on the other hand. The public and critical reactions

pupil

to

of the Atelier

the directorial debut of the prodigious were

actually very

favourable,

as we

ex-

shall

yet the greatest praise was reserved for Barrault the actor, in particular for the prowess of his physical expressivity. see,

So, on one side there is Decroux, ascetical, uncompromising, 'a puritan

revolutionary’ who (in the aforementioned words of his one-time disciple) ‘cultivated the more-than-perfect’, with an

absolute idea of the

art

of mime;

on

the other side Barrault, rush into things, and

gifted young actor, eager to quickly climbing all the steps of success which had already smiled upon him, even at the cost of sacrificing something

a

very

the level of rigour and coherence. Decroux is reserved and suspicious, unsociable, diffident towards the public and on

its

demands; Barrault longing before the

please and charm, aspiring larget possible audience’ (Barrault to

'simply 57). The differences could not have been greater, sooner or later the break-up was inevitable. The artistic disagreements were certainly some of the most to act

1972:

important causes of the two men’s separation. But there were other, for want of better words, more ‘private’, ‘psychological’ which

have

played a predominant part, at least on the surface. Decroux (and it is Barrault himself who suggests this) must have felt betrayed by his pupil and reasons,

must

collaborator, who moved into prose theatre, giving himself to success, easily mixing gesture and words, beginning to make

actorial virtuosity and directorial To the inflexible priest of a pure and autonomous

of mime

gimmick. corporeal art form, all of this must have seemed like a profanation of the principles to which both had previously consecrated themselves. As would happen later with Marceau and many

use

others,

it

as

was

a

written ultimatum from Decroux which

decreed the ostracism. Barrault

published

an

excerpt:

I consider you pretty well done for. It is essential:

(1) that you admit you have wasted your time; (2) that you now change from top to bottom the company you keep; (3) that until further orders you give up acting, and also preparing yourself to play the part of a great man... (1972: 58). 11

was’, Barrault commented, ‘as if, to his mind, I had signed a pact with him and given him my soul. Which of us 'It

was

wrong? Who was right? What a pity!’ (1972: 58).

11 According to the version provided in Saisir le présent, the break-up was established by the following exchange: ‘One day, Decroux declared to Jean-Louis: “You are losing yourself, it is very serious: what you do does not feel like work anymore”. Jean-Louis: “Evidently it is what I am looking for”. Decroux: “Then we cannot work together any further. I refuse all prostitution”. And Decroux disowned

Jean-Louis’ (Barrault

1984:

33).

3

Other Sources, Contexts, Co-existences

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613-5

3.1 Mime and the Decroux

1987,

ran a

school almost

not to mention

His custom of

Supermarionette

uninterruptedly from 1940 to his previous teaching at the Atelier.

punctuating the

courses

with lectures

soon

became

legendary, with those at the start of the academic year being particularly important. A couple of these opening addresses were published in the 1963 volume: both are dated 6 November 1947 (they appear to have been given together) 1

and

one

of the

two is

dedicated

to

Gordon Craig, chosen as explicitly stated towards

patron of mime and of the school (as is the end

[Decroux 1947a: 9-10]). The great English director certainly be placed among the gurus of Decroux’s decadeslong research and is one of his greatest sources of inspiration (as confirmed by the position of the lecture in question in the initial section of the book, aptly titled 'Sources’). can

What Decroux proposes in the 1947 opening address is an original interpretation a slightly expurgated version, if you like of Craig’s polemical and provocative theories. They got -

-

to

know each other personally two years earlier on the occasion

of the famous Maison de la Chimie evening; 2 curiously, and perhaps not casually, Craig paid a visit to Decroux’s school few

days later. Decroux’s

Craig’s battle against realism and his radical opinions regarding actors. Craig’s main objective seemed to him to be about making theatre into an original art’, transforming the stage from a ‘brothel’ into a ‘springboard of movement’ (Decroux 1947a: 5). Decroux synthesises Craig’s conceptions of the actor into a

seven

points, then

tries to

attention focuses

demonstrate,

on

in the second part of

his

speech, how ‘Corporeal Mime seems to respond so well to Craig’s demands’. The points are as follows: First

point: when the

actor

performs,

his mind

emotion and not his emotion his mind.

1

In

2

See the

publishing it, Decroux probably divided Prologue.

one

must

exploit his

[...] lecture into two parts.

Other Sources, Contexts, Co-existences

Second point: style and symbol are qualities essential to art. Third point: the actor must know his craft before appearing stage. [...] Fourth point: the traditional actor exhibits explosions of his inner self and does so in front of everybody: this is immodest. Fifth point: the actor must seek inspiration from the methods on

used by other artists. Sixth point: the actor must also reject the advice of these other artists when they invade the stage in order to colonise it. Seventh point: the laws of the theatre have yet to be found.

(Decroux 1947a: 5-6) The pivot of Decroux’s reasoning, which acts as a logical hinge between the two parts of his speech, is in the way he engages with Craig’s famous Supermarionette theory. He identifies on

the

apparent contradiction in the fact that Craig, hand, condemns outright any possible kind of

an

one

flesh and blood

being constitutionally ‘incapable obeying the mind’s command’ (Decroux 1947a: 6), and so proposes to replace the actor with an ideal marionette. However, on the other hand, Craig ends by admitting that his proposal should only be understood in a figurative sense, as ‘a battle image’, a polemic (Decroux 1947a: 6). For Decroux, the only way to go beyond this impasse lies in considering the impotence of the human body (of which Craig speaks) actor as

of

not as

absolute

or

inborn but

as

relative and historical,

and therefore surmountable. Decroux also conceives of the Supermarionette

as

the utopian and

at

the

same

time

prefiguration of a total actor, complete and aware, which the art of Corporeal Mime is the most suited to bring concrete

into

being:

[...] when Craig speaks of the impotence of the body, he

thinking only of the admittedly great, but surmountable difficulties experienced by the body when it attempts to obey the commands of the mind. And my reasoning is as follows: 1. If the marionette is, at least, the image of the ideal actor, we must consequently try to acquire the virtues of the ideal marionette.

is

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

Laboratory

2. We can only acquire these by practising a specially applied form of gymnastics, and this leads us to the mime known as corporeal. (Decroux 1947a: 6-7)

In the

verify

theories it is

course

of the book

how wide and was on

only partly

deep

we

will have the opportunity

the influence exercised

to

by Craig’s

Decroux’s elaborations and, therefore, how an exaggeration to state that he ‘represents

the supporting organisation of Decroux’s expressive world’ (Puppa 1971:43). In fact, the marked anti-naturalistic and antinarrative character of the mime art which Decroux as

much

as

distillation

pursued,

the emotional on

depersonalisation and expressive which it is based, are decisive features more

directly derived from Craig as the dense text of Paroles sur le mime abundantly illustrates. Perhaps not even Copeau can claim an equally profound influence on a strictly theoretical level (cf. De Marinis 2012). or

less

-

3.2 Mime and the Arts Like all

truly original artists, Decroux never had a problem declaring his own dues and sources of inspiration. In the already cited interview with Leabhart (‘The Origin of Corporeal Mime'), he says, with his usual taste for paradox and provocation, that he had been influenced by all the arts in

except

always

traditional French pantomime, which he had detested for its lack of seriousness (1974: 9). Also, in

one

-

later conversation, again with Leabhart, he adds: 'I don’t believe that the art of mime can exist without an organic a

connection with other art forms’

(1978a: 41). the superficial similarity between the various artistic languages, the eclectic and easygoing utilisation of the other arts in theatre and in performance (this is something which he had always abhorred). Instead, throughout his entire career as an artist-researcher, he had always been attracted by the deep analogies, the organic What interests Decroux is

not

connections, linked to the fact that, looking closely, ‘all art forms have many principles in common (1978a: 41). The

confrontation-comparison with other artistic practices and their respective underlying rules becomes then, for Decroux, an indispensable procedure to finally make theatre into that art (of the actor) which it still is not, assigning it those principles which have not yet been precisely identified. It is well known that Decroux had

for

sculpture,

which he

a

well

lifetime passion poetry, which

practised, ‘sculpture’ of the word according to the symbolist poetics of rhythm. Three paragraphs at the opening of the brief 1948 ‘autobiography’ begin with these three statements: ‘I should like to have been a sculptor [...] I should like to have been a poet [...] I was born to love mime’ (1948: 12). What attracted him in sculpture, and in particular in he considered

as

as

as

statuary, was on the one hand the disconnection between the artist and the work (which is not condemned to always resemble the artist, unlike for the actor), and on the other, the ways in which sculpture is able, from the Greeks to

Michelangelo and Rodin, to represent movement within through stillness. For corporeal mime he coined the definition of‘mobile statuary’, or rather the ‘art of moving the statue’, preferring attitude, or immobilité mobile, to stillness and

gesture and

even to movement.

In poetry Decroux’s

preferences ranged from

Romantics

such as the much loved Victor Hugo and de Vigny, to authors like Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Théodore de Banville: that is to say, the extreme cult of formal perfection married with a

tragic-titanic conception of art (and life),

as

well

as

political

and social engagement reconciled with the symbolist poetics of artfor art’s sake and Mallarme’s pure poetry. Yet what needs be

particularly underlined is his interest in the technical aspects of poetry: verse, prosody, diction all elements upon which Decroux carried out a decades-long in-depth research no less important than that on corporeal expression, even if to

-

much less well known

(though his writings are an eloquent trace of it). For example, it is usually overlooked that his mime performances often contained the declamation of poetic texts, by Hugo mostly, and also by Baudelaire and contemporary authors, such

as

Jacques

Prévert. It is

just

one

of Decroux’s

paradoxes that he was an artist with a deep love of (he was also, judging by everyone who heard him, an exceptional orator) who dedicated his life to the edification of an art which rigorously banished them. Then there is classical dance and music. I have already mentioned that Decroux’s relationship with the former had always been controversial and contradictory. As we will see in Chapter 5 he never missed an opportunity to criticize dance and carefully distance it from corporeal mime. On the other hand though as Gelabert wrote (1958: 66), exaggerating

many

words

,

-

a

little

-

most

of his mime exercises

are

based

on or

linked

to

the principles and positions of classical ballet. Decroux himself once

declared that after 1923 he had ‘almost always studied the

3 elementary movements of classical dance’ (Decroux 3*). His particular interest in classical ballet was due to the fact that it was explicitly codified and rigorously gramaticised, which is why he preferred it to modern dance (notwithstanding his personal admiration for Isadora Duncan). What repelled him though was the leaning of its light and harmonious movements towards a superficial serenity and joyfulness that for him was

irreconcilable with

‘tragic’.

great art, which cannot be other than it is surprising that Decroux was reticent

true

In any case,

twentieth-century experiences of modern dance which for the most part override this objection and which, in going beyond academic rules, research and pose questions towards the

3

As already mentioned, Dorcy inserted the 'classical dance canons’ amongst the essential components of corporeal mime (next to raccourci and counterweight). The basic exercises listed in the unpublished notebook entitled ‘Facultés radicales’, probably compiled by Decroux at the beginning of the 1980s, contain frequent references to steps and positions of classical dance, to which one of the thirteen short chapters is also dedicated. Furthermore their function for Decroux corresponded to that of exercises at the bar for dance students (see Decroux 7*).

very close to those found

by Decroux during the elaboration of the principles of corporeal mime. Decroux’s attitude and interest towards music is an example of the fact that his attention towards the principles

particular art does not necessarily imply the use of its expressive products in corporeal mime. For him music, as the

of

a

most

technical

or

‘calculated’ and the

most creative

of all arts,

might also represent a sort of paradigm for corporeal mime. a long time he had been against any kind of use of music in his pedagogical work and mime numbers (which, according to him, would have otherwise risked slipping into dance). Later on, this position changed a little, and Decroux began, albeit cautiously, to use music in his own work, also inserting it into the creations already in his repertory: from Le Menuisier (Bach) to La Lessive (Vivaldi and Ravel) in the 1930s, from Passage des hommes sur la terre (Mussorgsky) in 1942 to L’Usine (Decroux’s own score of sounds and noises) and Les Arbres (Beethoven), both from 1946. 4 In general, though, the musical section was introduced once the mime part had already been defined. In any case it was a background soundtrack without a precise relationship with the movements (Flach 1992*). In the last phase of his activity according to Soum and Wasson (1990*) Decroux’s attitude in this regard seemed to have become even more open, to the point of formulating every possible type of relation between Yet for

-

-

music and movement.

By then, for him,

the music can be absent, present, be used to give a beat, a rhythm, be contradicted, be a background sound, a collaborator,

can

underline an intention, create an atmosphere, contradict action, support a walk. 5 (Soum and Wasson 1990*) 4

In Petits Soldats

an

(created between 1946 and 1950), the only piece by Decroux hour, the music was produced on stage by the mimes as accompaniment to their songs. See also Chapter 6. 5 Regarding the teaching, Decroux’s school did not use instrumental musical accompaniment in classes. There was instead a vocal accompaniment from Decroux himself in the form of (1) onomatopoeia, which served to give the rhythm, (2) songs, which served instead to suggest an atmosphere, a state of mind, and (3) poems, which that lasted

over

an

Finally, it should be noted that, amongst the many metaphors which Decroux always evoked to define his actorartist of the body, some come directly from the musical sphere. In fact he spoke of the human body as ‘the keyboard of a piano’ and stated that he wanted a ‘theatre in which the actor [...] is an instrumentalist of his own body’ (1974:15-16). The list of artistic become

probably pedantic, but

we

Eastern theatre

sources even

should

for Decroux’s mime research could

longer, and perhaps risk becoming at

least consider his interest in Far

forms, in particular Japanese Noh, with which

he become acquainted at the Vieux Colombier School. In Noh he

by the manifestation of an art of the actor that was completely codified towards abstract stylisation, emotional depersonalisation, and the artificial construction of the human figure, including through the use of inexpressive masks. Moreover, there are even those (very close to Decroux and his work) who have identified ‘far eastern mime’ as the principal model of corporeal mime (Pinok, Matho, and M. Decroux 1975: 25). 6 However, following the indications of Decroux himself, these already broad references should be widened beyond the artistic sphere to include gymnastics, manual jobs, and sport. 7 was

attracted

had the aim of making the level of interpretation understood (Soum and Wasson 1990*). See also Chapter 4. 6 One should also read the observations on Noh theatre by Paul Claudel and Jacques Copeau reported by Cruciani (1971 a: 132-33). Thomas Leabhart speaks also of the influence on Decroux of the Cambodian dances he saw in Paris in the 1930s and describes him as ‘infected’ by the exotic primitivism common to the majority of the historic avant-garde it is not surprising that his first work was entitled La Vie primitive (Leabhart 1989 : 40-41). On the other hand, Annette Lust argues that Decroux always negated ‘emphatically every debt towards Asian theatre’ (Lust 1974: 19). 7 On the boxer Georges Carpentier, whom he saw in around 1908, Decroux writes: ‘He was the protective eldest brother adored by the youngest. / And all of this because being slim, strong and handsome, he set out to punish bullies. / We would never suspect that he was the motivating image for our study of physical mime (tragedy section)’ (1948: 14). See also the Chronology in De Marinis (1993). On the corporeal mime-sport relationship, in the framework of the interest manifested -

Other Sources, Contexts, Co-existences

He was able to experience many of these during his poor yet inquisitive youth, when he had been a plasterer, builder (like his father), carpenter, labourer, butcher, docker, laundry worker, nurse, and more. Later, Decroux would consider this period of his life as a precious, unrepeatable apprenticeship (of the body, and much more besides), during which he became conscious for the first time of the fundamental principles of movement, and was able to experiment with them directly on his own body. Of course, it is also due to these personal experiences that Decroux later developed a preference for a gesture akin to that of the craftsman or manual worker in its muscular play - that is, both in the mode of production as well as in the external characteristics. Let us not forget that the gestures of the trades occupied Decroux' s initial research for a long time. This is particularly the case with Le Menuisier, the famous piece created in 1931 which accompanied him throughout his career. Decroux, in a Rousseau-like way, made the carpenter a Homo Faber, a symbol of the manual worker in constant struggle against the force of gravity, tiredness, weight, and the resistance of material objects, as well as his own inertia. For Decroux, this became a sort of allegory of corporeal mime in his own artistic struggle (Leabhart 1989: 53).

3.3 The Rediscovery of the Body in Twentieth-Century Theatre So far I have only considered those sources of corporeal mime which have a more or less direct relationship with Decroux, that is, those which belong specifically to his formative and practical experiences. The scene changes and becomes even broader if we analyse the context in which corporeal mime was born, between the 1920s and 1930s in France. If we track down by the theatre masters of the twentieth century towards physical and competitive disciplines, see Ruffini (1994), AA.VV (1996).

· 113 ·

precedents

just

or even

co-existences and affinities within

European theatre culture between the late

early a

(i.e.

1900s

the

period

which

saw

the

1800s and the

movement

towards

renewal of the modern stage, thanks also to the advent of Director), we realise then that corporeal mime emerges

the -

with

and

new

original aspects

-

in the wake of that

ample

and very articulate process which, according to Evreinov and Fuchs, is the ‘re-theatricalisation of the theatre’. It is a process of its strongest points in a Körperkultur that ‘rediscovery’ of the body and its enormous

that found

one

advocated

a

expressive potential, left mostly unexplored by tradition of

a

and

a

theatre

kind in favour of the

literary psychological declamatory dimension of acting.

purely verbal and

should mention almost all the great reformers of the beginning of the twentieth century. However, apart from the already discussed Craig, Copeau, and Dullin, it suffices Here

to

we

recall the

proto-directorial theoretical elaborations of

Adolphe Appia, whose central focus is the idea of the actor as three dimensional corporeal expression (we will return to this soon with Dalcroze); Meyerhold’s biomechanical experimentations; Stanislavski’s later work on physical actions, influenced amongst other things by the ideas of his ex-pupil Meyerhold; and Oskar Schlemmer’s research at the Bauhaus, on the human figure in movement, conceived as a mechanical object and assimilated into an ‘abstract’ whole of geometric figures, planes, and solids. Moreover, we should also note those figures who, from the second half of the nineteenth century, promoted a recovery of the total expressivity of the actor, and more generally of the human being, beyond the age-old divisions institutionalised by Western culture between body and mind, material and spiritual, gestural and verbal (no wonder Körperseele, ‘body-spirit’, would become the byword for the body culture of the 1920s). 8 8

See Casini Ropa (1988) which constitutes the principal point of reference for the discourse which follows. See also the successive critical anthology edited by the same scholar (Casini Ropa 1990). ,

The role of pioneer should be given to François Delsarte (1811-71), actor, singer, and teacher, with his ‘system of applied aesthetics’ based upon a unitary and trinitary conception of the human being

(life, soul, and intellect, or spirit, interactive other), from which emerged

with and interdependent on each

‘the idea of the intimate and necessary connection between each exterior movement and an analogous interior motion that determines its

expressivity’ (Casini Ropa 1988: 55). More precisely, in the system elaborated by Delsarte, these three aspects of the human correspond to three internal states (sensations, feelings, and thoughts), which can be compared three external states, three types of expression: voice, gestures, and words. The role of principal expressive form

to

the gestures, which alone contain the is

given

to

of voice and words, and reveal the most hidden and

autonomous

ability to

philosophy of movement was developed by Delsarte in the course of forty years of empirical research (observations of individuals of unspoken

traits of the inner self. This veritable

every age and social class in the most diverse environments

and

circumstances), study (of anatomy, amongst other things), and teaching (singing, diction, and acting, to actors, singers, and intellectuals, plus lawyers, politicians, preachers and even investment brokers). Little known during his lifetime, in part due to his refusal to publish his writings, Delsarte’s theories initially had a great diffusion and popularity between the 1870s and 1880s thanks and a

propaganda by his

American

remarkable and eclectic

of

MacKaye’s pupils,

to

the dissemination

disciple Steele MacKaye,

of the theatre, and then by one Genevieve Stebbins, who first applied man

it to dance. The central elements of Delsarte’s system range

from the tripartition of the basic body positions (natural, concentric, eccentric), which generates a typology of nine postures, to the definition of the ‘natural’ laws of movement

(parallelism-succession-opposition), and to the identification of the primary elements on which the body ’s education can be based (breath, relaxation, and muscular tensions). From the

United States, Delsarte’s theories bounced back to Europe, can be found substantially unaltered at

where these elements the

root

new

of the

Körperkultur of the

1920s

and, in particular, of

German dance.

Another pioneering figure for European ‘body culture’ at beginning of the twentieth century is that of the Swiss

the

musician-teacher

ÉmileJaques-Dalcroze (1865—1950), developed into different disciplines: rhythmic Gymnastics, Eurythmics and, lastly, living Plastics. It was due to the decisive collaboration with Appia, also from Geneva and one of the founding fathers of modern director-led theatre, that Dalcroze developed his research on movement and corporeal expression. He moved from the development of methods of physical training, intended as simple supports for learning music (for example Rhythmics, which as a pedagogical discipline is exclusively functional to musical education), to the definition, with Eurythmics, of movement exercises with an aesthetic aim. The latter gradually became ‘tools’ for ‘an expressive translation of musical elements in space through the human body’ (Casini Ropa 1988: 15-16, 68). Dalcroze eventually proposed, with living (or animated) Plastics, a true ‘art of expressive movement’, according to a conception which triumphed in the celebrated end-of-year performances created with his students (and with the long-distance collaboration of Appia as scenographer) at Hellerau in 1912 and 1913. The third major exponent of this rediscovery of the body is the Hungarian Rudolf von Laban (1878-1958), father of free inventor of Rhythmics, which in time

dance and teacher of Kurt Jooss and Mary Wigman, who in their represent (with Martha Graham) the leading figures of modem dance. While it is certain that Decroux became aware turn

of Dalcroze’s methods and concepts at the Vieux Colombier School (where these were taught), 9 none of the information 9

Decroux probably knew the Dalcrouzian methods even before arriving at According to the testimony of Corinne Soum and Steven Wasson, Decroux had followed courses at the Institut Philotechnique before 1923. These

Vieux Colombier.

I have allows

suppose any kind of relationship with the work and theories of Laban, who lived in France between 1937 me to

and 1938 before emigrating permanently to England. It is in any case indisputable that Laban’s research into movement and

physical expression shows several close affinities with that of Decroux in particular where Laban conceives of -

free dance

not as an

anarchic

art

form, devoid of rules, but

dynamic-expressive totality, completely self sufficient meaningful’, which ‘obeys only (and scrupulously) its own dynamic laws and semiotics’, refusing every ‘regulatory principle outside of itself’, music first and foremost (Casini Ropa 1988: 81). There are other affinities with Decroux which might be found in Laban’s research: from the imbalances and opposing tensions which regulate individual dance within the dialectic play of the body in open space, to the similar choice of the trunk as the ‘centre generator of movement’ (Casini Ropa 1988: 195, 199). Above all, what connects them is the

as

‘a

and

same

rigour, the

of the laws of

same

scientific ethos used in the investigation

physical

movement in space

(investigations

which for Laban had the well-known result of choreographic notation, the so-called Labanotation). Beyond those mentioned so far, and more to

the artistic-theatrical

sphere,

we

strictly pertinent

should also mention

other experiences, located at the edges of the Körperkultur, which overlap with the field of esoteric disciplines. For

example those of Rudolph Steiner, who in the 1910s founded an Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland and with his followers tried to define ‘the new dynamic art of eurythmy, “visible speech”, in which, as with music for Dalcroze, the word and sound dictated the rhythm of the movement to the courses provided free teaching in several fields (all the scholastic subjects, artistic and sporting disciplines) to people who had not had the opportunity to go to school for a sufficiently long period of time or who wished to improve themselves: ‘There Decroux initially intended to follow courses in rhythmic dance, but in the end opted for diction [...]. Rhythmic dance seemed necessary for him in order to gain a good coordination of movement’ (Soum and Wasson 1990*).

those of George I, Gurdjieff, who in 1917 created a monastic school at Tiflis in Georgia (transferred to Paris in 1922) ‘in which gymnastics and dance were tools of liberation

body’;

or

from individual emotions and for asceticism and which had strong links with the Dalcrozians’ In

conclusion,

we cannot

(Casini Ropa

omit the

the artistic and theatrical fields

-

1988:

91).

importance within

and the influence exerted

upon the new mime (in particular on Decroux and Lecoq) of various theoretical and practical experiences of human

-

analysis: from those of the inventors of modern gymnastics (like Lieutenant Georges Hébert, whose methods 10 were adopted by Copeau at the Vieux Colombier School), to those of Muybridge and Marey with their chronophotography, to those of Paul Bellugue, teacher of anatomy at the Academy of movement

Fine Arts in Paris from 1936 to

1955,

the principle of economy, which is and athletic

physical

10

1.

See

Chapter

movement

a

convinced supporter of

common to

both expressive

(cf. Bellugue 1967).

4 Decroux

Pedagogue

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613-6

4.1 A Different School

between Anecdote and ‘How

Legend

you not want to convert people?’ Decroux once asked rhetorically in a conference (Caviglioli 1962). In fact, can

in his mime

research, the question of the school,

the education

as

(and indeed the conversion) of the

well

as

actor in

corporeal art, represents much more than an isolated case, and is instead the central and primary issue, involving and conditioning all the others. It is not therefore an exaggeration to speak of a true pedagogical vocation for Decroux and his

new

mime.

widely recognised (though often forgotten) that of the great teachers of twentieth-century theatre. It should be pointed out that his pedagogical work was always carried out on two levels: (1) firstly, through the teaching in his school from 1940 (and earlier, at Dullins Atelier); but above all, (2) on the level of the theoretical and experimental elaborations concerning the art of the human body and its ‘laws’. It is thus Decroux’s own scientific and creative research on mime that configures itself as intrinsically pedagogical, deeply permeated by an educational question which represents the most fertile aspect albeit ignored theatre historians until of by recently many prominent experiences in twentieth-century theatre (cf. Cruciani 1985). Unlike other cases of mime schools (such as those of Lecoq and Marceau), there is not and never has been It is

now

Decroux

was one

-

—

—

-

any exhaustive and reliable information on Decroux’s school. Partly due to the choice of its founder, the school has always

been

wrapped in a mystery often transformed into legend, or simply into anecdote. We owe the little we know about its organisation and its deep changes in the course of almost five decades (from 1940 to 1987) to sporadic newspaper articles, to some interviews given every now and again by Decroux, but especially to the testimonies of ex-pupils, who only rarely violated and never beyond a certain measure a pact of -

-

Decroux

discretion

Pedagogue

they had tacitly bound themselves when entering the school. The rest has leaked out through the ‘it is said...’ of an oral tradition which has obviously contributed much to feeding the myth, though also the gossip. Stories have been told of the rituals which framed and marked the working 1 day, the curious personality of the master (fascinating and detestable), his tyrannical and irascible character, 2 his caustic judgements, his oratory performances, 3 and to

which

1 These included greetings to Deeroux’s wife on arrival, the song to sing after the courses, the sound of the bell that indicated the start of the lessons, the shoes left near a large heater before beginning, and the introductory rope exercise. See, for example, Scala (1982 : 141) and Di Giacomo (1980 : 288). In any case, these rituals are neither strange nor unheard of: every theatre school which, in the course of the twentieth century, had tried to establish itself not (or at least not only) as a bureaucratic—institutional entity but (also) as a real and living pedagogical experience, could not have done so without giving itself rules and obligations, even minimal, whose primary scope was that of trying to transform the group of pupils and teachers into a community with its own identity, easily recognisable from both the inside and the outside. It was an issue of particular interest to Copeau. In his school the pupils were assigned a certain number of fixed chores (collaborating in the cleaning of the spaces, helping the new students, keeping a diary, meeting each other weekly to discuss any eventual group problems). Propelled by this spirit, the pupils themselves composed the song of the school, designed school uniforms with individual badges, and created initiation ceremonies for new pupils. Kusler Leigh observes that: ‘All of these activities were vital to the school spirit and to the new, communal way of life Copeau sought as the basis for a new and vigorous theatre’ (1979: 36). Craig too had envisaged a strong discipline for his Florentine school. 2 The severity of the master was proverbial. He was capable of expelling a pupil for lateness or an unjustified absence, or for too casual a behaviour in the lessons, and of hitting the roof for a lazily executed exercise. Nevertheless he knew how to become infinitely patient with those who, even though committing frilly to the work, had difficulty obtaining results. 3 For years and years Decroux held a weekly conference (first on Mondays, then Fridays, at the end of the classes) which he almost always transformed into a true theatrical performance: ‘Whoever wishes can ask him to talk on a subject, and Decroux will speak about it. The conferences are almost ritual events: the students sit down in the gym and, when everyone has arrived, Decroux enters with his big pale blue conference shirt, reaches a small table, which is placed for the occasion at the back of the room, and greets everyone; the students in their turn give their collective greeting and the conference begins’ (Rogante 1980*, 7-8). The questions were formulated all together at the beginning to the assistants, who repeated them to Decroux; then Decroux responded for about an hour without any other interruptions (Soum and Wasson 1990*). Earlier on there had been other modalities, for example with the questions put during the conference (Lebreton 1991 *).

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

the

prohibitions and obligations

adhere,

etc.

to

Laboratory

which the

pupils had

to

4

Before the 1950s, when it become one of the most important international reference points for anyone interested

study of movement and physical expression, Decroux’s school (and his company) had been for some time a tiny semi-clandestine reality, mostly unknown and without any external support. It was a very small yet changeable group of disciples, whose fixed core was made up of just the master himself, his wife, and his young son Maximilien (born in 1930). In a short, unsigned newspaper article, probably from 1941, we find the first news about the beginnings of the in mime

or

in the

school. It tells

us

that

Etienne Decroux’s school has been

working in silence for a year with kind faith is and that of which favourable to the creation of beautiful works. From the great lesson of the Vieux Colombier Theatre, E. Decroux obtained a technique of gesture and pantomime, which years of work have allowed him to perfect further. Decroux showed himself to be an advocate of pure mime: no words, no music, not even the occasional word in time with the movements; the gesture, only the gesture, the pure gesture. The other day E. Decroux presented expressive and silent exercises [...]. 5 The anonymous journalist continues, mentioning the positive reaction of the spectators and citing the names of the

pupils, ‘worthy of their teacher’: Catherine Toth and Sylvain Marc. They are the same who, with the addition of a third (Bruno Fauvette), appear next to Decroux in the private sessions organised in rue de la Néva the following year. On that occasion

4

a

critic, Hèléne Garcin, had the impression of

During the period in which they frequented the school, the pupils were categorically prohibited, under threat of expulsion, from participating in performances of any kind, or from following external courses. It is useful to note that similar prohibitions were in place at the Vieux Colombier School (Cruciani 1971 a: 153). 5 Collection Rondel, Bibliothéque Nationale de France, Paris.

finding herself in front of a kind of collective body animated by just one centre: Three bodies in action around the central trunk which is Decroux’s body, mechanisms linked to this energy generator which is the will of E. Decroux, move with a coordination of gestures, a synchronisation of attitudes, a physical and mental communication, which

are the first perceptable performance. (Aujourd’hui, 26 May 1942) 6

only a few pupils

So even

fewer

were

came to

elements of

days, and immediately defect,

Decroux in those

those who did

not

discouraged by the harsh work and the inflexible rigour of the teacher. Let us read a testimony by a pupil destined to become famous: Marcel Marceau. This is a significant text, even though he does not accurately distinguish between the courses

held at the Atelier and those of Decroux’s

by

transferred

now

to rue

own

school,

Cadet:

When I arrived at Dullin’s school in 1944, located in the attic of Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, which today is Théâtre de la Ville, Decroux held the mime courses. We were eight pupils, but twice a week was not sufficient to practise an art. Then the number decreased, only three of us stayed on. In July 1944, just before the liberation of Paris, we were down to two pupils, Eliane Guyon and myself. Eliane Guyon, who I had encouraged to become Decroux’s pupil, was like me a teacher of dramatic art at the Sévres nursery school. We worked from eight in the morning until ten in the

day. (Marceau

1987:

30)

evening,

every

These

difficult years for Decroux’s school, without funding, or places to work. From 1945 his activities

resources, were

were

hosted in

a

hall in

rue

Vigée-Lebrun thanks

to

the

help

of a dancer, Marguerite Bougai, who had been given the space for dance courses by the local council (Decroux 1947b: 132). here that, at the beginning of 1947, Etienne Bertrand Weill, who would become the greatest photographer of It

6

was

Garcin does not provide the title of the piece Passage des hommes sur la terre.

in

question, but

it is

probably

mime, met Decroux for the first time, friend Marceau:

brought along by his

The conditions were pretty Spartan, above all in the winter when only a large heater allowed the pupils to warm themselves up in the pauses between exercises and improvisations. In that period there were between ten and twelve pupils [...] It seems to me that the courses started with exercises, at the bar sometimes, but mainly on the little stage: walks, definition of the scenic space, counterweights, etc. Then followed improvisations for the pupils and the preparation or the rehearsals of future numbers. All of this was punctuated by comments and reflections from Decroux which impressed me a lot. (Weill 1992*) On 15 November of that

same

of the the

two masters in

Craig visited captured the meeting

year, Gordon

the school and it was Weill himself who

the image I have

spoken about

in

Prologue. Nevertheless

things began

to

improve, thanks

to

the first

important accolades (in the wake of the memorable evening at the Maison de la Chimie in 1945 and the consecration that Decroux received from Craig himself) and the first tours abroad, which began in 1947. The life of the school was

the

obviously conditioned by this, for better or worse, with teaching activity organised exclusively in function of the

company and its needs. Moreover, all the actors

pupils. So, during its shutters. (Later, continuity of the absence,

in

the tours, the school would Maximilien Decroux would the

were

pull

also

down

ensure

the

of his father's

during periods particular during his long stays in America.) courses

It

this point that Marise Flach arrived at the school as she had heard that Decroux was looking for a young actress to join was at

the company. She participated in all the tours until the master asked her, in 1954, to teach in his place in Milan’s Piccolo

school, where she then worked for over 40 years. her testimony of that period with Decroux:

Teatro is

Here

I had two roles in his company: the leading (and only) lady, and the last, youngest pupil; this was towards the end of 1949

because the following year, in 1950, we were on tour in Israel with the pieces Les Petits Soldats, L’Usine, L’Esprit Malin, Les Arbres. Until 1953 we toured the whole of Europe: in England, Greece, and many other countries, but not in Germany, because Decroux did not want to go there. Even some months after our return to Italy, in the summer of 1954, we restarted touring with him in Sweden, Norway, Finland: in my opinion this was one of his most successful last tours, (in Pozzi 1991*: 95)

Flach also remembers that Decroux

was

tireless but very

methodical and bound by routine:

Everyday,

Decroux had this method of work: from six until nine

in the

morning he would reflect, he sat at his table and wrote; from ten until one he would hold lessons, then return home, have lunch, sleep until around five in the afternoon (the siesta

after which he either held another two or hours of lessons or he would sit back down at his desk to with his quill and fountain pens, dipping them into china ink, on white paper. ‘Black on white’. This is his mind, (in was

sacred),

1991*:

three write

black Pozzi

95)

As for the

teaching,

one of the things that Decroux did, at least while I was with him [...], was to hold lessons not so much for the pupils, but for himself. If he worked for the pupils, he did so only for those who were necessary to him, who he then used in his shows, (in

Pozzi 1991*:

In the

95)

popularity of the school constantly began to arrive from all the European countries touched by the tours and the workshops, as well as other places. The myth of the master grew too, with his magnetic personality, his authoritarian and irascible character, but also his humour, his overflowing oratory, and the complexity of his courses. Pinok (alias Monique Bertrand) managed to be accepted by the increased

course

of the 1950s the as

did the number of pupils, who

school after pursuing Decroux for an entire year. It was 1955: The lessons lasted two hours. Sat on the floor we listened to him speak for an hour and a quarter about everything that passed through his head, from the economy, to the war, etc. [...] We

completely fascinated and little by little he arrived at the theme of the improvisation, which had nothing strictly to do with what he had been speaking about up to that point. We wondered how he would manage to get back to the subject of mime! Then we slipped into the improvisation. There was only half an hour left and for this reason only two or three pupils were able to tackle it [...]. We went through things that I found really boring, like for example the warm-up with sticks, which reminded me of a certain kind of old-fashioned gymnastics. It was a very austere and very rigorous work that he managed to get us to accept thanks to his verve, to his way of giving it rhythm. As a teacher he was very entertaining. In all the leg work, at the bar, he referred to ballet exercises which he had adapted in his own were

way...

(Pinok

1991:

9)

Hereafter, Decroux’s residencies

in the United States

spreading the name of his school beyond the borders of Europe, finally sanctioning it internationally as the ‘Mecca of mime’, as he would sometimes pride himself on calling it.

between 1957 and 1962

were

instrumental in

4.2 Mime's Mime and Actor's Mime To

move

from the

inevitably fragmentary anecdotes of the periods towards a more

various testimonies from different

organic and overall reflection on Decroux’s school, and foremost

his

ideas

means

first

pedagogical closely, considering corporeal mime from the point of view of theatre to examine

more

education. What is

immediately striking

is the unresolved funda-

mental dilemma between the idea of

corporeal

mime

as

art, and its function as technical training, pedagogy at the service of (spoken) theatre. For

an autonomous

physical example, in just one interview we find these two affirmations: (1) ‘I am therefore hostile to the fusion of words and mime which should be enough to express everything on its own’. (2) 1 see it [mime] as the only means of providing actors a

with

complete corporeal training, a eurythmy which is the only thing that can allow them, even in banal theatre and especially in tragedy, in verse drama, to act in full harmony a

with the

already

of their text’. 7 It is, in other words, the mentioned dilemma between ‘mime’s mime’ (or essence

pure mime) and 'actor’s in the only pragmatically

mime’, which

Decroux resolved

possible way: accepting both and perhaps exactly for this reason, distinctly separating them. This led him not without difficulty and uncertainties to the necessity of opening his very tight system towards two different and divergent outcomes. Once again the distinction between principles and creations proves to be crucial. In fact, the principles of corporeal mime remain the same in both cases, that is, its basic physical grammar is the same for both mime’s mime and actor’s mime; what changes is the way of applying them, translating them into final creations. Chapter 5 is dedicated -

-

to

‘mime’s mime’. Let

us now see

what conclusions Decroux

reached about ‘actor’s mime’. Actor’s mime decision a

as

regarding

an

the

expressive tool. For a mime, the appropriate type of presence in

most

piece of spoken theatre should come, according to Decroux,

from the

preliminary observation of the ‘scientific’ law of proportionality which regulates the collaborative relationship between the different arts: ‘When two arts are produced together, one must retreat as the other advances, and vice versa’ (1946: 32); ‘the richer the text, the poorer the actor’s music must be’ (1954a: 35). Now, since ‘we are faced with a system whereby the script reigns supreme and nothing must be allowed to distract from it’ (1956: 149), and also considering that any attempt to unhinge this system might risk rebounding back upon mime itself, ‘to the extent of bringing into question its very existence as a physical theatrical art’ (1956: 150), we can only acknowledge the reduced space that inverse

7

See the

Spectateur of 12 November 1946.

is left to mime in such

being intended in quantitative terms of course. This approach to the problem induced Decroux to resolutely throw out the hypothesis of alternation (much practised within the Copeau tradition and later by Barrault in particular), that is, the insertion of mime scenes into spoken performances. Instead, he opted for the only available solution: that of a discreet presence, smaller in size’, with respect to the art of ‘its silent brother’ (1954b: 40), in order not to ‘distract from the text’ (1944: 127); that of an ‘aseptic’ mime, an ‘invisible servant of an overall poetry’ which ‘lives [in] the shadow of speech much as the wife of 8 a great man lives beside her husband’ (1956: 153). Actor’s mime

performance, indispensable fact that

as

a

situation

-

'reduced’

education. Even if invisible in the

Decroux considered the art of mime to

the education of any actor, if

only

as

for the

stage accompanied by their own It should therefore also be studied, and

actors appear on

(1956: 150). 9 in depth, by the actor who will make a very discreet use of it, to the point of invisibility. Besides, there are several other and more specific reasons in favour of such a choice: to know how to move on stage one needs to possess an artificial technique, a ‘second nature’, which should be explicitly learnt; ‘beautiful’

bodies

movements are

difficult and

is often believed

not at

all natural, or instinctive, actually affectation which

(1944:128); simplicity and precision, which a the result of well mastered technique (1947b: represent 132). According to Decroux, nothing is more dangerous than a badly learnt corporeal technique, or a smattering of mime. as

it is

is natural and instinctive, not

He argues that there

are two

types of actor who

can

‘ill-serve’

8 But what will the technical means and the expressive modes of this discreet and almost invisible mime be? ‘In order to accompany his general action with accuracy, and with a power and discretion that will not distract from the text, the actor has at his disposal four things: 1. The trunk among the parts of the body; 2. Smoothness among the types of speed; 3. Attitude rather than gesture and even rather than movement; 4. Walking among the methods of operation (Decroux 1944: 127). 9 In other words, this means that ‘the actor is nothing other than a mime’ (Decroux 1947b: 135).

a

dramatic

and

[...]

‘the

text:

the

one

who has

one

who has

at

least studied mime

a

studiously avoided such study’.

bit For

Decroux, ‘the more dangerous’ of the two is without doubt the first, that is the one ‘who has dabbled in mime long enough to

think he knows how

to

while the second type of

dabble in it’ actor

(1956: 153).

will be inclined

to

In

fact,

hide

on

stage (as a corporeal presence), managing in this way to limit the damage deriving from their own physical incapacity, the first type will do much worse: they will end up exhibiting themselves, with exaggerated gestures and movements, giving an irritating impression of falseness and artificiality.

4.3 As

a

'The

Place for Yound

People

is at School

theatre pedagogue, Decroux always tried

of the school and of learning in all

to

instil an ethic

pupils, whether aspiring

against the innate laziness of youth aspiring and their hurry to get somewhere, against certain fashionable ideologies (even within the avant-garde) that exalted the mimes

actors:

or

naturalness and spontaneity of which

youth as treasured assets always fought strongly

might ruin. Decroux

technique prejudice that, without any valid reason, treats the art of the actor differently from that of the painter, the sculptor, the musician, or the dancer. ‘If it is obvious for everyone’, he wrote in 1972 in a note for the presentation of a cycle of conferences, ‘that, in music, technique neither paralyses the

sterilises inspiration but, on the contrary, aids its birth, excites it, gives ceremonial dress [i.e. ennobles it], one none nor

the less 1989:

sees

the actor’s

57). According

to

differently’ (quoted in Leabhart Decroux, one can only exceed what art

Improvement, in art, comes from ‘choice’ or from ‘synthesis’ and therefore, in both cases, presupposes the ownership of ‘a whole pre-existing technique’. This is what he had already written thirty years earlier, in an article for the Comoedia magazine (not included in his book), which delivers one

possesses.

enthusiastic praise of study and commitment in theatre, also giving us a charming picture of his difficult relationship an

with his

pupils and with their lazy and hasty superficiality:

The aspiring actor is eager to go on stage, rather than to improve oneself. [...] Let us take the example of corporeal mime, which is my field: When I

proposed it to them in words, response: I want to see a practical example. They do not even have faith! And believe in God only when they touch Him. When I showed them a practical example, they denounced the gaps. They do not even have imagination! And are severe in the face of goodness. When I presented them with a developed example, response: I could

do that, it is too difficult! have enthusiasm! They Or even: I do not have time. They do not have time to learn! So they find time to teach. Interpreting in their own way the famous words of a general: ‘I cannot defend myself any longer, so I will attack’. Make way for the young! Fine! The place for young people is at school. (Decroux 1942a) do

never

not even

On the other

hand,

it

was

vital for Decroux

to

have

disciples, also on an artistic level. His demands were so complex and specific that he never managed to work with actors who had not been trained by him. In spite of the apparent strength and the unshakeable zeal which seemed to animate him, a disappointment with his pupils could push him to

he

interrupt some technical work for months or even years once

confessed

(Dufour

1989*:

45).

-

as

On another occasion

he declared: ‘the influence that the pupils have

on

is considerable and

1978:

always unexpected’ (Klier

the teacher

140).

In

fact, disappointments apart, many of his strongest intuitions, and most important acquisitions in corporeal mime, originated in the

pedagogical work of the school. This is the case, for example, with the articulation of body parts technique, one

of the the

of his mime grammar: ‘the difficulty of moving parts of their body separately forced

cornerstones

in

pupils

Decroux to

clarify his methods,

movements

and

break down the

complex pedagogy’ (Dufour 1989*: 45). In this respect, he loved to repeat that if all his pupils had been as gifted as the first Barrault (who was able to resolve then his research would any task without much difficulty) have developed much less and would not have been able to go so deeply. Affection and jealousy, generosity and abuse of power: all to create

his

to

own

—

-

the passions, and the weaknesses, of any genuine masterpupil relationship animated, and jeopardised, Decroux’s way of conducting himself in the school, and the way he related to his students, especially to some of them. There is a recurrent episode in Decroux’s long career as a teacher: the traumatic

break-up with a favourite disciple in the form of abandonment on their part or an expulsion by the master, or both. To cite only the most well-known cases: Barrault, Marceau, Eliane Guyon,

Lebreton, and his own son Maximilien. Each unique case, but every time (as we have seen for

Yves

represents Barrault) the a

deep

reason

for the crisis is

always the

same:

Decroux’s expectation of absolute dedication, without any reward. He was especially demanding with the most faithful, with the seniors’, without however being able to accept a minimum of independent judgement and action from them.

painful contradiction: on the one hand, Decroux’s work had a vital need for very long working periods and huge availability; on the other hand, it was always difficult

The result

for him a

was a

put his collaborators in the position of sustaining long-term relationship without frustrations, beyond the to

training period. brilliant and promising of the second half of the 1960s. Decroux entrusted

Yves Lebreton

was

the

most

pupil specifically him with the realisation of a ‘dream’: a new company, maybe the last, and a new performance, perhaps the last as well (he had felt the lack of both since the America

period). Decroux worked for a long time on this project and eventually everything seemed ready (it was May 1968). Along with Lebreton, the company included Maria Lexa, Ingemar Lindh, and Gisèle Pélisson. The performance-demonstration was

the

entitled Pièces Détachées. Its first half was dedicated

principles

of

to

which Decroux had

corporeal (for principiel’), the second included some new However, everything fell apart due to a terrible fit mime

coined the term ‘le creations.

of rage which struck Decroux when Lebreton informed him of his intention

to visit

Grotowski in Poland in the

following

months. In fact, the trip would have rendered impossible any further presentations of the performance-demonstration. Lebreton was thrown out along with the others in the company show him

In this way the work of many years went up in smoke. It is easy to understand

who had dared

to

solidarity.

the bewilderment and the

dismay of the pupils, especially Lebreton, but the greatest distress was actually Decroux’s. It is certainly to episodes like this that he alludes to in the Dufour confession cited above.

4.4 From the 1960s to the 1980s: Success and Decroux’s

long stay

Organisation

in America, which lasted from 1957 to

1962, clearly divides two different epochs of his fifty-year teaching activity. The period which begins with the return from the United States, and with the reopening of the school in

Boulogne-Billancourt in the outskirts of Paris, is characterised by the ever increasing popularity of his teaching and the ensuing

increase in student numbers. 10 Thanks to

managed 10

to ensure a

greater continuity

in the

this, he

courses

and

According to Pitt (1992 *), there were no more than a dozen students at the reopening of the school in 1963. However the numbers increased regularly, becoming almost fifty at the beginning of the 1970s (Leabhart 1992 *) and over a hundred by the end of that decade (Soum and Wasson 1990*).

acquired a more solid organisation (though always within the limits imposed by Decroux’s personality). The length of the stay at the school increased, while remaining free and indeterminate. 11 This allowed the teaching to become ever deeper and more systematic, enabling the pupils’ technical and artistic level to rise accordingly. As a confirmation of this greater pedagogical commitment there was also the launch of the school

the assistant system. 12 But let us look more

closely at the organisation which Decroux’s school acquired from the beginning of the 1960s by using the testimonies of ex-pupils, in particular that of Corinne Soum and Steven Wasson (his assistants between 1982 and 1984, after having been pupils from 1978 to 1981). The pupils were divided into three levels: (1) beginners (two groups), (2) intermediates (two groups), and (3) 11 There were those who enrolled and disappeared after one week, or after some months, and those who remained there for years without a precise idea of when they were leaving. ‘Often I was asked how long Decroux’s school lasted: it lasts as long as you stay there. [...] The idea of reaching perfection can tie you to the school with an almost obsessive attachment; one can remain there for a lifetime’ (Rogante 1980 *: 67). Soum and Wasson (1990*) indicate five years as the maximum stay at the school. 12 Decroux’s recourse to assistants in teaching should be placed in relation to the increase in the number of students, as well as, from a certain period onwards, to the limitations imposed by his age. In reality, Decroux had always been inclined to delegate very little to others regarding the work with students. The only real exception was his son Maximilien, who had been his invaluable collaborator since the 1940s, almost right up to the end notwithstanding various periods of separation. According to Lebreton and Lindh, Decroux tried to do everything on his own even

in the 1960s. It was from the 1970s that part of the didactic effort

(without this

was

passed on to

slightly undermining the autocracy of the master, who continued to make all the decisions). In this sense, Decroux’s first real assistant could be considered to be Thomas Leabhart, who frequented the Boulogne-Billancourt school between 1968 and 1972. Of course, it is a different proposition altogether if by ‘assistants’ one means favoured students, or ‘the seniors’, to whom Decroux particularly dedicated himself and who represented the pillars of the school and (when it existed) the company. The list of these ante litteram assistants is rather long and begins with Barrault, to include at least: Catherine Toth, Eliane Guyon, Marise Flach, Janine Grillon, Leonard Pitt, Yves Lebreton, and many others. Regarding the rigid hierarchies which existed between the various classes of pupils in the school, and the importance and function of the team of older students, in the late 1960s, see Sklar (1985: 74). assistants

even

‘seniors’

(one group). As already mentioned, not only the length of the schooling but also of the stays in the three levels were not fixed beforehand and nor were they equal for everyone. It sometimes occurred that a pupil would remain in the ‘beginners’ for two years and that another

advanced,

or

would pass into the ‘intermediates’ after just one month. Though absences and lateness were not tolerated except in extraordinary circumstances, by giving Decroux and his wife advance notice, a pupil could interrupt their studies and perhaps resume again later, even after several years (Decroux

particularly loved seeing the ‘seniors’ return, even if just for a visit). In any case Decroux’s pedagogy required long timescales and did not take account at least theoretically of the coming and going of the pupils or other conditionings of -

-

this kind. The aspiring students did not have to pass any kind of entrance test and did not have exams or even marks whilst at

the school. At the

According

to

time, the selection was very hard. Soum and Wasson, out of one hundred pupils

who started in

same

September, half would leave by June (though

in the meantime others would have

arrived, because

it

was

possible during the year, at the beginning of every month); about twenty joined the ‘seniors’ class of the course to

in the

following

three years; direction. The -

-

-

13

enrol

year

two or

or

two; about ten

three worked

stayed for roughly personally under Decroux’s 13

weekly programme consisted of: Monday: study of walking and displacement; Tuesday: study of counterweights; Wednesday: improvisations;

According to Soum and Wasson (1990*), the daily working hours were: 08:30(course for beginners, with half an hour of Deeroux’s presence), 10:00-12:00 (advanced course, with an hour and a half of Decroux’s presence), 18:00—19:30 (intermediate course, with an hour of Decroux’s presence). The Friday conference took place between 20:00 and 21:30, though Rogante puts it at 18:00 (1980*: 7). Needless to say, there were various changes in the schedule during the different periods. Also worth noting in this regard is that, in the 1940s and 1950s, the organisation was much more informal and fluid. 10:00

-

-

Thursday: mobile statuary and descentes (lowering to the 14 ground); Friday: the ‘little parts of the body’: hands, arms, eyes, head. 15

In the

1970s, the teaching began

Decroux and his assistants. These

to

be shared between

mainly had the task of

getting the pupils into an appropriate physical condition and to teach them the basic exercises (for example those called ‘radical

taught the figures, the repertory, and also some exercises; all accompanied by philosophical and poetic explanations, quotations, and faculties’).

On his part Decroux

16

anecdotes. Often he would

not even

follow

a

theme and

proceed according to the inspiration of the moment, triggered by anything: a memory, a song, a political event, an object, and so forth. He was capable of being very entertaining and very serious at the same time, and it is particularly interesting how he organised the lessons to give them a dynamism which allowed for an

would

which could be

14

The term ‘descent’ is preferred to ‘fall’, which is usually used in contemporary dance, because it incorporates all the rhythmic possibilities and not just that of a sharp and involuntary movement. 15 In the 1960s there was also the Saturday morning course dedicated to the eyes and the head. Matho recalls not having done anything else for three years, having been able to frequent only that class due to work commitments (1991: 9). 16 It will be helpful to clarify the difference between ‘exercises’, ‘figures’, and ‘numbers’ (or pieces’) in Decroux’s terminology. An exercise is a movement that, through its repeated execution, allows for the overcoming of a physical or dramatic challenge. This is particularly the case with improvisation exercises, which are a sequence of dramatic tasks related to attitudes or movements on which a pupil has to improvise. A figure is a concatenation of movements which represents an action (figurative or otherwise), a feeling, a state, a character, a thought, etc. A figure must consist of a beginning, a development, and a conclusion, and is generally constructed around a physical, dramatic, or aesthetic challenge. It has its own autonomous existence and is therefore a piece in its own right which lasts one minute, thirty seconds, or even less. A number (or piéce) can be defined as a concatenation of figures regarding whatever theme, figurative or otherwise. A number is a small piece of dramatic corporeal mime. The only difference with respect to a full piéce is its length: a number does not generally last longer than five minutes. Nevertheless, for short creations such as La Lessive or Le Menuisier, Decroux preferred to use the term piéces. On some occasions he seemed to compare the relationship between figure and number with that which links a preparatory design (sketch, draft) to a painting (Soum and Wasson 1990*).

extended do the

working time. He generally asked the assistant to figure, exercise, or movement that they were working

then he would do it himself; then everyone would do it together, teachers and pupils, in front of the mirror; and at the end the pupils would sit, except for one or two, whose on;

turn it was to

re-do the exercise

Soum and Wasson

observe, ‘it

or

the

was a

figure in question. As very particular rhythm

[...] consisting of an alternation of efforts and concentration instead of a progression’ (1990*). During the lessons it was absolutely forbidden to ask questions (which could however be asked during the weekly conference); Decroux could not stand any distraction and movement from the pupils while he was explaining something. It is worth

noting Decroux’s

give rhythm to the courses.

use

of a constant vocal work to

particular, during the execution figure, produced sounds, onomatopoeias, even declaimed poetry or sang old English or French popular songs. Often all the pupils sang along with him, while doing of an exercise

or a

In

he

the exercises. The improvisations could follow one of two modalities: 17 (1) Decroux gave a theme and left them an hour to prepare

the collective presentation;

(2) after the theme had

been given there was no time for preparation: this was mostly the case for solos or duets. Soum and Wasson observed that Decroux possessed the art of always to say

finding something positive regarding even the least effective improvisations.

4.5

Beyond the System and the Technique

We should be careful not to exaggerate the

and dimensions of the systematic

nature

importance

of Decroux’s

17 The pupils worked on improvisation only after an initial phase (of varying length) dedicated to exercises. In the period when he collaborated with his father, it was Maximilien who looked after the improvisation courses for beginners and intermediates. On the importance of improvisation in Decroux’s pedagogical work, see

also the Introduction.

teaching before and after 1962. There had always been a great methodological rigour and esprit de géométrie in his pedagogy, but it would be inappropriate and incorrect to close it in the cage of a method, or worse, a system. In this regard the testimony of Yves Lebreton, who was at the school between 1964 and 1968, comes in useful. He argues that in as in every authentic experience of Decroux’s teaching -

theatre

pedagogy there is a limit beyond which the systems conceptual explanations are no longer sufficient. —

and the

Lebreton observes that this limit separates the inside from the outside of the school, and involves that which can be explained and understood even by those who were on the outside and that which

cannot:

Despite his undeniable quality

as a demonstrator, which might hurried observer believe that his work articulates itself according to classified and systematised theoretical frameworks, Etienne Decroux often instructs, in practice, in the form of images where he breaks the apparent rigidity of his teaching, to open it to the intuitive freedom of experience. Behind that which is explained, lies that which is not. Between what is said and what is done, demonstrated and suggested, defined and undefined, there exists a multitude of contradictions which only practical experience is able to resolve. Decroux’s teaching is an organism which requires internal correspondences, unsuspected ramifications, according to games of reflections and echoes which are difficult to locate and where the clarity of the discourse is always cloaked by intuitive light and shade. (Lebreton undated [1986]: 3)

make

a

Lebreton then touches upon a key point which might explain most of the misunderstandings that have always -

teaching (and also those of other when he calls for the masters of twentieth-century theatre) need of a reading (and. fruition) of Decroux’s pedagogy which goes beyond the purely technical dimension: surrounded Decroux’s

—

Decroux proposes

more

than just

a

technique,

system

or

method, he instigates the discovery of our ‘body-mind’ and, above all, he demands a work ethic, provokes an experience of

one’s self, within one’s self from one’s self directed towards the others. [...] The technique of Etienne Decroux’s corporeal mime constitutes only the pedagogical aspect of his work which, though undoubtedly indispensable and decisive, is incomplete. His teaching, in fact, demands a second reading, based not on what is learnt but on what has been transmitted. However, this

always perceived by a lot of students. Focusing exclusively the rigorous learning of the corporeal technique, they become impeccable marionettes with oiled limbs and precise articulations, but in whom movement is no longer measured by the flow of their own blood, by the cadences of their breath, innervated by their animal strength and rooted ‘in the back of the head’ [dans l’arriére de la tête], to quote a term dear to is not on

Etienne Decroux

In fact the

[...] (Lebreton undated [1986]: 3)

corporeal

in any way reducible to

taught by

mime

Decroux is not

aggregate of

techniques (however sophisticated), not even to a poetics or an aesthetic (however innovative or original). For Decroux the research

on movement was, at

a

mere

research into humankind, beings and their relationships,

its core,

into the nature of human

a

destiny which we all have in common. And this influenced the totalising and restless nature (which was often also dogmatic and doctrinarian) of his way of behaving, theorising, and teaching. The inability to see beyond the strictly technical level of Decroux’s teaching has led many of his pupils, even some of

into the mortal

those who later became artists

or

teachers within the field of

emphasise the inherent risks present in the extreme perfectionism of Decroux’s grammar, both on a pedagogical level (danger of inhibiting the pupil) and on a creative level (difficulty of making free use of such a complete and refined language). For example, Desmond Jones (mime teacher at the Mime Centre, London) has declared: after having attended Decroux’s school, I had no idea how to use the technique I had learnt; they were just exercises, I couldn’t imagine how to put them into practice, for me they did not mean anything’ (in Balsimelli and Negri 1982: 78). This is echoed mime,

to

(co-director of the Thèâtre du Mouvement with Claire Heggen, also a pupil at Boulogne-Billancourt): ‘At Decroux’s school one could find such a perfect technique that it was difficult, later on, to continue working’ (Balsimelli and Negri 1982: 124). However, Marc also immediately adds that, going deeper, Decroux’s pupils had the opportunity to discover quite quickly how his teaching was anything other than closed, consisting instead of a set of possibilities which the pupils themselves should make their own and develop as personal acquisitions. Finally, there is another important reason for many of the misunderstandings produced over the years by Decroux’s teaching and by his conceptions. It rests on the fact that Decroux (like other great pedagogues of twentieth-century by

Yves Marc

theatre, from Stanislavski

Grotowski,

to

to mention

just two names) never stopped researching, he always moved forward, enriching his research, modifying it, and often reconsidering the results

already achieved.

Di Giacomo writes that Decroux

often used to say: ‘when I die I will only be at the beginning of the great Mime Project’ (1980: 290). Therefore, on leaving the school, the pupils ended up almost inevitably disseminating

partial and soon outdated images of his work, blocked as they were at the phase of research which they had directly experienced. Of course, it is evident that the distortions were proportionate to the zeal of orthodoxy that drove the disseminators of Decroux’s Word. If Decroux has been

an

'invisible’ artist in twentieth-

century theatre (Leabhart 73), we can almost say the same for Decroux as a theorist and teacher: as Barba defines 1989:

him,

a

‘hidden master’

(1997).

5 Mime: Aesthetics and Grammar

Corporeal

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613-7

Before going into a more detailed analysis of the theory of corporeal mime, I should state that in this chapter I propose a mainly synchronic reading, treating it as a coherent and

by the constantly towards a systematic form and that the theories he presented in his 1963 book, even though in progress and spanning three

unitary whole. This fact that

—

as

is made

already noted

—

possible and

necessary

Decroux’s work tends

decades, 1 are unitary and coherent.

Obviously, the scientific inclination inherent to systematisation does not exclude (on the contrary, in some ways it requires) variations, integrations, developments, and even complete changes of direction. The same thing occurs in the aesthetics and the grammar of Decroux’s mime, of which, alongside the synchronic analysis, I will also attempt a

diachronic

reading, taking

into account the

important

developments that followed the book’s publication. It goes without saying that an approach which is aimed at reconstructing the various stages of Decroux’s development must

focus above all

on

the turning points,

on moments

innovation and elaboration. I believe it is useful

least four

to

of

highlight

with:

begin (1) the discovery, in the 1940s, of the ‘virtue of the curved line’ (Dorcy 1961: 113), which subsequently superseded the exasperated geometries of the preceding period; (2) the abandonment, in the 1940s and 1950s, of the residue of illusionistic pantomime (or objective mime) that still lingered in Decroux’s work, with the increasingly decisive focus on an abstract, non-narrative, and non-figurative mime art (Leabhart 1989: 55); (3) a more conscious achievement of depth and the third dimension, which led Decroux to develop in the course of the 1960s the theory of double and triple designs (already present in his work); at

moments to

1 It should not be forgotten, however, that the nucleus of the book, composed of the long section 'recedence of the Body over the Face and Arms’ (the most organised and the most technical), dates from 1962.

Corporeal Mime: Aesthetics

and Grammar

(4) the intensification, from the 1970s, of the research into abstract-mental mime which created ‘the visible portrait of the invisible’ (the so-called ‘mobile statuary’, already present in Eliane

Guyon’s great creations of the 1940s) through the exploration of ever more complex and philosophical themes, such as memory, life after death, the relationship with God, and especially, love.

5.1 The Mobile Statue

Firstly, Decroux’s

mime

reverses

the traditional

hierarchy

of body parts (often restored later in the twentieth century, at least by Marceau). The face and hands, privileged both in old French

pantomime and

in traditional theatre

(though downgraded to last place, as ‘instruments of falsehood, henchmen of gossip’. ‘How can

not

without

exceptions),

one create an

are

aseptic art’,

instruments that

are

lies?’

2

Decroux

asks, ‘with these

two

infected with the germs of everyday The new principal organ would instead

(1962a: 94). be the trunk (or ‘body mass’, subdivided into chest, shoulders, waist, and pelvis), then come the arms, legs, and lastly the head. However, in reality, more than just a body part, the trunk represented for Decroux a (new) way of conceiving and using it: ‘What I call the trunk is the whole body, including the arms and legs provided these arms and legs move at the command of the trunk’ (1954b: 39). To avoid the only intrusive game of facial mimicry and to oblige the body to ...

express itself

on

its own, Decroux often turned to

masks,

2 As Dorcy observes, the process of de-emphasising the mime’s face had already been set off in the nineteenth century by the great Jean-Gaspard Deburau: ‘In covering his features with flour, he was in effect resorting to a rudimentary kind of mask which deleted the fleeting and truthful expressions of the ancient pantomime’ (1961: 36). It is with the later ‘realistic’ mime of Deburau-junior (Charles) and Legrand, and with Louis Rouffe, that degenerations and excesses in the use of facial mimicry and the hands appear. Decroux had railed against these excesses, as had Georges Wague before him.

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

Laboratory

usually inexpressive (L’Usine, L’Esprit malin, La Statue, Petits Soldats), or more simply to silk veils (Les Arbres, Sports, Méditation). However, even when it is not masked or veiled, the face in Decroux’s mime remains fundamentally neutral: one thinks of Le Menuisier, La Lessive, and Le Combat mime is,

substantially,

a

‘faceless’. In addition to

antique. Corporeal

‘decapitated’ mime, or, more exactly, Michelangelo’s unfinished works and

the defaced artefacts from classical antiquity, it is natural to compare it to the acephalous statues by Rodin, an artist who had

always been a strong influence on Decroux (De Marinis 1981). However, it should be pointed out that Decroux never

declared himself against any use of the face and hands, even though he always opposed their overestimation and abuse. He maintains that, precisely because these body parts give the mistaken impression that they are easy to use, a

rigorous hand and face technique

is in

reality very difficult

(1962a: 85). The analysis of the reasons that led Decroux to choose the trunk as the principal organ of mime brings to light the most salient and original aspects of this new physical poetics, founded upon a self-constricting (even ‘self-amputated’) use of the body. This is a conception which excludes spontaneity and extemporaneity, therefore determining the dialectic between freedom and discipline decisively in favour of the latter. As we saw in Chapter 3 this dialectic underlies the most ,

important theories of movement created in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Delsarte, Dalcroze, Appia, Laban, and Meyerhold), of modern dance. The trunk

in

was

particular the experiences chosen by Decroux as the

body of the actor-mime should express-communicate-recount, precisely because it is more disadvantaged in these tasks than the hands and face, normally used for this aim. At the highest level, the `body means

through

which the

mass’ in fact possesses those characteristics of heaviness, thickness, and vulnerability which the body’s movement

necessarily take into account if from idle chatter’ and ‘guessing games’, like old pantomime it aspires to become high artistic expression, through hard work and risk. In order

must

—

-

to

achieve such

a

result,

Decroux considered it necessary

ban easy spontaneity and undisciplined improvisation, to instead submit the expressivity of the body to the difficult to

task of formal purging and disciplining, through the use of appropriate techniques. Above all, it is about freeing the

personal expressive process from naturalistic stereotypes and superficial masks, thus making it able to produce nonconventional signs, presences

-

as

Decroux called them

on one

(1962c: 109). These might be able to reveal the deep our psyches, and also to grasp almost without in us the intimate our knowledge and essence of an spite of object or an action: ‘the mime [...] makes movements with his body to evoke the movements of your soul. What Freud makes you say, mime lets us do’ (1951a: 116; my italics). Of course, this essential and depersonalised reproduction of inner life has nothing to do with the immodest narcissism of the actor, already violently stigmatised by Craig; just as in the same way, for Grotowski, the total gift of the self on the part of the ‘holy’ actor is contrasted with the banal exhibitionism occasion

conflicts of

-

—

of the ‘courtesan’ actor. Actors, as Decroux observes, find themselves in the unique and very uncomfortable condition of being ‘one with their creation’ (1962a: 87). It is therefore

particularly arduous for them

to

find

a

way of

showing this creation without getting their own private 3 physio-psychological persona involved. This is another reason for the choice of expressing primarily through the trunk, which, unlike the more ‘exhibitionist’ body parts, can support this indispensable depersonalisation of the physical creation. 3 Cf. Craig: ‘The highest art is that which conceals the craft and forgets the craftsman (1907b: 83). Earlier in the same essay on the Supermarionette, Craig cites Flaubert: ‘The artist should be in his work like God in creation: invisible and allpowerful; he should be felt everywhere and seen nowhere’ (77).

According to Decroux, the work of purging and excavation which the gesture must undergo to aspire to artistic expression brings the art of the mime closer to that of the sculptor, and its outcomes to

that of statuary:

pushes our gestures in the same way that the thumb sculptor pushes forms; and our body, sculpted from the

Our thought

of the

inside, stretches.

Our

thought, between

its thumb and index-

finger, pinches us along the reverse flap of our envelope and our body, sculpted from the inside, folds. Mime is, at the same time, both sculptor and statue. (Decroux 1948: 12)

by chance that Decroux coined the expression ‘mobile statuary’ for corporeal mime and defined it as ‘a Greek statue changing shape under a globe’ (1954b: 38). This image It is not

sums

up well the two basic characteristics of the

examined ‘has

so

new

mime

far:

(1) primacy of the trunk (in fact, sculpture vast number of trunks which differ from each

produced a only by nuance undiscernable to the undiscerning’ (1954b: 38); (2) the controlled and disciplined use of the body: the movements, for example of the arms, should not be free and casual but careful and conditioned by the metaphorical globe, so as not to endanger the plastic compactness of the

other

mobile statuary. While on the

one

hand Decroux

brought

mime closer

sculpture, also defining mime as ‘the art of making the move’ (Rogante 1980*: 20), on the other hand he carefully distanced and differentiated it from dance (both natural and artistic). In this too he broke with a centuriesold tradition in which the two ‘genres’ had always coexisted, often interweaving their forms: from the seventeenth-century ballet de cour to the choreography of Fokine, through (at least) the ballet d'action, or pantomime ballet, in the eighteenth century, and Viganò’s choreodrama in the following century. to

statue

In his

opinion, however, mime and dance are characterised by opposite types of movement. If the gesture of dance is 'evasion', liberation, joy, if its movement is aerial, fluid, and two

(like that of a spring), the muscular play of corporeal mime (being based on the prevalent use of the heaviest and most-difficult-to-use body part) instead resembles that of a ‘manual worker’, who is motivated by necessity and shows effort. However, this effort is not provoked by a defect of energy but, on the contrary, by the control of an excess of it for practical purposes: ‘We therefore suffer in our work proportionally to our own strength. / Man is the measure of dance; work is the measure of man’ (1952a: 53). (To avoid any misunderstanding, Decroux points out that, when stating that mime ‘creates a portrait of work’ [while dance only offers that of itself], he refers to muscular movement and not to themes: it is not about playing trades [1962d: 79]). 4 elastic

All in all,

as

we

shall

see

further

between dance and mime for Decroux is exists between two

opposite

states

on,

the difference

mainly that which

of mind: serenity, lack of

worries, for the former; unhappiness, suffering, even anguish, for the latter, ‘an art of “after the fall”’ (Puppa 1971: 55). Two existential and internal conditions cannot

but lead

—

in his

opinion

so -

distant from each other to

completely different

types of dynamism and rhythmic modes: the brusque saccade and the slow fondu for the mime, the aerial and elastic ressort for dance. 5

Particularly effective in its sketchiness is the way in which Decroux, during a conversation with the American 4

Nevertheless, we should remember the homonymous series of mime numbers from 1940 (Métiers) and L'Usine (1946). It should also be restated that the actions and gestures of manual jobs were already present in the first performances created by Decroux in 1931 (La Vie primitive and La Vie médiévale, the latter subtitled La Vie artisanale), which contained numbers such as Le Menuisier and La Lessive. Though the theme of trades, which included the hardest and most ‘archaic’ of them, had been a thematic obsession of Deeroux’s early years (undoubtedly influenced by Copeau), it was nonetheless justified by the technical research which he had been pursuing on the basic principles of the new mime grammar (see also Decroux, 6*). It is also in this sense that the aforementioned distinction between ‘muscular movement’ and ‘subject of the work’ should be read. 5 I will describe the rhythmic types saccade and fondu later on in the current chapter. See also Chapter 6.

critic and director Eric

Bentley towards the end of the 1940s,

recapitulates the elements which mark the difference between mime and dance: Dance is abstract and based on music. Pantomime is concrete and based on life. Dance flows like a stream; pantomime moves with the natural plunge and lunge of the muscles. Dance is soaring and vertical, pantomime earth-bound and horizontal. The dancer works with the leap, the mime with the walk. The dancer deals in symmetric patterns, exact repetitions, regular rhythms, as music enjoins; the mime in asymmetry, variation, syncopation, the rhythmic patterns of speech and natural body movement.

(Bentley

1951:

5.2 Towards Besides the aspects

190)

an

Abstract Gesture

already considered, privileging the trunk body parts brings us back to one of

in relation to the other

the basic premises of Decroux’s aesthetic: anti-naturalism. According to him, entrusting the job of ‘accompanying

(and therefore of expressing ideas, feelings, and the body mass, instead of the hands or facial passions) mimicry which tend to perform this task in everyday life should actually produce ‘the dual expression created by a single thing: of having already seen it and of never having seen it’, provoking a sort of defamiliarisation of the spectator’s perceptive habits (Decroux 1962a: 76). In fact,

the mind’

to

-

-

In the domain of

seen the mass of the body of the soul; but on the one hand I that my soul is movement, and on the other hand of the body. (Decroux 1962a: 77)

accompanying the am

I

well aware the mass

see

reality,

I have not

movements

Against the trivial and stereotypical pseudo-realism of late nineteenth-century French pantomime, Decroux proposes a conception of mime as a ‘synthesis of reality and art’. As with any

show

something through illusion, by imitating or making a copy of it; especially as, in its case, a high degree of realism already exists thanks true art, mime must not

attempt

to

the flesh and blood presence of the actor on stage. It is necessary, he writes in his debate with the director Gaston

to

Baty, that ‘the idea of

one thing must be given by another which should allude to the first thing, (1942b: 48), thing’ it in an transposing elliptic and symbolic way. Hence the apparent paradox according to which ‘an art is complete only if it is partial’: this is just like the new mime, which intends to evoke ‘the life of the mind by using only the movement of the body’ (1942b: 29). The influence of Craig and his symbolist aesthetic on this decisive point is well known and, as we have seen, explicitly acknowledged by Decroux himself. However, it is more interesting to analyse how (through which procedures and passages) he arrived at the theorisation of an 'abstract mime’, and the kind of problems its staging posed him. The adjective ‘abstract’ (used rather sparingly in his book, e.g. 1962a: 85) has not failed to provoke critical reactions and to generate misunderstandings. This is also because, in

my

opinion, with this word

different

(and

which should

in

a

way

Decroux wanted to refer to two

opposite)

series of artistic

be confused with each other, coexist and interact in practice. (1) The first

operations if

they regards the level of expression and style, and consists fundamentally of giving abstract form, i.e. artificial and non-figurative form, to concrete subjects (or even to abstract content). In this first sense, then, abstract mime essentially means ‘non-realistic’, ‘non-illusionistic mime’. (2) The second series of operations, which are on the level of content, regard the representationexpression (i.e. the concrete putting into form) of abstract subjects such as states of mind, ideas, emotions, etc. In this latter case, therefore, abstract mime primarily signifies ‘mime which represents abstract subjects’. On a stylistic-expressive level, creating abstract mime according to Decroux means making a representation that is symbolic, elliptical, and allusive. That is, a representation of the subject which is able to redeem, through the artificiality of not

even

decidedly non-realistic form, the ‘illogical’ and ‘inopportune’ realism of the ‘carnal presence’ of the actor on stage: a

Reality on stage is always illogical, sometimes inopportune. But the reality of what? The reality of the thing represented. Illogical: for the thing that one presents cannot be the thing represents. And the thing one represents cannot be present. -

The their

same

is true of all the arts of

it

representation: hence

name.

In statuary, the marble

one

presents represents flesh.

Even the realist actor represents another

man.

And yet one readily says that sculpture is more real than painting. It is because the creation has some properties which are also those of that which it represents: resistance, breakability, weight, volume. The concrete is stating the concrete. We therefore find ourselves relatively close to the notion of presence which does not represent. Although the actor whom we are discussing represents another man, he is still a man himself. [...] The actor is therefore closer to his original than the sculptor’s stone is to its original. This is already serious, serious enough for the actor to contrive not to make it worse. (1962c, 112-13; my

italics)

Here Decroux identifies with great

lucidity the

of the ambivalence which underlies the blood

performance:

the fact of

actor's

always being,

in

terms

flesh-andsome

way,

representation, a reference to something other than oneself, fiction and, at the same time, a self-reflexive presence, selfmeaning materiality. If, in the course of the twentieth century, many of the most innovative and radical theatre theories had tried to resolve the contradiction in favour of performance and

(against representation, considered negatively deceptive fiction, falsity, illusion), Decroux’s position

pure presence as

whole tilts instead towards representation. The latter appeared to him as an artistic dimension still to be conquered

as a

and from which traditional

spoken theatre which sees itself is no less distant than those as its most accredited champion art forms (from mime to ballet to theatre itself) that seek to 6 deliberately avoid representation. -

-

In any

case

it

was

evident

to Decroux

that

to

aspire

to

become an art of representation, in the aesthetic-philosophical

ought to guard not only against the stereotypical pseudorealism of pantomime, but also against the abstract hyperformalism of a ‘presence that does not represent’, of a body that only signifies itself. In fact, in both sense

of the term, mime

if for opposite reasons and in opposite directions, cannot get away from the embarrassing tautology of

cases, even one a

figure which does not refer to anything other human figure (aesthetically it makes little difference

human

than

a

whether it is that of the

actor or

that of a character,

as

in old

pantomime). To not reduce itself to pure self-presentation (or pure self-representation) mime should force itself to become an ‘illustration of the absent’ (as Decroux would later say), that is, a representation-evocation of something other than itself, of what is not (immediately) visible. To succeed in this, the mime must firstly negate-dissemble their own body and construct ‘another’ body: artificial, fictitious, extra-daily. It is not just about neutralising the embarrassing realism of a living body. There is also the fact an additional disadvantage for -

the theatre artist

-

that

unlike marble, colour or air, the body is already a work before one undertakes to create a work with it; since in spite of itself, it has meaning because its form states its function; since its form is unchangeable; since, as a man’s body, it is condemned to resemble a man’s body. (1962a: 85) 6

Rogante (1980 *: 25ff.), Decroux classified the various arts in categories: (1) arts of presentation, which are self-reflexive and functional, e.g. architecture; and (2) arts of representation, which contain the idea of the reproduction of an image, reflect elements of external reality, and use the senses. The arts of representation are in turn divided into impure arts and pure arts. Amongst the first, he includes (in addition to spoken theatre) dance and also painting (when the laying down of colour is accompanied by signs); amongst the second: music, sculpture, design, painting and, naturally, corporeal mime. According

to

two fundamental

To avoid the

body being reduced to self-imitation (or self-presentation), thus limiting itself to reproducing a work which pre-exists the intervention of the actor-artist, it is therefore necessary that the body dissembles itself, being

‘obliged

dissemble in its movements’ and

to

bound

to

suffer in

dissembling’ (1962a: 85). Now, ‘counterfeiting’ or dissembling’ the body means using it in different ways than in everyday life to produce artificial and unusual expressive forms. These forms are of course abstract (in the first of the two meanings proposed above), and react against those results of progress which reduce difference, opposing themselves to the widespread uniformity of the products of industrial

society. The aforementioned reversal of the natural’ hierarchy of

body parts (with the choice of the trunk as the principal expressive means) is the first and the most important of these modes of dissembling and artificialising. Along with others, which will be discussed further

on, this is part of a ‘mime elaborated Decroux from the 1930s onwards, and grammar’ by can therefore be considered as the set of rules through which

the mime artist becomes

equipped with ‘another’ (extra-daily) 7 body and with ‘other’ (extra-daily) movement techniques. At this point it is clear that ‘corporeal’ and ‘abstract’, the well-known attributes of Decroux’s

two most

do

not

contradict each other

at

all,

as

new

might initially

mime, appear.

However, if we read the adjective ‘corporeal’ in the specific sense it acquires with Decroux, we realise that it refers to certain fundamental traits which indicate use

this way

level,

an

anti-naturalistic

necessarily equip itself with of using the body, already on a pre-expressive

of the

body.

Mime must

in order to arrive at

an

‘abstract’ representation of its

subjects. equally clear that the abstract representation offers of a concrete object (or of a material action)

It is also

that mime

7 For an analysis of the key elements of Decroux’s grammar in the light of the preexpressive principles of theatre anthropology, see Barba (1981) Savarese, ed. (1983), De Marinis (1988: 102-05), and especially Barba (1993). ,

presupposes, at the

beginning of the creative process, a deep study of that object or action in real life. It is upon the information gathered as a result of this analytical observation that the non-figurative transposition takes place through the use of various abstracting procedures nothing fundamentally -

different than that which occurs or

in Brancusi’s

in Klee’s

sculpture. possible and also

In Decroux it is an

abstract mime

the abstract a

on

nature

or

Picasso’s painting

necessary to

speak about

the level of content. In this second level, of corporeal mime refers, above all, to

thematic

widening (which Artaud had also hoped for in his [pantomime non pervertie]; 1932: 29), of which mime should represent/present, beyond

‘undebased mime plays’ in virtue

facts and material actions, the ‘movements of the soul’ and the whole ‘life of the mind’. In other words, it should

concrete

(in an essential and depersonalised form) the feelings, passions, and thoughts which are behind those facts and those actions, as well as their motivations and deep truths. In this regard, it is pertinent to refer once again to Craig and his notion of ‘symbolic gestures’, that is, gestures which tend express

-

like those of Asian theatres

-

to

of mind of the characters and

(Craig 1907b:

37

represent the ideas and states their actions or their words

not

ff.).

The representation of emotions had already been a very special feature of eighteenth-century pantomime, which, however, tended to reproduce them naturalistically through

hyper-codified gestures and the clichés that correspond them in daily life, as well as, in particular, through the strenuous gestural translation of the words that denominate them in language. Corporeal mime, however, does not imitate feelings (or word-feelings) but rather expresses them (in an essential and depersonalised way). Moreover, it ‘treats’ all the subjects, concrete or abstract, in a non-conventional and antinarrative way that avoids telling the story (the ‘what’ of the event, for which words are more appropriate), thus privileging the representation of the manner (the ‘how’, the typical form

to

of the

event), which ‘conveys mysterious thoughts that words express’ (1950: 104). I will return to the story-manner duo at length. For now it suffices to note that notwithstanding appearances, there is no real contradiction between the two procedures which establish the abstract nature of corporeal mime on the level of content, and which are, to sum up: (1) the prioritising of the ‘life of the mind’ with respect to more concrete subjects; and (2) the preference for ‘manner’ with respect to ‘story’. Actually as we will see further by 'manner’, Decroux intends not only the perceivable form, the exterior style of an action, but also, and mainly, the states of mind, the deep feelings, the authentic (and perhaps unconscious) intentions which are at their root, and that the form of that action if correctly investigated and represented can reveal more than the simple event in itself. A final clarification will address the problem of the abstract at a pedagogical level, in the diachronic articulation of mime education. In his teaching Decroux had always followed a journey which took the pupil from the representation of concrete figures and situations to the (much more complex) representation of purely interior, intellectual, and emotive cannot

-

-

-

-

situations. This

from the

itinerary from the material

objective

to

the

subjective,

to

the mind, by four

is marked

different types of ‘scholastic’ counterweights, culminating in mobile statuary, with its portraits of ideas’. At the same

reproduces in some way the journey undertook by himself, beginning with the trades, and arriving at the creation of Méditation in the 1950s and the remaking of time it

Decroux

abstract versions of his famous debut pieces.

5.3 The Drama of Movement If the fundamental register of the old pantomime was that (despite having strong pathetic and even macabre

of comedy

with the great nineteenth-century for Decroux mime should instead be a tragic

undertones, such

Pierrots),

as

which, like all the other great

art,

arts, chooses malheur

‘subject subjects’ (1951b: 57). This (unhappiness) fundamentally ethical-aesthetic option helps to explain the the

as

reasons

of

for the total difference between mime and dance

which Decroux

analogies

postulates.

He asks himself what kind of

could ever exist between mime’s ‘mode of muscular

(which is born from unhappiness and feeds itself suffering and anguish) and that of an art of serenity and light-heartedness, which for him is artistic dance? Decroux argues that if the latter tries (as often happens) to movement’

with

use

the muscular

sad and

movements

painful subjects disharmony:

we

of natural dance

should

to

immediately

represent notice the

Representing worries through the movement generated in life from the absence of any worries I do not find this serious. [...] Verse exists in prose, dance does not exist in unhappiness. It is therefore a strange proposition to dance a mood which in life excludes dance. (Decroux 1962d: 78) -

Beyond the metaphor, which undeniably brings us back to a romantic-decadent conception of art (say, from Hugo to Rimbaud via Baudelaire), the droit au malheur (right to unhappiness) which Decroux claims for corporeal mime is also principally explained by more concrete material and technical factors. The ‘tragedy’ of mime is not so much (or purely) a question of the subjects treated, or psychological conditions, as certain pages of Paroles sur le mime might nevertheless encourage us to believe (see 1951b: 57-59). It refers above all to biological conditions, more exactly to the suffering intrinsic to the physical movement, to the act such, with all the unknowns and tiredness that this involves for the mass of the body. 8 As already noted,

of moving

8

as

In his dissertation on the Psychology of Architecture Heinrich Wölfflin observed: 'It is because we continuously experiment with our body the difficulty of movement, the weight, the counterweight, the risk of falling and so on, that we appreciate when

this is the heaviest and

most

vulnerable part of the human moves with most difficulty

figure,

and therefore that which

and is

most

exposed

to

continuous movement

the risks of imbalance derived from

(which reduces

its support

base):

Whether the mass of the body falls on the back of the skull, or the shoulder, the elbow or the knees, it will undergo greater bruising than any single part of the body falling by itself. The mass of the body is therefore right to be frightened as it silently works to keep its pyramid balanced on its tip. (1962a: 75) It goes without saying that these are risks and

disadvantages purpose, choosing the trunk as the principal expressive means precisely for its more unfavourable and rigorous ‘working conditions’ (let us not forget that, for Decroux, ‘it is in discomfort that the mime feels comfortable’ [1952a: 52]). If, for the trunk, moving proves difficult and even painful, making continuous movements (‘ending the phrase ) is even more so, because any ‘movement that Decroux’s mime researches

except that of the arms and facial muscles unstable balance. [...] All this, begun with impunity,

that continues leads

to

on

-

-

is difficult to

complete’ (1944: 129). This too is a risk which voluntarily if it is true that Decroux asks the mime to acquire ‘the ability to maintain a position in unstable balance’, in deference to the commandments of our aesthetics’ (1944: 128). While the traditional actor acted (and acts) mostly in a position of full balance and is completely static (due to the wrongful assimilation of the body’s centre of gravity, of the centre of mass, at one’s centre of strength), the mime artist is

run

should act instead in conditions of permanent precariousness, that is of ‘imbalance’

(déséquilibre), because this

is the

only

these physical and biological laws are transgressed in art, for example by the column, by architectonic structures’ (Wölfflin 1886: 28-30). In his notebook, Schlemmer invites us to fear and respect in the same way every human movement’; he affirms that ‘taking a step is an adventure, lifting a hand, or moving a finger is no less’ (cited in Lorelle 1974 : 90). Delsarte, the great precursor and inspirational figure of twentieth-century Körperkultur had insisted upon the necessity of overcoming fear, in particular the fear of falling (see Shawn 1954 : 52-54).

way to

produce the

tension needed in action to make it alive

and efficacious: To this end Decroux

distinguishes the centre of gravity from of strength: this is to say that he recognises the function of the diaphragm as support base, but goes beyond the static centripetalism that comes from confusing the centre of balance with the diaphragm. [...] With Decroux one has the theorisation of the refusal of balance in function of a recovery of the ‘globality’ of the actor, a globality which expresses itself through a relative tension both on a physical and an emotional level. (Cruciani 1971b: 126) the

centre

There is also another misunderstanding to dispel regarding the

‘right to unhappiness’ which Decroux claims for mime. though his inspiration is fundamentally tragic, he never condemned comedy as such. His refusal was always aimed towards that (unfortunately prevalent) kind of comedy which is proof and result of the inability of an artist to express Even

oneself in other ways, and which therefore constitutes a necessity rather than a free choice. This ‘dirty, greasy

comedy’, which comes from a ‘deficiency’ of beauty, Decroux also calls ‘concentric comedy’. However, in his opinion, there is a second and positive type of comedy, ‘eccentric comedy’, which is an ‘excess of vitality’ and ‘overabundance of the beautiful’ (1944: 127): for Decroux the art of Charlie Chaplin is a very high example of it, demonstrating moreover that the comic, when it is poetry, transcends every reductive division between serious and playful, between tears and laughter. 9

9

Several of Decroux’s mime creations had a declared comic-satiric-grotesque character. For example, L'Esprit malin (which had the accelerated rhythm of a silent movie gag), Jeu de dames, scenes of Petits Soldats, La Chirurgie esthétique (marked by the atmosphere of Daumier’s lithographs), and the certain assortment of figures (Menuisier-Passants-Boxeur-Lutteur-Bureaucrate) about which a critic spoke of ‘strange buffoonesque comedy’ (Corrals 1946). According to Leabhart, the combination in the performances of mime numbers and pieces of declamation also often tended towards a comic effect (1989: 47). Finally, it should also be observed that the critics had noticed Decroux's comic talent as an actor at the Atelier from the beginning of the 1930s.

5.4 Gesture and/or Word? traditional French pantomime late nineteenth century and even in

especially in the completely silent words and were in an analogic performance gestures relationship of reciprocal convertibility, whereby the gestural signs corresponded to precise verbal expressions, translating them word for word. Decroux never tired of declaring his own In

-

a

-

total aversion

spoken

this genre of mime, which was chattier than theatre itself (and often back in vogue in the course of to

the last century; for example, the ‘neoclassical’ Marceau and his imitators). In fact, for the creator of corporeal mime, the mime gesture and the word represent two

that

are

difficult

reconcile if both

to

are

expressive means

used

to

the best of

their respective possibilities. They can co-exist only on the condition of being used in a ‘poor’ manner, since the in-

depth application of one (and the maximum utilisation of its expressive potential), inevitably produces the marginalisation of the other: Yes, when both are poor, for the other. [...] completes But can one of them not be presented richly? Yes, to the extent to which the other is presented poorly. In other words: When two arts are produced together, one must retreat as the other advances, and vice versa. (1946: 32)

But

can we

then

mix mime and words?

-

one

-

For this

Decroux affirms that he

reason

prefers ‘poor’

literary texts, which leave more space for the ‘the actor’s music’ (1954a: 35) even if he then specifies that there are -

capable of writing ‘words that are deliberately poor and good, that is to say, whose poverty is proportional to the Mime’s anticipated richness’ (1946: 32). For the same reason he states with the apparent paradox mentioned to that, already aspire to completeness, an art must be partial, and declares himself against every postno

writers yet who

are

-

-

Wagnerian conception of theatre as a ‘synthesis of the arts’. In his opinion, an art of the body elaborated through the indepth analysis of the expressive possibilities of gesture and movement, will have to abandon other theatrical

means

if it

starting with verbal language. Instead of proposing useless and damaging co-existences, this means making the gesture completely independent (liberating wants to

succeed

-

psychological encrustations of its long coexistence with the word) in order to arrive at the definition of a corporeal expression that is untranslatable into other means of communication. This definition can be placed at the root of a mime art which is rigorously cleansed of the intrusion of extracorporeal expressive instruments. It is this intransigent and radically purist vision of the specificity of mime that led to Decroux’s break with his gifted pupil Barrault, who very soon advocated a ‘total theatre’ in which the word and the gesture, together with other staging components, would meet with reciprocal enrichment. We know how Decroux’s ideas on this decisive point diverge profoundly from those of Copeau and his followers, and more generally from almost all the other great masters of the first half of the century, including Artaud. Notwithstanding his great interest in corporeal expression, the Vieux Colombier could only conceive founder as we saw in Chapter 1 of mime in an instrumental and propaedeutic manner, ‘as a science ancillary to the speaking actor’ (Decroux 3*). Instead, for Decroux, this relationship between mime and theatre had to be completely reversed: it from the

-

-

Instead of seeing in our mime one of the preparations for the spoken theatre, I saw in the spoken theatre one of the preparations for our mime, for mime had, in practice, been revealed as the more difficult. Mime, I thought, has better things to do than complete another art. [...] If others consider it only as a means, it has the right to consider itself as an end.

Even

more so

because mime is the

in turn is the accident of mime.

essence

(1948: 15)

of theatre, which

10

According to Leabhart, former pupil and assistant from early 1970s, ‘contrary to what many believe, Decroux never intended silent corporeal mime to exist forever as an independent art’: even though he worked vigorously towards a separation between verbal language and movement, ‘he knew that one day a synthesis was inevitable’ (Leabhart 1989: 42, 45). It is a very interesting opinion, though at first sight not very logical in relation to Decroux’s theories and to his the

diverse scenic creations, which often use extra- and preverbal corporeal sounds (breathing, sighs, moans, heel stamps, tongue

only

clicks) but

never turn to

words. Petits Soldats

(1950)

though ‘complete’ performance (1950: 107), words are only present in the form of song lyrics sung 11 by the soldiers. As a creator he always remained faithful to the principle that ‘mime runs counter to reality in that reality includes words’ (1962c: 114). Of course, focusing on just one thing does not mean negating the existence and the legitimacy of others. However, the theoretical arguments put forward by Decroux against is

in part

an

had the ambition

exception because,

even

Decroux

to create a

the mixing of text and mime are very strong and there that he ever revoked them. I repeat is no indication —

—

know how, after a life spent researching, Decroux still considered himself at the beginning of his work Nevertheless

we

('I shall die a young man in the first stage of the Great Project’; 1962c: 108). It is therefore possible that he situated his work as still in the initial phase of the famous reform project of 1931, which envisaged the strict ostracism of every form of text for twenty years and did not exclude (in a more or less 10 We should, however, remember his distinction between ‘mime’s mime’ and ‘actor’s mime’ (see Chapter 4). As we have seen, Decroux’s inflexible purism and separatism give way to the more conciliatory idea of an active but discreet presence (on the border of invisibility) of the prose actor’s mime. 11 Regarding this piece, see Chapter 6.

distant future) the

gradual reintroduction of the word (in 1946 a long time yet, the Mime must abstain from slipping into works of dramatic literature and must renounce the benefits of hiding behind the names of great writers’ [1946: 32, my italics]). Many of those closest to him in the last phase of his work are in favour of a similar interpretation and this is also, of course, Leabhart’s hypothesis. I have already mentioned the importance of the sound and vocal accompaniment in Decroux’s teaching and we also know that he had always considered the research on Decroux had written: ‘And so, for

so-called vocal mime

as an

important field of investigation

(like much else, this too started from the Vieux Colombier School, and was then developed by Daste and Barrault, so

amongst

others).

For

Decroux, all the inarticulate sound

‘naturally emitted in the course of movement’ should have 12 developed into ‘a highly expressive art’ (Leabhart 1989: 47). However, he also recognised that he had never found the time to dedicate himself to this seriously, that he would have needed another life (he was not the kind of person to do things by half). 13 Furthermore, we cannot exclude the hypothesis that with more work in this field, he might have been able to reconsider the question of words in mime pieces in less drastic terms.

At this

might be appropriate to clarify Decroux’s theoretical inflexibility (which did not limit itself to the exclusion of words). There are at least two very different point

it

12

In the already cited ‘manifesto’ from 1931, after the twenty years of total proscription, vocal sounds are allowed back only in the form of ‘inarticulate cries’ (Decroux 1931: 27). See Chapter 2. 13 Decroux also spoke once (in the 1960s) ‘of something that remains to be invented: a vocal mime that would not be singing’. According to Soum and Wasson (1992*) he thought of a non-sung vocal expression which explored the acoustic possibilities of the vocal apparatus by means of articulate and non-articulate sounds: a sort of sound sculpture in which words, onomatopoeias, groups of vowels and consonants would be used as a material independent of its primary sense. According to the testimonies of some pupils, he dedicated himself extensively to this kind of work in his later years, before becoming ill. On Decroux’s vocal mime, see also De

Marinis 2010 and 2013b.

private master, and the public theorist. The prevalent opinion amongst his many pupils of various generations is that in his school, even on the theoretical Decroux: the

issues, he always showed himself to be very different from the external image of the dogmatic and intolerant polemicist,

particular from the uncompromising defender of the self-sufficiency of ‘silent’ mime. They remember him as generally very helpful on all issues, even the crucial ones for which Decroux displayed inflexibility and closure in public speeches. So much so that I have never met a pupil of his who felt like a ‘traitor’ of the master for having brought sound in

and verbal expression back into their successive work as actors or directors. One could even say that the reunification

predicted by the

project, which he had been able to realise, had in a 1931

known how, or been left as a legacy

to

his

not

wanted,

certain way

pupils, especially those of the last

period. In the next

chapter I will be able to return to the ‘closure’ that Decroux’s research displayed to the outside world, and to

how this closure

was

useful for that

same

world which he

appeared to reject. However, it is important to reiterate that, in ‘inventing’ corporeal mime and dedicating his whole life to it, Decroux had not only intended to codify a new theatre genre (though of course this was also his ambition, which found its most eager supporter in Marceau). More than anything, he also wanted to confront in depth what had already emerged for Copeau as the central issue in theatre; that is, the issue of the actor. In doing so, Decroux proposed a solution (the actor who goes on stage with their own body, having consciousness and knowledge of it) which he believed should be valid, in one way or another, for all theatre. Notwithstanding being more open towards the end, Decroux never substantially changed his mind about his conviction that there are two fundamental kinds of theatre that should not be confused with each other: one where the actor is dominant, such as his corporeal mime, and the other where text is prevalent, which he usually called

‘spoken theatre’. At the same time, he never stopped believing that the acquisitions of his own research should have equally consequences for this latter kind of theatre

important

as

well.

Though showing little or nothing of itself, mime should always be equally present in ‘spoken theatre’, providing the actor with that physical awareness which too often is lacking.

5.5 The

Corporeal Specific:

'History'

and

'Manner'

What then constitutes Decroux’s

cificity

of the human

intended

body?

as a comment on

aesthetic-linguistic

spe-

One of his

writings from 1962, the Petits Soldats mimodrama,

particularly clear in this respect. Introducing the storymanner couple (i.e. what-how, or grammatically, verbadverb), Decroux states that words have a clear advantage over gestures when telling a ‘story’: is

Words can say: What is absent from the present, past and future; What is absent from the visible place: the hidden or the too-distant object; what is absent from reality: abstraction,

generality, Words

summary. say other

can

Mime cannot.

Thanks suited or

to

things (1962c: 108)

...

linguistic ‘power’ words are particularly constructing interwoven plots, to narrating past to

their

future events, near or far. This is not the case for mime, cannot have the diachronic depth of verbal narration

which but is

a

prisoner of the synchronicity of

a

‘sequence of

present actions’: Mime’s

supposed stories

its action unfolds

as

are

merely developments:

the week unfolds, its actions follow like the

Tuesday following Monday; succession of the seasons, with

work: it begins

at one

a

sequence similar to

end and finishes

at

factory

the other. (1954c: 103)

Not

really suited to storytelling,

this field

find another in which it

to

accordance with the

required

to

can

its

an

us

action represents

‘story’

refers

-

to its

do

a

unparalleled, in ‘given art is not

that which it

nor

art can case

be

that do’

can

do

(1962c: 109). precisely the

For

of mime, is

‘mode’. What is it about?

begin with, let

To

of

or

can

general principle

do that which it

well, but that which no other Decroux this something, in the ‘manner’,

mime must then abandon

-

say that the as

opposed

'manner’ (or ‘mode’) to

the bare what of

the how of the action itself. In other words, it formal and substantial characteristics, to the

typical and revelatory style with which

it is

accomplished.

The balance of power between word and mime shifts in favour of the latter when dealing with the ‘manner’ of an

(instead of simply with their ‘story’). In fact, according to Decroux, even in the case of a very simple action (such as ‘picking up an egg on the left, [and] putting it down on the right’; 1962c: 109), verbal language, condemned as it is to the linearity of its enunciations and so unable to say ‘several things at once’ ‘cannot give a complete with of all of its coincidental manner, portrait parts’ (1962c: 111). It cannot therefore synthesise the ‘manner’ of that simple gesture, simultaneously describing all the formal and action

or an event

-

-

substantial parameters, all the components, even the internal that characterise it: (1) the egg itself; (2) the pattern of the journey of the arm; (3) the speed of the movement; ones,

(4) the organic context of the gesture; (5) its strength, and so on (1962c: 109). Describing all this and more (feelings, intentions which accompany the gesture and/or motivate them) in words would be extremely complicated, and can

only be done by

one component after the other. for mime, which in theory thanks to the multidimensionality of the human body is able to represent

This is

not

the

succession:

case

-

-

all the external and internal characteristics of a given action together, through a series of simultaneous enunciations, that

14 is, its ‘manner’. For this

represents

manner

reason

by manner,

Decroux writes that ‘Mime

in the

same

way that

painting

represents colour by colour’ (1962c: 111). At first sight, some of the Decroux excerpts evoked here might lead us to understand mime’s representation of ‘manner’ the trompe-l'oeil reproduction of the exterior aspects of material action, allowing us to identify a contradiction in his proclaimed aspirations towards anti-naturalism, antias

a

figuratism, abstraction, and so forth. Nevertheless, if we read them clearly (and apart from the usual difficulties of his poetic prose), it is apparent that Decroux’s real intentions could not be further from this, when he indicates manner’ as the specific object of mime. What actually interests him, in the ‘manner’ of a given action, is not that it realistically reproduces the contrary to the action on its own, in its neutral nakedness offabula the manner’ is able to reveal the exterior form but that

—

—

action’s intimate

and

deep truth, bringing to light the ideas and moods that lie behind it, which belong to its executor and justify it. This is through and due to the complete essence

-

-

representation of the formal characteristics of an action, which is very different from its realistic representation and which suggests, instead, the Cubist procedures of simultaneous 15 montage of several aspects of the same subject. Reversing the cliché according but

not

to

which it is

with actions, Decroux

possible

to

lie with words

states: actions can

deceive

14 It should be clarified that the manner’, representing all the exterior characteristics of an action, refers also to those that are eventually negative, e.g. the useless, redundant, and inessential aspects of a certain movement. In this case, the term should be understood in the pejorative sense, which is the most common (see

Decroux 1962c:

110).

15

Another clarification: the claim of completeness which Decroux proposes for mime representation does not contradict the partiality he demands elsewhere for the art of mime. In fact, the partiality which he speaks of in the argument with Baty, when he states that ‘an art is complete only if it is partial’ (1942b: 28), regards the imitans and not as in this case, in the discourse on ‘manner’ the imitatum. So, corporeal mime is partial because it uses only the body (and ‘self-amputated’ at that). However, with this partial instrument, it manages to give a representation of an action or its manner which is generally complete. -

-

(‘Man’s it

can

action tells

be motivated

little about his

morality: beneficent, by selfishness; maleficent, by altruism’

us

[1962c: 111]). The manners, however, reveal the intimate, true ‘effect of the soul’. ‘To portray manners is to give the public so many souls to judge’ (1962c: 111). Decroux’s 1951

text

for the presentation of Le Toréador

provides definite confirmation of this interpretation of his notion of ‘manner’. He warns us that, in representing a scene a

from the corrida, the mime is not interested in reproducing with minute faithfulness the various phases of the action,

imitating the gestures and movements of the toreador: ‘For if the painter is not a photographer, the and

not even in

ape’ (1951a: 115). What matters for the mime is actually to represent the hero’s hidden feelings when he confronts his problem’: in this case, fear, which lends an aggressive and arrogant (and therefore apparently brave) mime is not

an

air, indecision, etc. It means, therefore, to ‘discover the man beneath the toreador ’, and then if necessary to move into -

the realm of dreams’ for ‘man’s

-

thought

is not yet sincere’

(1951a: 116). According to a procedure which is familiar to the aesthetic theories of the early twentieth-century avant-garde, in the ‘manner’ of Decroux’s mime the superficial form is turned into content, or rather into deep content, into the essential truth of things: ‘The surface of things would therefore be both the face and the meaning underneath. The containers would be the content or would at least contain the essence; the

manner

would be the idea itself’

(1951a: 118).

depth the grammar of corporeal mime, that is, the set of rules and techniques thanks to which the actor-mimes through the laborious work of purgingdisciplining-artificialising their own expressive processes make themselves able to produce those non-conventional corporeal signs necessary to arrive at the ‘manner’ of objects

We

can now

examine in

-

-

and actions.

more

5.6 A New Grammar of the As I have

Body

already noted on various occasions,

it

was

between

the 1930s and the 1940s that Decroux elaborated the fundamental

principles of the

mime, helped at first by his wife and the young Barrault, then Eliane Guyon and his son Maximilien. For the guidelines of this grammar (which new

continually revised and enriched over time) Yves Lorelle proposed a list which may be useful to adopt as a basic initial template.

was

has

Raccourci. 16 ‘It is the property of the mimed gesture’, writes Lorelle, ‘to contract and condense the time and space of an

translate this action into

muscular

image’ (1974: 112). According to Dorcy, ‘the condensation of idea, space and time’ probably represents the fundamental principle of contemporary mime (1961: 46). As Marceau also observes, it is the equivalent of the cinematographic ellipsis, by which he says it is inspired (in Verriest-Lefert 1974: 58). action,

to

a

-

-

Counterweight. ‘It

is

a

muscular

compensation’, Lorelle

continues, ‘that allows the body to re-find its balance when the limbs move. Carried out voluntarily, it gives the gesture

(which

within the field of

imagination)

a strong identifies presence’ (1974: 112). Dorcy counterweight with ‘the muscular compensation of the moves

On his part,

evocative

sportsman or labourer’ (1961: 47). In real life of forms of compensation and balancing of

permit the moving time.

when

body

to recover its

walking,

stepping

onto

the

we move

right leg and

all make

use

body parts that balance from time to

Very simple examples include the when

we

the left

movement we arm

make

forward when

the gesture of while the other is

vice versa,

or

stretching and contracting the free arm carrying a heavy bucket of water (or a suitcase).

16 The literal meaning of raccourci is ‘shortcut’, ‘summary’. It also means ‘partial view’ in painting.

In this

case

too, the rules of mime

only amplify a principle the everyday techniques of the body,

already present in 17 deliberately using it for evocative purposes. So what happens if, eliminating the bucket or the suitcase, we wish to suggest their existence purely through our physical action, our gestures? We would need to stretch and contract the arm in question even more than if we really carried a weight with the other. This, explained in very elementary terms, is the mime counterweight. However, it is not about reproducing on stage all the movements which the real physical effort of pulling or pushing requires in reality; it is instead about providing the equivalents. To understand what such a process entails, we can imagine a mime doing the action of pushing a very heavy object (say, a piano or a cart): When

pushes something in daily reality [...], the body’s weight normally supported by both the rear leg and the arms which are pushing forward. This is a familiar image, used to one

is

represent both a first degree lever and the effort of human work. When the ‘pushing’ is being done by a mime [...] the effort cannot be made in the same way because the absence of the concrete opposition causes one of the two support bases to disappear. Nevertheless, as can be seen [in the images that accompany the article], the same tension of effort can be found in Ingemar Lindh’s position: he shows that he is pushing. He has simply found an equivalent position in his body. Equivalence, which is the opposite of imitation, reproduces reality by means of another system. The tension of the gesture remains, but it is displaced into another part of the body. In this case, the force is moved from the arms to the forward leg. It is the pressure of this leg on the ground [...] and not that of the arms that makes the concrete effort. (Barba and Savarese 2006: 94; the reference is to images of Ingemar Lindh demonstrating mime exercises

The way

by

same

on

pp.

example

Luis Bumier,

94-95) is chosen and illustrated in

one

of Decroux’s

pupils

a

similar

in the 1980s:

17 The counterweight, as the principle that regulates movements and actions in the human body, had been explicitly identified by Leonardo da Vinci in his A Treatise on

Painting (cited

in

Lecoq

1987 :

101).

The

counterweight is an act of transformation which requires physical effort. It is when someone pulls or pushes a heavy object, a piano, for example. The body must act against

a

the weight of the piano. In order

to mime

this situation, the

body must simulate [jouer] the weight and the counterweight simultaneously. One therefore simulates two opposing forces which exist in real life but do not exist in mime, as the object is, in this case, illusory. Therefore, in real life, the weight of the body and a part of the effort rests on the back leg; in mime however they become shifted to the front leg, while the back one acts ‘the part’ of making a great effort. (Bumier 1985*) Later on, Marceau would

bring

an

evocative

use

of the

levels of incredible, illusionistic counterweight technique virtuosity. However, it should be immediately added that, for to

Decroux, such

a

use

did

counterweight, and maybe him it is first of all

represent the only function of not even the most important. For

not

system of rebalancing with the aim of re‘inter-organic solidarity’, which is continuously a

establishing compromised by movement. Just as imbalance is deliberately sought for by the actor-mime, counterweight is similarly resorted

to even

when there is

no

need

to

avoid the risk of

falling, or no need to evoke a physical effort or an absent object, but simply to lend the action a greater energy and tension. From this perspective, Decroux’s counterweight could be considered the

specific codification of one of the pre-expressive principles identified by Barba in his research on Theatre Anthropology, that is the principle of opposition, according to which ‘every movement must begin in the opposite direction from that in which it is heading’ (Barba 2006: 10; see also Barba and Savarese 2006: 196). One might just think of the classic example of picking a flower (from the ground) according to Decroux: the mime starts from the

opposite

extreme to

where the action is

heading, first with the eyes, then with the movement itself. From the 1960s onwards, Decroux continued developing his theory and pedagogy of counterweight, which by this time was employed as ‘the physical and dramatic basis of corporeal mime’ and more widely defined as

study of the relationship which exists between:

the

-

-

-

-

and

as

and earth’s gravity, and matter, man and ideas, thoughts, one man and another

man

man

‘the

movement

feelings,

that portrays this

relationship’ (Soum follows). In

and Wasson 1990*; I refer to them also for all that this way he arrived of counterweights:

at

the distinction between various types

(1) Scholastic counterweights: there are four of these, two of which are based on the use of weight in complicity with the earth’s gravity (e.g. pushing), and two based on the use of muscular force against the earth’s gravity (e.g. lifting). (2) Professional counterweights: these are ‘figures’ that involve the image of an action which requires one scholastic counterweight or more (e.g. the blacksmith, the tug-of-war);

usually pertain to the worlds of work and sport (that is the Homme de Sport). (3) Small counterweights: these are based on the same principles as the previous ones but applied to small objects, to actions of moving objects without wishing to create or transform (e.g. moving a glass on the table); these are the these

actions of the Homme de Salon.

(4) Moral counterweights: these are actions of picking, shifting, pushing, and pulling, applied to the sphere of thought, ideas, and feelings (e.g. the public orator, the conference speaker). The most advanced state of the moral counterweight is that of the mobile statuary with its ‘portraits of ideas’. The has

hierarchy of body parts. This aspect of Decroux’s grammar already been amply discussed earlier in section 5.1 on ‘the

mobile statue’.

independence of muscles and joints. This represents rule of expressive economy. The mime must learn to dominate the natural tendency of the various parts of The

a

the human

body

to move at once

when

only

one

voluntarily, and to just move the part that one wants

is moved to move.

From this follows the

of immobility,

importance and the semantic density considered by Decroux as ‘an act and, under

the circumstances, a passionate one’: For one thinks that in order to remain immobile, one must not want to move. The truth is that since we move without wanting to, we must

(1962a: 79). The principle of muscular and independence requires a particular conception of

want not to

articular

move’

human anatomy, understood of course

as an

which mime artists

must

a

‘second’

nature

superimpose upon) the first

artificial anatomy, substitute for

in order to make

a

(or

work of art of

(and with) their own body. This conception, often translated by Decroux into the image of a body which articulates itself like the carriages of a train on a curve, finds its two key notions in the concepts of the ‘hinge’ and the ‘organic block’. The hinges represent the fundamental joints, the ones located between: (1) head and neck; (2) neck and chest; (3) chest and waist; (4) waist and are

pelvis; (5) pelvis and legs.

At the

same

time these

considered as the demarcation lines of the base of different

body parts and of the different organic blocks (groups of fixed body parts which have autonomous motor capacities): (1) head; (2) hammer (head + neck); (3) bust (head + neck + chest); (4) torso (head + neck + chest + waist); (5) trunk (head + neck + chest + waist + pelvis). In this anatomy of the mime body, each part, or segment, can be moved separately and independently from the others. Therefore pure movements are distinguished from impure movements: A pure movement of

a specific part of the body refers to a which cannot be broken down into two or more movements and which does not involve the movement of any other body part, even if it is adjacent. (Rogante 1980*: 84)

movement

The

movements

levels and

so

inclinations in

of each

body part

can occur on

consist of: rotations, lateral

depth.

three

inclinations, and

The combinations of movements

on two

levels give rise

to

‘double

designs’, those

on

three levels

to

‘triple designs’: The triple design is the simplest three-dimensional composition. It is the result of three pure movements: a rotation, a lateral inclination with a fixed base, and then with an inclination in depth (one should search for the ‘back’ implied by this inclination in depth with respect to the frontality obtained with the preliminary lateral inclination). (Rogante 1980*: 87) 18

This is the

‘geometry of the body’

in the real

sense

of the

term, that is, ‘the geometric relation between one segment of the body and another when one of the segments has moved’

(Rogante 1980*: 87). original contributions

Here

we

find

one

of Decroux’s

most

in artistic and scientific terms. As Yves

Lebreton affirms: In no other technique, whether that of dance

or traditional mime, find such a precise and exact analysis of intercorporeal movement, of the relationship, in the movement, between the different parts of the body. (Lebreton 1980a: 266) 19 can one

Nevertheless,

it is useful to bear in mind Lebreton’s caveat

which follows this

statement:

But of course this contribution is

nothing, or is almost nothing, I that it has no great value, if it is not connected with what we call ‘thought’ and with a certain spiritual conception of its use; because the analysis of corporeal movement, if limited to a mere technical process, becomes sterile. (Lebreton 1980a: 266) mean

The mechanics research 18

on

of the body,

or

mobile geometry. Decroux’s completely subdued

the exact, essential gesture,

Joint and muscle independence also envisages that, when a given part of the body the others can move in contradiction or confirmation (or in ‘affirmation if they find themselves below it) (Burnier 1985*: 76). Decroux developed a system of notation of triple designs where the rotation is indicated first, then the lateral inclination, and lastly the inclination in depth. Hence the notation R. L. B. would mean: ‘rotation to the right, inclination to the left, inclination back’ (Burnier 1985*: 74). 19 On this particularly complex aspect of the technique of corporeal mime, see the lesson transcribed in the Mime Journal edition dedicated to Decroux’s eightieth birthday (Decroux 1978c). See also the didactic film, edited by Lebreton himself, Corporeal Mime, produced in 1971 by Odin Teatret Film for Italian RAI television. moves,

to

the will of the actor-mime, led him to the analogy of the body = machine’, which dates back to the 1700s

human

(one thinks

at

least of La Mettrie’s

Decroux, conceiving of the body mime a ‘mobile geometry’, means movement in space

L’Homme-machine). For machine, and making

as a

to

research the laws which

and in the invisible ‘streets’ that

regulate run through it, those ‘ideal lines’ which one needs to follow in order to displace oneself: One does not have the random part of space.

right

to occupy or

travel

through

any

In space one must mentally set certain lines that one considers to be ideal. Three lines immediately present themselves: the vertical, the horizontal and, between the two, right in the middle, the diagonal. The extension of this principle is quickly grasped: these three lines reappear underneath, to the right, to the left, etc. These are the streets of space. (1962a: 78) 20

So, motor

mechanising the body habits, tics, and

means to

fight against acquired

somatic stereotypes, to rediscover

the

harmony and the lost beauty of essential movement, of geometric precision, composed of ‘a succession of simple designs’ (Decroux 1962a: 79). Decroux concludes that we need to move, then, like a mechanical device, immediately adding that it is a free choice, and not an obligation or a necessity: a

Being able extent one

[the machine] means knowing to what [...] opposite what a normal line of verse is to

to imitate it

fails

Geometry is

to imitate it. to its

line. Stability and movement are regular which sings praise of the a run-on

Over time Decroux’s

engaged in dialogue. It is the irregular for us. (1962a: 80)

system’ softened the exasperated

geometry of the early days, first (in the 1940s) with the appreciation of curved lines and then (in the 1960s) with 20

As Rogante testifies, the reference teaching (1980*: 41 ff.).

to

drawing

was

constant

in Decroux’s

a more

intense and

aware

exploration of depth and of the third

dimension. Nevertheless, corporeal geometry would always remain a fundamental tool in his pedagogy for the actor. The

rhythmic characteristics of movement. According to Rogante, rhythm, for Decroux, ‘is the state of mind expressed through the repetition of the same element, at regular intervals’ (1980*: 47-48). The fundamental element of rhythm in this conception is the stop, which corresponds to silence in music. To break the monotony of the constant rhythm, one needs to create effects of dynamism, mainly in two ways: (1) varying the rhythm, if the movements are always identical; (2) varying the movements, if it is the rhythm which remains unchanged (as in Spanish dance). As for the theme, the rhythm can as a

be used in contrast, in agreement, to underline, or even totally autonomous element. The saccade and the fondu

represent the two main types of corporeal mime movement from the point of view of rhythm: 21 the first is brusque and in short bursts

(‘staccato’), the second slow and continuous (‘smooth’), (slow motion) is an even slower variation and of likewise cinematographic origin (1952a: 51). In his book Decroux offers little technical information on this rhythmic typology, preferring to place his trust as usual upon suggestive metaphors, recalling that fearsome and ‘tragic’ atmosphere from which, as we have seen, mime gesture should be born (1952a: 51). Against mime’s saccade and fondu, dance presents a type of movement which is entirely different in its origins and its rhythmic-muscular in which the ralenti

-

-

characteristics: this is the aforementioned ressort, an elastic and light movement, which is bom from serenity and security, a

fluid and continuous

interruption of the mime

coming-and-going, without the (1952a: 52). Decroux

movements

21

Saccade can be translated as ‘jerk’, 'twitch’, ‘by fits and starts’. Fondu is the technical term to indicate a cinematographic ‘dissolve’ (in painting it is sfumnato,

shading); in corporeal mime it specifies a movement distinguished in opposition by ‘a continuous and regular slowness') (Lebreton 1991 *). -

saccade

-

to

shows

preference for the continuous-slow rhythms, when he asks for example that ‘attitudes’ (postures), when changing, do so ‘smoothly’ en fondu (1954b: 38; and also 1944: 127). In the period following the publication of Paroles sur le mime, the development of the research on rhythm, mostly in relation to the ever more prevalent pedagogical concerns, led Decroux to bring the notion of dynamo-rhythm into focus. It is defined as the ‘study of the speed or slowness of the movement of a body part, the level of intensity of the contraction, the relaxation of this part and the causal relationship between the alternations of contraction and relaxation (Soum and Wasson 1989a*: 1). Decroux classified a certain number of these dynamo-rhythms, particularly important being the various types of toc: a muscular explosion or contraction which has the power to begin or stop a movement the toc is thus placed at the beginning or at the end of a movement (though it might also be placed somewhere in the middle). 22 A relevant aspect of the dynamo-rhythm research is the investigation of the various kinds of causality, defined as ‘the study of the spatial relationship which exists between two or more body parts, people or objects during a movement’ (Soum and Wasson 1990*). Such a study starts from the observation that movements do not differ only in their rhythmic and energetic characteristics but also according to the causes that produce them. For example, it is evident that as Arnheim (1954: 372 ff.) notes reflecting on the differences a

-

—

between organic and inorganic behaviour the movement of an automobile is perceived as qualitatively different from that -

of a bird or a tortoise, moved

22

by

its

own

or even

strength

that ‘the perception of an object

is different from that of an

object

This is very similar to the definition of toc moteur provided by Guy and Jeanne Verriest-Lefert in the short dictionary enclosed in their long interview with Marceau: ‘twitch [saccade] by the hand, or the arm, which introduces the beginning or the end of a gesture. It is bom at the level of the starting point and the conclusion of the movement’ (1974: 118). For the names of the other kinds of dynamo-rhythms in Decroux’s terminology, see Soum and Wasson (1989a*: 1).

pushed by an external impulse (Rogante 1980*: 75). ‘Attitude’

as

himself who

punctuation of

provides

or

attracted

movement.

by the outside’

It

is

Decroux

this definition of attitude’

(pose or posture), and then extends it: ‘Attitude is perhaps more than a punctuation of movement. It is perhaps the witness, the report. In any case, it is a result’ (1962a: 92). He prefers 23

attitude

gesture and

movement, which he thinks of once again cinematographically as a ‘succession of attitudes’ (1962a: 92). He loved recalling that, according to to

even to

-

-

Chaplin had once stated: ‘mime is immobility’ (Rogante 124). This preference is explained on the basis of the already mentioned principle of expressive economy. Indeed, Decroux is completely against compensating for a lack of words with an excess of gestures and movements (according to the very debatable criteria of ‘as we are not speaking, let us move a lot ): some,

1980*:

Idle chatter, however, is not I prefer size to number.[. ]

a

principle of rhetoric.

Purify the line, then enlarge it; afterwards, the number becomes useless, therefore harmful. [...] I

prefer attitude to gesture. The former is singular, the plural. (Decroux 1962a: 91)

latter

is too

Obviously, Decroux’s preference for attitude should also to his interest in mobile immobility (1952a: 51),

be connected to

that stillness understood

passionate’

that I have

underlined that this is most 23

of the other

an

as an

already

‘act which is sometimes

mentioned. It should be

interest that Decroux shared with

twentieth-century masters.

24

As is well known, the attitude constitutes a fundamental pose from classical dance, inspired by the famous Mercury by Giambologna whose codification (in its variations) is due to Carlo Blasis (1820). 24 On the immobility of the actor as an act that is strongly voluntary and of great expressive value, one can read the observations made by Copeau in The Education

Along with his mobile immobility and the principles of the decapitated’ trunk and the raccourci, the attitude appears as an indispensable means for the creation of a radically antimimetic corporeal art, a sort of abstract statuary, towards which Decroux’s research tends as a whole. Notwithstanding avoid noticing how Decroux’s aspiration towards the ‘mobile statue’ via the application of abstract

this,

one cannot

geometry often translated itself into rather aestheticised plastic representations, in a very dated neoclassical and Parnassian taste.

Furthermore, the results of Decroux’s mobile statuary

affected by, amongst other things, his great admiration for Rodin and his followers; for example, La Statue, performed by Eliane Guyon, or Sports and Le Combat antique.

are

of the Actor (see also Chapter 1): ‘Actors always make too many gestures, and too many of them are involuntary, under the pretext of naturalness. And always too many games with the face. They do not realise that immobility, like silence, is expressive. [...] As long as it contains a precise attitude of appropriate meaning, immobility is expressive in that it prepares the gesture that will follow. In reality, except for when it is desired, there is no real immobility of the actor on stage. It would be the equivalent of absence’ (Copeau 1988: 81). On the immobility of dance as ‘something compelled and forced, a transitional state, almost of coercion, see Valery (1938: 33). In his essay on Rodin, Rilke speaks of an immobility which ‘consisted of hundreds and hundreds of moments of motion that kept their equilibrium’ (Rilke 1903: 16). Regarding the impossibility of absolute immobility, see Barba (1981 : 76) and the report of some scientific experiments in Ruffini, ed. (1981: 117 ff.). See especially Barba (1993), who examines in pre-expressive terms the conceptions of immobility proposed by masters of the twentieth century, including Decroux. Barba identifies a common preoccupation that underlies all of them, which concerns the actor’s energy and its control, in the form of suspension and absorption, in order to confer greater organicity and therefore greater efficacy upon the performer’s action. This is where Decroux’s notion of ‘mobile immobility’ comes in, which Barba translates as ‘immobility in motion and which he compares, referring to Lindh, to what ethologists call Movements of Intention: the cat is not doing anything yet, but we understand that it wants to snatch a fly’ (Barba 1993: 57). However, it should not be forgotten that Decroux also envisaged a neutral immobility, inactive and inexpressive: it is what characterises the so called ‘zero states’ and, in particular, the vertical rectilinear posture, ‘indispensable condition of the neutral state of the verb to be, starting from which one can begin every type of expression and produce every type of action (Soum and Wasson 1989 a*: 1). In addition to the ‘intercorporeal zero’, just described, and the ‘zero of contrast’, Decroux also defines an ‘interspatial zero’ and a ‘zero of movement’ (Rogante 1980*: 69 ff.). One should also compare Decroux’s notion of ‘zero’ with that of ‘neutrality’ elaborated by Lecoq (in the wake of Copeau-Dullin-Dasté).

6

Corporeal as

Mime

Theatrical Utopia

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613-8

6.1

Corporeal

Mime and the

Spectator

only a theoretician and teacher of mime, but also a creator and performer. In fact, contrary to what is often Decroux was not

claimed, the act of artistic creation was his main concern until the last years of activity. Nevertheless, as with other great

twentieth-century theatre revolutionaries and visionaries (from Appia to Craig to Artaud), Decroux’s productions were very few in number and frequently fell short of his ambitions and statements of principles. 1 Even his relationship with the public had always been difficult and tormented, mostly a delusion: his apprehensive diffidence and an unspoken hostility prevented him from being completely convincing on stage, from managing to fully communicate his own absolute conception of art

to

the spectators. As Dorcy wrote,

The fate of Étienne Decroux as interpreter was a harsh one. [...] [He] was hostile to those he was supposed to win over[,] he disliked his public; and worse still, he had no respect for it. It often seemed as though he took malicious pleasure in antagonizing the audience. [...] (1961: 60, 49)

Regarding the performance,

Decroux acted for Decroux to what he himself feared. In any case it was not in the spectators that Decroux would find his affirmation. (1958: 72)

overcome

There is

a

statement

opinion, providing

some

by Barrault which confirms this

further elements which might explain

that mixture of insecurity and proud sense of superiority which had always characterised Decroux’s relationship with his spectators

1

(or dare we

say, with

others):

We should bear in mind however that Decroux’s entire

to be established

and, once completed, could hold

some

repertoire is mostly still surprises. In addition to the

classic pieces, which he himself made known all around the world in the 1940s and 1950s, Decroux created many other pieces for and with his pupils, mainly after the reopening of the school in 1963. These works often became part of the repertory of these pupils, and therefore are not easy to survey in a precise way. However, see Pezin (2003) , Leabhart (2007), and Decroux (2008).

Corporeal

Mime as Theatrical

Utopia

Decroux’s genius lies in his strictness. But his strictness became in the end oppressive. Sometimes it was also comic. I remember a show we did, one evening, in Paris. At one place, right in the middle of our act, Decroux lost his balance. He stopped, apologised and began again from the beginning. People started to laugh. He stopped again, advanced to the proscenium and scolded them, reproaching them for being so stupid that they had no idea of what an artist’s sufferings were like, etc. In the end he became unwilling to perform before more than two or three persons: if there are more, he used to say, people are no

longer judging freely. (Barrault 1972: 57)2 We know that there Decroux

interrupted

were

in protest

also

performances which

against

an

inattentive and

noisy audience. Yet his introverted character and solipsism on the one hand, and a certain difficulty with the productions on the other, do not on their own explain the almost total

incomprehension that his

mime encountered in its first

appearances, in the 1930s and

1940s, and then

even

later,

the discreet popularity he

notwithstanding enjoyed following residency and the publication of Paroles sur le mime. 3 This incomprehension, which often translated itself into an adamant refusal, should be placed in relation to the his American

2

A similar incident had

already happened to Decroux when he worked as an Dullin, precisely during a performance of Volpone in 1928. A recollection written in 1955 by Edmond Beauchamp (who had also been an actor at the Atelier and before that, with Decroux, at the Vieux Colombier) focuses on this incident: ‘Moreover the performances were not without adventures. In the fifth act, Corbaccio and Corvino clash, bitterly set against each other. One evening, in the course of this fight, the hat and the badly fixed wig worn by Corvino interpreted by Etienne Decroux fell off. He recovered his wig and dived into the wings to put it back on. In the rush, not having a mirror, he put it on back to front and came back on stage like this. Laughs from the actors and the audience! The situation was becoming serious... Seroff, who played the part of Corbaccio, found a remedy: with an instinctive gesture, he gave a big kick to Corvino’s hat which was still on the ground; his state of exasperation made that movement completely plausible. This diversion focused the laugh on that gesture and the hilarity stopped’ (Beauchamp 1955: 60). 3 See also Craig’s ‘prophetic’ considerations in the already cited 1945 article where, well informed by his long personal experience, he was not deceived by the overflowing and satisfied auditorium of the Maison de la Chimie: ‘For there exist among us a good number of incredulous ones “untouchables” [...]. Without them, the victory is only half won’ (Craig 1945: 25). actor with

-

-

-

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

radically This

new

character of the mime

was an art

complacencies Instead,

it

Laboratory

proposed by

Decroux.

almost always exempt from the easy anecdotal and sentimentalism of old French pantomime.

aimed,

the research of

a

as we

have

seen

depersonalised

in

and

Chapter 5 towards emotionally cooled’ ,

expressivity. When it managed to live up to the most audacious theorisations of its inventor, this new mime was composed of essential gestures, rigorously purged and aimed at plastic

transposition into extra-daily, elliptic, and symbolically allusive forms, of material actions and passionate or intellectual

Refusing the method of superficial imitation and illusionism (which Marceau and others soon brought back into vogue), Decroux’s mime also resists any possibility of easy comprehension and identification on the part of the spectator. This explains the impression of an abstruse, cryptic formalism, and an arid, overly refined technique which Decroux’s pieces and his own performances so often received from a public (including specialists) which was clearly frustrated in its need for empathy and understanding. situations.

To

gain

a more

precise idea of the difficulties which the

posed for its spectators we can examine an article by Maurice Delarue (Dullin's ex-pupil) just after those first, great public appearances of Decroux’s new

mime

written in 1947

-

company. This article stands out from others for its accuracy and also for the acumen of certain observations. Decroux’s

limits

(as a theorist but principally as an artist-interpreter) are brought out by the critic through a comparison with Barrault’s mime. Even though he recognises Decroux’s work and technical elaborations as ‘a prodigious influence [...] on the form itself of the theatre French much

master

more

come’, Delarue berates the great for proposing performances which are not

than

a

to

series of laborious and abstruse exercises,

held together in an extrinsic way by a theme, idea, or concept. Instead, Barrault is able to make mime leap from exercise to art,

from the

simple ‘plastic figure’

the choice of emotional identification

to

as

‘drama’, thanks

to

‘method of creation

and interpretation, which allows him to easily overcome the hurdle of abstraction and the difficulty of comprehension without

having to

turn to

artificial

or

external aids:

always had the bitter impression of a gymnast desperately tried to reach reality and could only do so through a series of conventions, a philosophy of Decroux’s own. In Decroux

one

who

a formal theme to the gestures, which them, replaced the written text, but took its and because he was obliged in every way to turn to place exactly, the idea or concept, it became difficult to admit he was refusing words, which are in any case the most explicit means when one wants to transmit an idea. With Barrault, it is not the case. Since the theme, if there was one, came from the situation itself, it seemed that it would have sufficed to let oneself be invaded, from head to foot, by the presence of the horse itself [here Delarue is referring to the famous piece Le Cheval, presented in 1945 at the Maison de la Chimie] to identify oneself in some way with it. In Barrault one did not feel the lack of the words: with him we were before any words; just like the poet who tries to express what is ineffable in the bare perception, indistinct from the emotion which brings it, not yet divided into a subject and object. In this way Barrault was a man-element or man-animal with a connection of the whole of his sensibility, of his whole body, to the element or to the man. The key had been found. It was no longer about representation, it was about identification and this was not possible unless through a total connection to an initial emotion of which one gradually noticed the invasion; no longer a juxtaposition, coherent or not, clear or hermetic, of observed and reconstructed gestures, but a progressive domination of the whole being. From that moment, mime all at once recovered the prophetic virtue of language and the enchanting strength of primitive dance. (Delarue 1947)

In

brief,

it seemed that he added

to connect

The critic’s

analysis confirms that one of the main reasons difficulty which corporeal mime as well as Decroux had always found with the public lay as a mime interpreter in the negation of any easy identification. However, this is only a partial explanation. Because if it is true that, on the one hand, the new mime refused the spectator the sterile gratification of illusion and understanding, on the other hand, it is equally for the

-

—

true

that it

strongly solicited the spectator’s

emotive and

intellectual participation, demanding it as the indispensable condition for its own semantic and communicative fulfilment. In place of empathic

passivity Decroux expected a much more

difficult active effort from his spectator, a lucid mental and spiritual involvement. This is what some of the more attentive observers

immediately noticed:

With

corporeal mime we no longer read known forms, we decipher, recompose, appreciate on the basis of our knowledge and our emotional state; from being passive we become active. Can

imagine

one

fertile meeting between

a more

actor

and

spectator? (Dorcy 1945) The idea of

a sort

of

1979), which Decroux’s

‘interpretative cooperation’ (Eco

mime

seems to

demand from the

spectator,

can

also be found in other critics. Hubert Engelhard

(Réforme,

31

May 1947), for example, after writing about the greatness’ of Decroux’s work, observes

‘almost monstrous

that the French artist ‘refuses every concession’ to the public: ‘He does not in any way facilitate our access to this separate world in which he lives. It is up whole journey which leads from concludes that Barrault,

on

to

the spectator to make the world to his’. Engelhard

our

the other hand, takes the laziness’

of the spectators much more into account and why he reaches them more effectively. However, it is creations

not my intention to

beyond

perhaps this

is

put Decroux’s mime already mentioned

any criticism. I have

how Decroux’s pieces often fell short of both his theoretical ambitions and the most advanced experimentation of his school. We should also add here that these works

oscillate, much

more

theory does, between an antiformalisation of physical expression

naturalistic/anti-diegetic (e.g. Le Combat antique, L’Usine, Méditation, l'absent

or

well

Les

Arbres, Sports, and

later pieces such Prophète) and the retrieval

as

Le

continuously

than the

as

unspoken aim of trying to

meet

as -

Le Fauteuil de

perhaps with the

the audiences’ expectations

-

descriptive and narrative dimensions, with frequent lapses into sketch-like anecdote and psychologicalsentimental characterisations (so often criticised). These were, however, lapses from which Decroux was the first to take his distance; for example when he writes, commenting on Petits Soldats (1950): ‘to satisfy a whim and prove that our art can do everything, I created some stories without words: my achievement was either dull or non-existent’ (1962c: 108). 4 of more traditional

It should be added

—

as

Delarue underlined in his article

that Decroux always remained faithful to

a

—

demonstrative and

experimental conception of mime performance: an anthology of examples, numbers, figures, and exercises, which served periodic verification, a provisional and necessarily imperfect stage of a research in progress. For example, in 1953 he states that: ‘I have produced a number of shows, each of which displayed the techniques mastered in the studio the preceding year. Each was a separate manifestation of my conception of the art’ (1953: 67). It is in a short text written a few years earlier, during a tour of his company in Belgium, that this conception emerges in a sharper and more as

a

articulate

manner:

4 Notwithstanding the anecdote, Petits Soldats represents a very ambitious work which Decroux justly considered his masterpiece for its material dimensions (an hour and a quarter without a break exceptional for mime), but principally because according to Marise Flach (who played the part of the servant of the inn) he tried to demonstrate that mime can do everything, represent reality, the grotesque, poetry, tragedy (Pozzi 1991 *: 236) and can become a complete performance, giving itself the necessary ‘virtues’ of gaiety, laughter, rhythm, dynamism, charm, emotion’ (Decroux 1950: 107). In the programme of the 1950 Israel tour, Decroux described the piece in detail in its various ‘phases’: (1) Guard-duty; (2) The court-yard of the barracks; (3) On leave (with the animated scenes of the inn: laying the table, banquet, music, and songs which the soldiers sing for themselves, courting the waitresses, bidding farewell); (4) Retreat by Torchlight; (5) The War (certainly the most intense and significant part, with the march towards the front line, the baptism of fire, the death of the comrades, the dying dragging themselves along, and finally the reanimating of the bodies, which now represent the souls of the soldiers killed) (Decroux 1950: 104—06). After having attended a performance of Petits Soldats, Eric Bentley observed that the work ‘has many external characteristics in common with Chaplin movies though the spirit which informs it is not Chaplin’s sweet humour, but the rather humorless wit, the dark fantasy, and unearthly, tremulous joy of Decroux’ (1951: 188). -

our art stutters and our show has its shortcomings. Then the question arises: Should we not refrain from presenting to the public something that we know to be imperfect? Before producing it, should we not wait for it to reach ma-

But

turity? It would

obviously be

But there

better that way. this is impossible.

we are:

It cannot be. can progress toward maturity only by showing its first steps, its second steps, all its steps. The progress of an art implies an artist. An artist can reach perfection only by submitting his work to supreme judges, that is to say, the public. This artist needs to be stimulated and he will never be stimulated so well as by the prospect of public judgement. This artist needs to orient his research and adjust his findings, and he would never be able to do so if he remained ignorant of the public’s healthy reactions.[. ]

An art

And has any

which is

art

now

established

not

exhibited

gestation?

its

Look at painting, statuary, music, poetry and prose itself. Look at modern architecture. Look indeed at the terms used to describe works displayed and considered worthy of display: (1947c: 141-42) essay, essayist, study, period, research ...

6.2 Between Presence and Absence: Decroux in The ies

explanations as

they

one

on

their

I have listed

all have

a creator

still remain

suffice the

Contemporary Theatre

too

much

own.

A

a

regarding Decroux’s difficult-

certain

on

more

consistency. However,

the surface of the

problem to suitable hypothesis might be

which identifies the fundamental issue of Decroux’s

creative work

as

the

difficulty which

arises for any artist

they become prisoners of rules; even those (original and revolutionary) rules which one sets oneself, as is the

when case

for the

principles of corporeal

mime. In

paying tribute

pedagogy (perhaps the only European master to have elaborated a system of rules comparable to that of an Asian tradition), Eugenio Barba has noted that Decroux ‘seeks to transmit to his students a rigorous shutting-off of scenic forms different from his own (2006: 7). According to Barba there is a crucial reason which explains such an to

Decroux’s

attitude: For Decroux, as for Asian masters, this is not a question of narrow-mindedness or intolerance. It is an awareness that the basis of a performer’s work, the points of departure, must be defended as precious possessions, even at the risk of isolation. Otherwise they will be irremediably polluted and destroyed by

syncretism.

(Barba 2006: 7)

however, comes at a price which paying dearly as an artist:

Barba concludes that all this, even

Decroux ended up

The risk of isolation is that purity might have to be paid for with sterility. Those masters who isolate their students in a fortress of rules which, in order to be strong, are not allowed to be relative and are therefore excluded from the usefulness of comparison, certainly preserve the quality of their own art, but they jeopardise its future. (2006: 7)

The issue raised

by Barba

important. Nevertheless,

even

is

undoubtedly pertinent and

the image of Decroux

Grand Old Man of mime, who becomes infertile

isolation,

appears

-

in my

opinion

-

as

the self-

through unsatisfactory or at least

be the last image of him in this book. Besides, it is clear that there are two very different types of closure: that which is produced by a disinterest for the

partial, and certainly

cannot

(for others), and that which comes from a great towards this same world and from a will to effectively passion intervene in order to transform it. Assuming that the outside outside world

world in question is represented first and foremost by the theatre milieu (even if the demand for transformation by Decroux

-

the long-time anarchic trade-unionist

broader and

more

ambitious),

at

-

always study it

was

this point of the

should be evident that Decroux’s passionate attention towards

theatre, on

its issues, and its

working reality never diminished,

the contrary, in many ways it increased with time. there is more. I believe that what emerges

Yet

incontrovertibly from the previous pages is that the venture of Decroux’s mime begins fully in the theatre, on the basis of interests and stimuli which are essentially theatrical, and all of it occurs in the pursuit of theatre, through a dialectic and also sharply conflicting relationship that is never interrupted. As Lebreton

observes, ‘his primary

tradition of mime’

(1980a: 264):

interest

was never

Decroux had

the

begun from

theatre practice and the impulse which led him to devote himself exclusively to the study of corporeal art was the desire

to correct

those intolerable

underlying deficiencies

which he identified in the theatre and the Therefore for Decroux it

was not

about

actors

of his time.

abandoning theatre

dedicating himself to its radical transformation, with objective of foreshadowing an ‘other theatre’ through the proposal of a ‘theatre that was other’ (i.e. an ‘other genre’: mime). Giorgio Strehler put it very well, in remembering the importance of his pedagogical experience with Decroux at the

but of the

Piccolo school in the mid-1950s and the impact it had subsequent work as a theatre director:

on

his

I would almost say that for Decroux (who perhaps will pardon heresy!) mime is a pretext. A pretext for envisaging the

my

foundations of a new theatre, the form of a theatre of the future, which, starting from the ‘body’, and from this alone, in the space of the universe, in emptiness, in nakedness, in silence (or in the music of the spheres), might rediscover the originary sense and form of the most essential human theatricality. (Strehler 1983: 5

5

5)

Moreover, it has been claimed as early as the 1940s that Decroux’s work belongs fully to the most advanced contemporary theatre research. In addition to the already cited article of Craig which dealt, amongst other things, with ‘an attempt, developed slowly over time, to create an art for the stage’ (1945: 24), one might think of Eric Bentley who, at the end of that decade, indicated ‘essential theatre’ as the objective of Decroux’s efforts. Though not sharing Decroux’s doctrinal dogmatism (referring to the ‘error’ in thinking that the solution in art could be found by means of a doctrine), Bentley concludes that: ‘As a performer, though, and as director of

If the

hypothesis mentioned above is plausible, then it might explain what at first sight appears to be one of the paradoxes of contemporary mime (something similar might also be said for dance). This is the fact that, in twentiethcentury mime, the more the expressive and technical research closes in upon itself, and distances itself from spoken theatre, the a

more

it

be concerned with it, involving it in and even rebirth. Conversely, the more

seems to

project of change

that mime opens itself and gets closer to spoken theatre, blunting its own specificity, the less it is able to interact in an

original or

later,

way with this theatre, finishing by taking on, sooner its dominant conventions and uses. If this second case

regards Barrault and (in a completely different way) Marceau, there

be

doubt that the first

Decroux, whose entire artistic journey is the confirmation of how active can

no

dialogue with the outside world a

case concerns

is often favoured

certain kind of closure and isolation than

by

a

by compliant particularly more

too

openness. It also demonstrates that there are incisive and exemplary types of presence which nurture

themselves

precisely through their opposite, i.e. absence. Even without considering the increasingly dense dialogue which Decroux held with the outside world through the channel of his students and followers, it is with his own figure, his work, and his writings, that he provided the rare example and indeed present an eloquent and persuasive silence, such as few others have managed in the theatre of the last decades. I think we can of

an

absence which is

most active

—

—

affirm without fear of contradiction that Deeroux’s

secluded, marginal, and

apparently

anachronistic experience was deeply influenced the new theatre

even

amongst those which most of the 1960s and 1970s, many aspects of which it anticipated and experimented in practice. Amongst these, there is the

primacy of the body-mind of the

creative actor,

‘poverty’ as an

his performances, Decroux is second to Chaplin only. To see his work is unimagined possibilities for the theater art’ (1951: 193-94).

to

glimpse

ethical-aesthetic choice and

as a

communicative strategy, the

non-compromise with the dominant theatre, the centrality of the

place of permanent education and continuous experimentation (which resolves the problem of the spectator internally), and the inseparability of private life and profession. With all its ambivalences and contradictions, Decroux’s fifty-year-plus research represents an almost unique school-laboratory

case

the

of

as a

non-fossilised and non-museumified continuity in twentieth-century ‘tradition of the new’, between the a

historical century.

avant-gardes and those of the second half of the

EPILOGUE

Mime and Theatre in the Twentieth Century

DOI: 10.4324/9781003420613-9

In Search of the Lost There should be little doubt that the

Body

phenomenon of the

so-

called

‘rediscovery of the body’ in European theatre at the beginning of the twentieth century was strongly influenced by the double idea of the primacy and originary nature of physical language on the one hand, and, on the other, of the expressive and communicative energy belonging to the gesture rather than the word. For example, such a conception is clearly visible in a short but important text by Appia (the second preface, from 1918, to La musique et la raise en scène [Music and Staging]). While hoping for ‘the return to the human body as an

essential

means

of expression for

the Swiss theorist insists

on

engaging the spectator that

aesthetic culture’, the almost mysterious abilities of

are

our

inherent in

freeing the actor’s

body on stage: Our modem

productions restrict us to such a contemptible that we carefully draw a veil over our humiliation in passivity the shadows of the auditorium. Now, however, before the effort of the human body to finally rediscover itself, our emotion becomes almost a fraternal collaboration: we want ourselves to be that body we contemplate; our role as spectators weighs down on us [...], the harmonious body culture that obeys the deep orders of a music made for it tends to win over our passive isolation as spectators to change it into a feeling of supportive responsibility, a collaboration in some way implicitly contained in the performance itself. (Appia 1899: 161) Even

more

influence,

are

explicit, due also the

statements

to

made

the clear Nietzschean

by Georg Fuchs

in his

1906 book Der Tanz about the arts of dance and mime

essential elements and

original forms of the

art

of acting:

The art of dance and mime art are the same identical art; in fact they are both by nature: rhythmic movement of the human body in space that is exercised with the creative impulse to represent a sensation, through the expressive means of one’s own body, and with the intention of joyously letting go of that intimate impulse, to lead other people to the same or similar

as

Mime and Theatre in the Twentieth

Century

oscillations and consequently to the same or similar of exhilaration. Insofar as it wants to be a genuine and stylistic art, the art of the actor is different from the art of dance only because the sounds which in dance appear spontaneously

rhythmic states

-

-

are

1980:

consciously

cultivated.

(Fuchs

1906: 13; cited in Tinti

90)

One can also refer to

Meyerhold’s idea, stated in a 1907 text,

of entrusting the task of ‘expressing the ineffable, of revealing that which is concealed’ to ‘plastic’ movements (Meyerhold 1907:

55).

Or

one can

read the reflections which Evreinov

proposes in his Apology of Theatricality (1908) regarding mimed imitation as an innate human tendency and primary

component of what he later called ‘instinct for theatricality’. Then there are the scientifically argued observations of

‘expressive movements’, as he calls those which have an attractionness’ (a quality of attraction) upon the spectator (see Eisenstein and Tretyakov 1923: 187). Eisenstein

on

Furthermore, there

are

Artaud’s famous formulations in Le

(1938) on the magical power of contagion and the almost alchemical capacity to unleash strengths which belong to the actor’s body and gestures, for whom ‘One must grant the actor a kind of affective musculature matching the 1 bodily localisation of our feelings’ (1938: 88). The privileged role of improvisation in Copeau’s pedagogical project is of particular interest to our discussion. Based on the idea of the originary, phylogenic identity between theatre and play, improvisation attempts to reawaken the primary and childlike instinct du jeu in the actor. Finally, despite the difference from those already mentioned, there is Théâtre etson double

1 This corporeal and magically effective vision of the scenic event lucidly radicalises itself in Artaud’s subsequent writings, marked by mental suffering and physical pain, up to the affirmations of Le Théâtre et la science (1948), where he speaks of theatre as ‘a dangerous and terrible act [that] aims at the real organic and physical transformation of the human body’, and as ‘that crucible of fire and real flesh in which anatomically, through the trampling [piétinement] of bones, limbs and syllables, one remakes bodies, and physically and naturally presents the mythic act of making a body’ (in Virmaux 1970 :264). On the later Artaud, see De Marinis (1999).

Etienne Decroux and His Theatre

Laboratory

also the Brechtian conception of Gestus, proposed in ‘A Short Organum for the Theatre’, with its appeal to the particularly

revealing capacity of More relevant to

movements

and mime

(Brecht 1948).

argument, however, is the fascination which struck Brecht in Moscow in 1935 when watching the our

great Chinese actor Mei Lanfang, who was able to create a separation between ‘mime’ and gestuality’ and in this way

produce ‘amazement’, elevating everyday things ‘beyond the level of the obvious’ (Brecht 1936: 92-93). Within this very diverse set of experiences and proposals, one is almost never thinking of old Western forms when mentioning traditional pantomime and suggesting

uses

of

it, but of something new and different. This is the case for the new pantomime’ longed for by Meyerhold in the mid-

1910s, ‘in which the each in its that

was

own

music and movement

sphere’ (in

until then still fed

dell’arte and the circus

on

run

Solivetti 1976: the

in

parallel but

39): suggestion by the myths of commedia one

hand, and

a

on

the other,

by the pioneering examples of modern dance (the

Russian

director cites Dalcroze, Isadora Duncan, and Loie Fuller). However, Meyerhold’s vision would soon define itself more

concretely through the Biomechanics exercises. Another case is the ‘undebased mime plays’ which Artaud dreamt of when watching the Balinese performances, explicitly contrasting it with ‘European mime [...] barely fifty years old’: By ‘undebased mime plays’ I mean straightforward mime where gestures, instead of standing for words or sentences as in European mime (barely fifty years old) where they are merely a distortion of the silent parts in Italian comedy [commedia dell’arte], stand for ideas, attitudes of mind, aspects of nature in a tangible, potent way, that is to say by always evoking natural of like that Oriental details, language portraying night things by a tree on which a bird that has already closed one eye, is beginning to close the other. (1932: 29) 2 2 As mentioned previously, many other European theatre practitioners before Artaud had fallen under the spell of Asian theatres, which were seen as cultures

However, we should once again refer to Copeau, who preceded Artaud in this area by several years. In the course of

a

written

exchange

in 1916 with his actor Louis

Jouvet,

the latter’s suggestion of proposing a silent improvisation starting from specific texts as the first exercise for the pupils of the school they were planning, Copeau was

and in response

able to focus

to

on a

vision of pantomime as

a

means

of expression

that was completely autonomous and independent from verbal

language. This

surprisingly modern, and very far At that point, not only Decroux but also the

vision is

ahead of its time.

3

Vieux Colombier mime exercises

were

still

to come,

and the

pantomime which survived in France, despite the criticism of

that have developed a great and rigorous art of the actor, enabling them to create an through their (mainly physical, mime-gestural) expressive means alone. One thinks of the Russians, from Evreinov to Vakhtangov, from Meyerhold to Eisenstein, of the French Copeau, Claudel, and Dullin, as well as, naturally, of Craig (see especially Savarese 2010: Chapter VI). Anticipating Brecht in a way, Evreinov contrasts the realism of Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre with the representative conventionalism of the Chinese actor: At the time in which the Moscow Art Theatre copied life in all its detail with a zeal worthy of a greater cause, the Chinese actor represented with simplicity of spirit the horses of a rich mandarin on the set of a Manchurian city: nothing (not even a papier-mache horse, nothing on the primitive boards of his poor theatre). Notwithstanding this, by means of gestures and movements, he showed he was strolling accompanied by eight thoroughbreds. What is more, paying attention to his facial expressions, the spectators understood that a certain horse was a rare beauty, that another one was not bad but had a habit of biting, and that a third was vicious and kicked...’ (in Lorelle 1974 : 76-77). One can also read, for example, what Charles Dullin wrote in 1930 about Japanese actors: the body of a Japanese actor is not only agile like that of the most able dancer, but it seems to be forged by theatre, and for theatre. [...] We have witnessed the triumph of the naturalness of life on stage, whereas in the Japanese actor the essential aim is, on the contrary, the perfection of technique. [...] They owe much to the marionette and the masks. [...] This elevated form of dramatic art has left deep traces in them. Undoubtedly it is thanks to this that they have learnt to make use of their own bodies as a means of expression, often more eloquent than their faces’ (Dullin 1930: 145-46). 3 It is very probable that this vision was influenced by Craig, Appia, and Dalcroze, who met Copeau a few months earlier. In a 1912 text Dalcroze stigmatises the recourse to purely exterior movements ‘not inspired by a need to express feelings’, observing that: ‘In our theatres, dance and mimicry have become inferior arts (in traditional mime, gestures only serve to express conventional feelings and realistic actions), because they have specialised in purely technical effects’ (Dalcroze 1920: entire theatrical "world’

145).

4 Georges Wague, consisted mainly in the translation of words

into gestures, the so-called gestes-mots:

that, strictly speaking, pantomime is another a reinforcement of the word, but substitutes it, language. another means of expression which has nothing in common being with spoken discourse. Miming the words, imitating the words in gestures, miming according to a word murmured internally, No. I believe

It is not

and sometimes with the aid of a silent

movement

of the

lips,

is

miming badly. Therefore, the external expression of the face and the body must be developed in the improvisation at the same the words. Pantomime should be done separately. It does the same things. It is an art which is sufficient unto itself. I imagine a pantomime art, an art of gesture to be entirely renewed, which would have nothing in common with gesture accompanied by words. (Copeau 1988: 68) time

as

not express

Distinguishing with great clarity between ‘the external expression of the face and the body’ and ‘pantomime art’ understood as ‘an art of gesture to be entirely renewed, which would have nothing in common with gesture accompanied by words’ Copeau not only anticipated Decroux’s separation between ‘actor’s mime’ and ‘mime’s mime’ by almost three decades, and not only demanded the aesthetic-linguistic specificity of the mime gesture and its irreducibility to verbal discourse (again long before Decroux): he did even more. He identified the terms of the alternative which we are briefly -

-

retracing here as an art

in its historical vicissitudes

form in itself and mime

as

a

-

between mime

component

(means)

of theatre.

4

Or that of Isadora Duncan, who recalling her early work with Jane May following in her autobiography; ‘Now pantomime to me has never seemed —

—

wrote the

art. Movement is lyrical and emotional expression, which can have nothing to do with words and in pantomime people substitute gestures for words, so that it is neither the art of the dancer nor that of the actor, but falls between the two in hopeless sterility’ (1927: 38-39). However, the argument against speaking on stage with gestures, and therefore with the hands, is as old as the discussions on the use of gestural language. Apart from the classical precedents of Cicero and Quintiliano (who prohibited this type of gesticulation by the speaker), very clear positions emerge in the eighteenth century; e.g. Engel (1785 /1786, Letter XXX). an

As

we

have

seen

in

Chapter

1

,

Copeau (who opened his

school just four years after this letter to Jouvet) would later in the direction of the second alternative, that of mime as a theatre tool, and he would always declare himself to be move

against any dismembering of single disciplines from the theatre a

as a whole. However, he did admit the self-sufficient mime art at least theoretically, -

art

of

possibility of as

confirmed

also by later texts such as the 1931 lectures published that same year,

as

Souvenirs du Vieux Colombier. Even

Copeau did

more

importantly,

negate that this possibility had materialised, his intentions, during the free experimentation which despite took place at the Vieux Colombier School in the four years of not

(1920-24) and then during the controversial but fertile period of the so-called escape to Burgundy’, between 1924 and 1929. If it is true that it was only Decroux who was inspired by Copeau’s apprenticeship to develop mime as an autonomous genre, then it is equally true that almost all the its existence

numerous

descendants of what Copeau himself called the (Les Copiaus, Michel Saint-Denis’s

second Vieux Colombier’

Compagnie des Quinze, Léon Chancerel, Jean Dasté, Jean Dorcy, Gilles and Julien) would place the issue of corporeal expression at the centre of their own activities, including its use in teaching and its problematic integration with other means of expression in performance, primarily words. 5

Art As

we

have just

seen,

and/or Pedagogy

what

connects

experiences and theories

in the broad terrain of theatre renewal at the turn of the

twentieth century is precisely the accent placed on the body actor. The discovery, or rediscovery, of the actor as

of the a

5

three dimensional plastic entity (Meyerhold), made the issue

However, the contribution of the ‘first’ Vieux Colombier (that of Dullin and

Jouvet) should not be underestimated (see Chapter 1).

of its

corporeal education central for the first time, having previously been very marginal and secondary in traditional theatre education. 6 This explains the large amount of space reserved for various techniques of physical training and gestural expression in the theatre schools which emerged all over Europe at the beginning of the century through the work of the great director-pedagogues (as Fabrizio Cruciani has called them). From Craig’s school in Florence, which sadly remained just a project, to Stanislavski’s First Studio (and those that followed), from Meyerhold’s various open laboratories, before and after the October Revolution, to the Vieux Colombier School, in which the Hébert method of Physical

foundational, and to Dullin’s Atelier. One should also cite in this context the pedagogical experiences from the dance world: starting with Rudolf von Laban in Munich, and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (with whom Appia also collaborated) in Hellerau near Dresden, both beginning in 1911. Culture

It

was not

athlete 6

was

or an

about

making the actor a muscular virtuoso, an (even if this risk existed, and some fell

acrobat

Other than the preparation for particular needs of certain roles (e.g. fencing for duels), no exercises and physical training existed in nineteenth-century theatre (until Stanislavski). Delsarte, who elaborated an organic set of exercises for his pupils, actors, and singers (which Savarese defined as ‘the predecessors of the training' [2010: 405]), represents an isolated and uninfluential exception. It was only with Stanislavski that we can begin to talk of training and exercises for actors in the present sense of the term. If resorting to physical education in theatre was indeed a consequence of the theatrical rediscovery of the body, it can also be included amongst its causes: it was part of the much broader phenomenon of the development of early twentieth-century European Körperkultur, which led to the diffusion of methods of body training and education, and to the birth of sport as the main opportunity for their development and use (the modern Olympic Games were instituted in 1896). While in theatre and dance Körperkultur produced the phenomena under review (see especially Chapter 3), outside the artistic field it manifested itself, as well as in sport, through the trend of bodybuilding techniques, and then through nudism, naturism, the discovery of the summer holiday, etc. (see Lecoq 1987 : 59-61; see also Casini Ropa 1988: 49 ff). For European Körperkultur the rediscovery of the body meant (1) re-evaluating it, with respect to the previous disregard and censures (see Stendhal’s considerations on the prohibition of gestures decreed by the nineteenth-century bon ton [ Frasnedi 1984: 295]), and (2) freeing it, reacting against the controlled-disciplined uses which had been imposed up to that point in society (e.g. military life or classical ballet).

it). Instead, the intention was to make actors conscious of the often unexplored expressive possibilities at their disposal, and through this, to train them to enter into a state of physical and mental openness towards scenic creation (and not just interpretation). To this end, physical training was indispensable but certainly not sufficient on its own, given that it limited itself to preparing the ground. The next and decisive step was to help actors free themselves from the conditionings and cliches that suffocated their acting. How could this be achieved? What could be done to bring actors back to an ‘originary’ state of creative and expressive freedom? The answer was often found in the expedient of the temporary and instrumental subtraction of the text from the for

actors, to lead them to

words. It is

improvise on their own and without this point that the use of mime and cor-

exactly at poreal expression began to take root in the great early twentieth-century experiences of theatre pedagogy. One imagines, in general, a developmental educational journey, thanks to which the pupil is stimulated to (re)trace the principal stages of an evolution (both onto- and phylogenetic) which, starting from silent physical language, should move towards ever richer and more complex expressive forms, to the point of recovering the words and texts. Usually, in this kind of project, mime technique is given the (non-secondary) task of teaching actors to express themselves through their own bodies in improvisation and to do so with precision (just as gymnastics should enable actors to engage their bodies with ease), but always with the intent of finally placing this physical expressivity at the service of the dramatic poet and the director. Let us take, for example, the way in which Meyerhold used mimed improvisation in the Borodinskaya Street Studio in Saint Petersburg, as he himself tells us in the suggestive ‘News from the Studio’

published

Oranges magazine, which came His pupils (who were advised

fencing,

tennis, and the

discus)

out to

in The Love

of Three

between 1914 and 1916.

practise dance, athletics,

were

initially asked to perform

sections of dramatic texts without

7 using words. Following

this, there was ‘an attempt to pass from the exercises of scenic

technique to work on dramatic fragments with words’ (Solivetti 1976: 48). One can read notes about their movement

work

on

the second

scene

‘The work is divided into

of Pushkins The Stone Guest:

phases: (1) without words: pantomime form (preparation for the introduction of the words); (2) co-ordinated movement and words’ (Solivetti 1976: 51-52). In the following years (especially after the October Revolution), with the theorising of Biomechanics and its application in some performances, the Russian director might almost give the impression of having made physical exercises not only into a pedagogical tool, or a phase of the creative construction of the

two

in

scene

process, but also into his

telos, the actual substance of the

performance. The celebrated constructivist staging of The Magnanimous Cuckold (1922) springs immediately to mind, a true ‘manifesto’ of Meyerhold’s new poetics. However, it was only a brief phase, another experiment, after which Meyerhold returned Biomechanics to the laboratory, to be used exclusively for a ‘pedagogical purpose’, trenazh, training: ‘Biomechanics,’ he stated is not

something which

in 1933, ‘is

can

form of training. It be transferred to the stage, it is a

training elaborated on the basis of my long experience of working with actors’ (Meyerhold 1933: 85-86). a

In

Chapter 1 we looked at the uses of corporeal expression

and silent improvisation in the Vieux Colombier School as well as

the instrumental function attributed

it should be

repeated that

even

them. However, in the course of Copeau’s to

pedagogical experimentations, an inversion between means and ends equivalent to Meyerhold’s Biomechanical phase did actually take place. If it is true that Copeau distanced himself from it (as the tensions with his Les Copiaus also -

-

7

Meyerhold intended these

to serve, amongst other things, to (design of the movements and gestures of the itself’ (in Solivetti 1976 : 32). exercises

concentrate the attention ‘on the form

actors) as a scenic value

in

demonstrate), this did not stop the ‘incident’ (or whatever misunderstanding it was) from fertilising many successive experiences, inside and outside Copeau’s sphere, and from producing many results, amongst which the most important is represented by the corporeal mime of his ex-pupil Decroux. Nevertheless, on the level of the developmental organisation of the school structure

various

the

three years, just as within the of each individual year, and the relationship of the over

with each other, there can be no doubt about instrumental function and provisional nature of

courses

merely

resorting to corporeal improvisation and every year,

even

the final performances

mime. At the end of

were

conceived in an

the

evolving way, emblematically condensing pupils’ journey through their course, from the initial loss of the text to its conclusive recovery: they would open with purely physical, gymnastic exercises, and would close with spoken ensemble dramatisations, after having proposed various examples of single and collective mime-vocal improvisations. It is well known that the activities of Copeau’s school stopped abruptly in 1924, but not without arriving in some way at a first, positive conclusion to that risky bet from which it started, as its two final ‘products’ prove. These were the famous Noh piece Kantan, an acted, sung, danced, and mimed performance whose quality sanctioned the successful outcome

of

a

strenuous

journey towards the

recovery of

theatrical poetry, and two months later the much less known

—

though no less important end-of-year show with the pupils, which again was in itself a miniature version of all the main stages of their educational journey, culminating in complex -

ensemble dramatisations with texts, music, and songs. But perhaps it is no coincidence that in the latter performance, the mime pieces which generated most interest (even also by amongst the critics) and which were considered it

was

-

the it

pupils performing them as the most successful. Just as is, perhaps, not entirely by chance if these two associated

events, often

-

a

little mixed up with each other thanks

to

Decroux’s testimony, were later mainly remembered examples of mime performance.

as

great

still in May 1924. Later came, in quick succession, the ‘total’ performances of Les Copiaus, which gave a lot of We

are

(in particular the Danse de la ville et des champs [1928] and Les Jeunes Gens et l'araignée [1929]), the debut of Decroux’s corporeal mime, with La Vie primitive and La Vie médiévale (both from 1931), and a little later, Barrault’s mimodramas, from Autour d’une mère (1935), praised also by Artaud, to La Faim (1939). Copeau protested at various times that there had been a huge misunderstanding, for example space to mime

in his 1937

scenes

article,

written in the aftermath of the

enormous

of Barrault’s second piece as a director, Numance. In this illuminating text Copeau concludes by assuming the success

objective responsibility for what was happening and, at the same time, tries to clarify how the misunderstanding could have arisen which had led ‘a stage in the education, a means’ to be taken for ‘an end in itself, [...] a complete art’ (1937:

115). 8

is what it were

misunderstanding had occurred (if that was) and, as often happens in art, with results which

But

the

now

far from infertile.

In his treatise

on

theatre

anthropology, Eugenio Barba

align himself with Copeau when he explains the birth of corporeal mime within the wider twentieth-century appears to

phenomenon of the ‘drift of the exercises’, that is, their tendency starting from Stanislavski’s Studios ‘to move progressively further away from the continent of rehearsals and performances’ (Barba 1993: 108): -

-

Mime, which he [Decroux] defined as a pure art in its own was at first a collection of exercises in Jacques Copeau’s Vieux Colombier school. Decroux took the exercises out of the laboratory context and, developing them, made them

right,

independent as an autonomous artistic genre. (Barba 1993:110)

8

See

Chapter

1 for

a

detailed analysis of this article by Copeau

A

'New'

Means of Expression in Theatre

The passage by Decroux in which he pays homage to Copeau is often cited (as I have done in Chapter 1 ). In it Decroux

acknowledges that the ‘idea of a performing art that represents through body movement’ had already been found and applied at

the Vieux Colombier School and that he, therefore, had other than

invented

‘belief’ in it

not

(Decroux anything 15). However, the important clarification which follows these lines under the demanding title of ‘Doctrinal Manifesto’ is rarely noted and yet it helps us to understand in concrete terms the nature of that ‘belief ’. According to Decroux, it was about passing from

one to

available

theatrical

a

the other of the

1948:

two

and mime

alternatives

in (mime itself), consequently inverting the relationship between theatre and mime in the way these had been conceived by Copeau and many others alongside him: as

means

as an art

Instead of seeing in our mime one of the preparations for the spoken theatre, I saw in the spoken theatre one of the preparations for our mime, for mime had, in practice, been revealed as the more difficult. [...] If others consider it only as a means, it has the right to consider itself as an end. Even more so because mime is the essence of theatre, which in turn is the accident of mime. (1948: 15) Decroux directs this

objection towards his old teacher,

but it is clear that it could be extended

to

all the great

twentieth-century proposals of theatre pedagogy. mime

be

as a means to

mime

as an

From

end in itself. There should

doubt that Copeau and Decroux are poles apart on this issue. But we need to be very careful. Their divergence no

consists in the fact that while

Copeau completely negates (not the possibility) of mime as an end in itself, Decroux energetically defends his territory without negating or condemning mime as a means. In reality, for him, both possibilities are legitimately practicable (if approached in the

the

use

right way): indeed, he called them mime’s mime respectively.

mime and actor’s

In order to move forward in these conclusive considerations it is necessary to first make explicit a further distinction (already implied in the previous pages) within the choice that I have called mime

as means.

In the

course

of the twentieth

century, resorting to mime as a means translated into two very different (though not incompatible) possibilities: (1) mime as

pedagogical means (we could succinctly say, as a tool); and (2) mime as an expressive means (or as an ingredient). In short, what we thought until now as a dilemma is actually a trilemma, with the interesting consequence that Copeau and Decroux, clearly divided over the means/ a

end alternative, find themselves opposition to the use of mime as

side in their

same

performance ingredient.

remarks which Copeau makes in the aforementioned 1937 article, against the excessive and So much

so

that all the

the

on a

severe

gratuitous use of ‘figuration’ and ‘plastic signs’ in dramatic representation, could also have been completely endorsed by Decroux. Besides, Decroux never hid his absolute aversion for every kind of messy and superficial compromise between gesture and words on stage. It is precisely here that we can identify the deep artistic reason which would divide him from his

ex-pupil Barrault, who

was to

become the

prestigious leader of the conception and an

most

of mime

as

ingredient. It should

proposed mime

the to

use

as

come as no

surprise that, of the three alternatives

possibilities for the mime—theatre relationship,

theatrical means of expression ended up becoming successful in the twentieth century. It is fairly easy

as a

most

understand the

accommodating to square up to

issues which

reasons.

It

was

all in all

a

simple and

on the part of director-led theatre, those radical and sometimes disruptive

way,

corporeal

These issues

mime had

be

posed when it first encapsulated in the question

appeared. underlying the whole of Decroux’s quest: how can

can

actors go

stage without having either consciousness or knowledge of their bodies? Notwithstanding the good intentions

on

and the rigorous examples of Barrault’s early work (the aforementioned mimodramatic triptych), Decroux’s question is

substantially evaded

in Barrault’s eclectic total theatre’

solution. Neutralised in its

potential subversion, corporeal

just another tool in the director’s (and actor’s) hands, yet another string to their bows, in the form of an expedient, trouvaille, stylistic embellishment. I speak mime here becomes

of Barrault because he

was one

of the four protagonists of

the French school of mime, but there could be many more quotations on this subject and they could involve most of the

major and minor exponents of theatre direction in the second half of the twentieth century. In fact, there were only a few directors who managed to resist the temptation of mime-as-

ingredient.

9

The

Aporias of Contemporary Mime

and Decroux's Theatre Contribution the attempts made in the direction of alternatives which Decroux accepted and, albeit in

The fact is that the

two

different

even

practised (mime as autonomous art or as pedagogy), did not always provide better results and were not always free from the accommodating ease and superficial eclecticism which belongs to what we can now call Barrault’s

a

measure,

solution.

9

In the Italian context, we can refer to the use of mime that Giorgio Strehler made from the 1950s onwards. This occurred after Decroux left Milan in 1954, leaving Marise Flach, his closest collaborator at that time, as corporeal mime teacher at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro. Since then, Flach choreographed the mime movements in many of Strehler’s performances (see De Marinis 1993: 349-50). Once, speaking of Flach, the Italian director declared that (much like Decroux) he was interested in mime not so much as an expressive means or director's gimmick (what I am calling an ‘ingredient’) but as a physical education, which best reaches its aim if it is relatively unnoticeable onstage (cf. Pozzi 1991 *: 135-36).

There have been many ways to betray’ Decroux, and the case of Marceau (1923—2007) proves that it was possible to do

through

so even

an

all-out defence of mime

as a

separate

effect, while Marceau presumed to champion the new art form, in reality he undersold its originality and expressive rigour, bending his grammar to the packaging of products for mass international consumption. Marceau’s genre. In

‘products’

were

based

on

the intensive

use

of the standard

components of every theatre of popular entertainment (including that nineteenth-century pantomime to which he wanted

to

reconnect):

an

abundance of

ideological and

linguistic stereotypes, sketches, anecdotes, sentimentalism, and nostalgia (see De Marinis 1993: 231-54). Marceau’s case, and especially that of his numerous and much less talented imitators, demonstrates how the refusal of that equally dangerous and consummate means of expression that is the word (upon which so much institutional and commercial theatre anachronistically survives), does not on its own assure access to a superior level of rigour and originality. It is possible to be just as institutional, commercial, and conformist through making silent theatre, or mime if you prefer, as it is through making spoken theatre. The experience of the last six or seven

decades has confirmed it in

a

way

which,

I

believe,

is

incontrovertible.

Jacques Lecoq (1921—99)

is

perhaps the

most

well-known

and important name amongst those who tried to move in Decroux’s direction of mime as theatre pedagogy (De Marinis 1993:

255-86). Nevertheless, his journey was independent of

Decroux’s. It did

not

have its origins,

as

indeed

was

the

case

for the inventor of corporeal mime, in a specifically artistictheatrical requirement (roughly: how to make theatre into an art,

transforming the actor’s performance into an art). Instead

Lecoq had broader educational concerns, based on even wider philosophical premises: that life is movement, that everything which lives moves, that the experience of one’s own body and the

awareness

of outside

reality

constitute

(through mimed

replay [rejeu] and corporeal identification) formative

two

indispensable

for every human being, that these be useful for us to experience as adults,

moments

might independently of our job or professional aspirations, but more so in the context of creative activity. From the beginning, Lecoq operated within horizons which tended to go beyond theatre, soon abandoning the production of performances to dedicate himself exclusively to his pedagogical activities. In his school he did not propose to train (only) actors, nor in a complete professional way, and yet... And yet, whether Lecoq really wanted it or not, his teaching was instrumental in solidifying and disseminating moments

precise idea of theatre. All the aspects it is based on, including those which are pre- or extra-theatrical, have ended a

very

sedimenting themselves in equally distinctive components of this conception of theatre: improvisation, the rejeu, the masks, the reference to the commedia dell’arte, the search for

up

one’s

own

clown, and

Lecoq himself

-

says,

forth. Whatever anyone including ‘theatre of Lecoq’ existed and perhaps

so a

—

still exists, which undeniably influenced, for example, the main theatre movements of the 1970s but also some of the most

important experiences of the

new

international

scene

(for instance, Lecoq’s ex-pupil Ariane Mnouchkine). It seems equally evident to me that this theatre also remains, at the end of the day, quite elusive with respect to the radical issues raised by Decroux (and by other early twentieth-century masters). A clear confirmation in this sense comes from the transformations that Lecoq’s educational project underwent from the 1960s, with the progressive blurring of the original inspiring principle (body and movement as the basis of the training) and the parallel growth of the didactic situations, often rushed, superficial, and disconnected from each other. Lecoq’s school, whose importance in the landscape of new international theatre certainly cannot be undervalued, seemed from a certain point to move dangerously towards the crystallisation of a closed formula, to a transmission of

theatrical

knowledge which had already been defined

once

and for all. 10 There is therefore a strong temptation to view the history of mime in

twentieth-century theatre

as a

generalised ‘betrayal’

of Decroux’s utopia. But is this a valid temptation? I believe so, but only as long as we begin the betrayal’ with Decroux

himself, that is, with that part of his too

dogmantically

city of his

creative

praxis which

is

entrenched in the defence of the fortified This would

help, amongst other things, to fifty years of research often produced explain why its best results far from mime, and therefore from its explicitly declared objectives. The best results were particularly far new art.

Decroux’s

from the work which tried

‘genre’ literally,

without

to

take the parameters of the to grasp the spirit that

able

being polemically utopian value and need for on closer examination, has almost always ended up transcending every delimitation and separation. It is not in contemporary mime then (apart from some important exceptions) that we should look for the most fertile traces of Decroux’s legacy. Instead, we should search for them in that new international theatre to which Decroux always drove it; that is, its the absolute, which,

showed indifference, and from which he maintained his distance (though his pupils often kept the dialogue open). 11 10

The development of the Leeoq experience is part of a much wider phenomenon regarding the use of mime on a pedagogical level in post-war theatre schools. Almost everywhere, mime has been reduced to just another subject in the curriculum, completely disregarding Decroux’s call (and also that of the early Leeoq and other great director-pedagogues), to make it one of the elements if not the element around which to re-create the entire project of a theatre training. 11 The case of Yves Lebreton is exemplary. After five years with Decroux, Lebreton was hosted (though autonomously) by Barba's Odin Teatret in Holstebro from 1969 to 1973. He then initiated his own personal attempt to make theatrical use of Decroux’s techniques, mainly in the direction of what can be called corporeal tragicomedy. Lebretons case is not unique. One could also cite Ingemar Lindh, Jean Asselin and Denise Boulanger, Gilles Maheu, Leonard Pitt, Daniel Stein, and especially Corinne Soum and Steven Wasson of the Theatre de l’Ange Fou. These are -

-

all artists who trained with Decroux and who found a way to escape the cage of the without, in doing so, dispersing the essential aspects of his teaching. On this matter, see also the Conclusion in De Marinis (1993: 287-302). genre

In my

opinion,

certain

experiences of theatre research

in the

last

fifty years made the most of the artistic and pedagogical fertility of corporeal mime, engaging with it not so much to use it as a specific technique and codified language (on this level the delusions have been very frequent and perhaps inevitable), 12 but to deal with its deeper nature: a radical interrogation of the anthropological identity of the actor, and of the indispensable conditions to make their performance into an art. One might think of experiences such as the Living Theatre and the Open Theatre, Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowski, and Eugenio Barba with Odin Teatret; and even, in the world of contemporary dance, those of Merce Cunningham, Meredith Monk, and Pina Bausch, experiences in which one can

hardly

ever

identify

an

effective direct influence from

Decroux’s work, but in whose origins we find the same basic problem posed by the great mime artist, though formulated and dealt with very differently in the various cases. Nor should it be forgotten how, in this regard whether —

the forerunners of the

new

theatre

were aware

of it

or not

—

Decroux had theorised very early on (from the 1930s) and to put into practice many of the instances that

had then tried

experimental theatre projects in the post-war period. centrality of the actor as an inseparable body-mind entity, poverty’ as an ethical-stylistic choice and non-compromise with the theatre system (show business), and the necessity of the schoollaboratory. They also included: the indivisibility of technique and morals, of private life and profession, and of a conception of the world, of life philosophy and theatre vision. As for went on to

characterise

These instances concerned the

the scientific investigation into the art of the actor and its foundations, Decroux should undoubtedly be considered

-

along with a few other masters of the first half of the twentieth century

12

—

as a

rigorous

Regarding Grotowski, (1993).

Marinis

see

precursor to the research conducted

Kumiega (1985 : 91) and the Chronology

in De

by theatre makers and scholars regarding the identification of the basic principles of the actor ’s scenic behaviour. However, perhaps even when Decroux has been awarded the place he deserves (but which is rarely recognised), it might not be too useful to insist on establishing priorities, borrowings, and directions of influence between him and the founders of the avant-garde, and therefore between new mime and

new

theatre. If it is

true

-

as

Cruciani writes

-

that

‘each theatre, as a creative act, is an act of foundation, this is especially the case for the twentieth-century theatres, which have been ‘lived

searching for and declaring their product as a unique and unrepeatable event, outside the “normal” series of performances, as the expression of an original and originating creation, of a newly discovered creativity’ (Cruciani 1989: 11). Even the history of the contemporary relationship between theatre and mime should be considered with the following in mind: that ‘the makers of twentieth-century theatre do not justify their own work by inserting it into a tradition, [...] they instead have to declare its diversity, its rejection, its being the beginning of something, the moment of an absolute’ (1989: 11-12). And yet, even twentieth-century theatre has its own ‘tradition, actively constructed to establish a plurality of unique experiences, discontinuous and heterogeneous though they were, because in this century, ‘if the poetics and the performances exalt the differences, the research reveals the basic unity in the constitution of a theatrical knowledge’ (Cruciani 1989: 11). The mime theatres have participated intensely in the constitution and the enrichment of this ‘basic unity’ beyond any barrier of genre and of the problematic -

nature

of the results. Above all, it is

on

this level that Decroux’s

acquisitions, so skilfully distilled in his famous book, have a precious inheritance for the whole of contemporary theatre, an inalienable acquisition of his ‘tradition’.

become

Chronology

1898-1923 Etienne-Marcel Decroux Until he

was

born

in Paris

on

19

July

1898.

twenty-five years old he worked in several jobs, especially in the building trade: in addition to being a builder (like his father), he was also a plasterer, plumber, roofer, labourer, butcher, docker, wagon mender, dishwasher, and hospital porter. Decroux never stopped insisting on the importance that the disorderly practice of all these professions had for him and his education. On the one hand, they were a unique school of life, on the other, they were a proper physical apprenticeship, an extraordinary opportunity to understand and directly experience the fundamental principles of movement and corporeal action. For example, as he would admit much later, it was while he was a porter at the Beaujon hospital morgue in Paris that the irrepressible ‘indecency’ of the human face (when it serves as the cruel mirror of our least confessable passions) was revealed was

manual

to

him for the first time. With his usual

Decroux states that ‘there is

taste

for provocation, beautiful than

nothing corpse’: ‘take a man who for his whole life has been envious, slippery, calculating, a liar. You find his face intolerable. Dead, he has all the nobility of a Pharaoh’ (Caviglioli 1962). Decroux began to cultivate various artistic aspirations as he moved from one job to another. His father, who was an important figure in his development and in his successive ethical-ideological choices, wanted him to become an more

a

architect. He himself reminisced on several occasions that his dream

become a sculptor and a poet. As a trade-union he anarchist, joined various groups of poetic and political thought, where he also practised automatic writing exercises. With

was to

politics, he decided to cultivate his own vocal and oratory skills, enrolling in the Institut Philotechnique, where he initially attended courses in rhythmic dance and, later, diction, ‘with the intent of becoming a good political orator’ (Soum and Wasson 1990*). a

view to

moving

In 1923 he learnt from

into active

an announcement

in L'Humanité that

school for theatre education and culture had

a

opened

two

the Vieux Colombier, the theatre directed by Jacques Copeau. The school accepted also those who did not have any intention of dedicating themselves professionally to years earlier

at

the theatre, and he

applied. 1923-25

In the autumn of 1923 Decroux

passed the

examination for the Vieux Colombier

School, and joined the

entrance

scénique’ group directed by Georges Vitray. The composed of people who, like him, were eager to

'Instruction group

was

avail themselves of the teaching of the school without wishing

specialise professionally (there were young writers, critics, actors). However, the most important experience that Decroux had, in this first and only year of his stay at the Vieux Colombier, were the courses held by Suzanne Bing (the real head of the school, ‘our feared leader’, as he would call her). These courses, which began in 1921, were on silent to

amateur

improvisation with neutral masks and semi-nude bodies. Decroux followed this work

May

1924

purely as an observer. On 13 the pupils presented an end-of-year performance

composed of

various

pieces,

some

of which had

no text.

However, in March of the same year they had already taken part in the Noh drama Kantan, which was halted at the dress rehearsal due actor

to an

accident that

(Aman Maistre).

These

two

happened to the leading performances left a huge

on Decroux, who could not take part in them as first year student (see Chapter 1). Immediately after, that same May, Copeau closed the

impression a

theatre, embittered amongst other things by administrative and financial obstacles, and at the end of the summer moved the school to the castle of Morteuil in

Burgundy.

Decroux followed

him. This first collective experience had elated moments but did not last long. The economic difficulties pushed Copeau to dissolve the community in February 1925. A group of actors and pupils decided to continue the experience, organising

themselves into Decroux

February.

a

company

(calling themselves

Les

Copiaus).

amongst them, he returned to Paris on 25 Nevertheless, before definitively detaching himself

was not

from Copeau, Decroux was able

to

follow the courses that were

organised from the beginning at Morteuil, which were closely linked

to

those from Vieux Colombier. On the technical-

expressive side

we

find: gymnastics, games, diction, and,

especially, dramatic exercises, during which much time was dedicated to research on ‘mimed figuration and on ‘a corporeal expression which

is different from traditional

pantomime’ 46-49). However, the whole group dedicated themselves to improvisations during that autumn-winter, also outside working hours, in a spirit of playful dramatisation of the various moments of community life: they went to dinner masked, and even the acts of setting and clearing the table were sometimes ritualised. Lastly, it should be observed that it was (Gontard ed.

1974:

with Copeau that Decroux had his very first debut as an actor (even if later he spoke of his professional debut as being with Gaston

Lille,

Baty some months later [Decroux 1942b: 28]): it was in 24 January 1925, with the performance which Copeau

on

organised for a group of industrialists who were considering subsidising his Burgundy enterprise. The evening included a prologue written by Léon Chancerel, Le Fâcheux and a oneact play written by Copeau, L'Objet (according to Copeau’s Registres VI, 439, the two pieces were L’Objet and L'Impôt). The result however was disastrous, also due to the overly explicit nature of Copeau’s text, and the prospective patronsto-be pulled out (Gontard ed. 1974: 61; Villard 1944: 34). 1925 Decroux left Morteuil at the end of intention

-

according

des Copiaus

-

to Suzanne

Bing

February with the

in the Journal de bord

of preparing a music-hall number together with

Jean Dorcy (Gontard ed. 1974: 67). Taking leave from Copeau, and returning to Paris,

began

a

double artistic existence:

as a

Decroux

professional theatre (and

cinema) actor, to earn a living, and as a researchergradually more convinced and inflexible, in the field of mime art. He worked for over twenty years as a speaking actor, accumulating a considerable CV for the variety and the quality of his experiences, and developing, with time, a very personal acting style. His acting was evidently not exempt from the influence of his parallel and increasingly consuming occasional

creator,

experimentation amongst others,

mime, which earned him the respect of, particularly demanding spectator such as

on a

Artaud. In theatre he

was

directed

by Baty, Jouvet, Dullin,

Artaud, and Herrand (amongst others), in more than sixtyfive productions. In cinema he worked withL'Herbier, Pierre Prévert, Chenal, Becker, Gance, Allegret, Duvivier, Delannoy, Clouzot, and Carnet, in more than twenty films. He only took three of the films

est

dans le

sac

(1932),

the activities of the Groupe Octobre, and Le Voyage surprise (1946), both directed by Pierre Prévert and in which he played one of the leading roles, and Les Enfants du a

film linked

seriously: L'Affaire

to

paradis (1943-45), by Marcel Carné, in which he played the part of Deburau-pére alongside J.L. Barrault. After having made his professional acting debut at the end of the 1924-25 season with Baty and having worked with Jouvet at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées (interpreting, amongst other things, the Tambour de ville in Knock, by Jules Romains), Decroux joined the Atelier company of Charles Dullin. His debut La Lame

sourde,

came on

16 October with the

J.

Neis drama

in the role of Maschacott. He would remain

with this company for eight years, also taking on, when needed, the positions of stage manager and assistant director (Blanc 1954*, Lorelle 1974:108) and soon became responsible for the

physical and mime education of the actors in the Atelier school. Amongst the most important parts which he interpreted at the Atelier were: Corvino in Volpone by Ben Jonson (1928), Sancho Panza in Le Fils de Don Quichotte by Pierre Frondaie (1930), Trotsky in Tsar Lénine by François Porché (1931), and Polemo in Peace by Aristophanes (1932). At the end of the

of the latter

run

but he continued carried

to

teach in the Atelier school where he also

developing his

on

Decroux left Dullin's company,

performance, own

mime research.

1927-28 While

working with Dullin’s

company, Decroux

participated

experiments conducted by Artaud at the Théâtre Alfred Jarry. (Furthermore, it was in the Atelier space, offered by its director, that Artaud began the rehearsals of the company’s in the

production, which was shown at Théâtre de Grenelle on June 1927.) In particular, Decroux took part in the staging of the third production, Strindberg’s A Dream Play which played in matinees on 2 and 9 June 1928 at Théâtre de

first

1 and 2

-

l’Avenue In the

-

in the role of the

quarantine inspector.

Decroux worked with an amateur group,

period, (A Seed), who were very committed to socialist propaganda (see Decroux 1939: 5; see also his contribution to Revue d’Histoire du Théâtre, 1964 [Decroux 1945: 259], same

Une Graine

where the dates

are

confused and Une Graine is mentioned

contemporary of Sylvain Itkine's Mars group, which was actually founded in 1935). The only person who, as far as I am

as a

aware, mentions

this small, obscure company is the French

scholar Michel Fauré, according to whom it was precisely from Une Graine that the amateur group Prémices was born, which the direct antecedent of the Groupe Octobre. Unfortunately, Fauré is inaccurate in some details: (1) Prémices was formed in 1929 and not in 1927 as he suggests

in its turn

was

(see the press of the period and Amey

1978: 133); (2) contrary what Fauré claims, Decroux was never part of this group (Fauré 1977: 47): his name is not on the members’ list which

to

appears

on

published

top of the programme manifesto of the new group, in Soir on 13 March 1929 (moreover, Decroux

himself recalls Une Graine but not Prémices); (3) consequently it would also

seem

that what Fauré writes

regarding Decroux

Prémices’ instructor for corporeal expression together with Jean Dorcy, and with Roger Legris (who almost immediately as

replaced Georges Vitray) as the instructor for oral expression, is unreliable. Of course, it could be assumed that Decroux

had been an external collaborator of the group; but I believe that Fauré has in part mistaken the facts of Une Graine with those relating to Prémices. 1930 Decroux married Suzanne

Lodieu, who

afterwards gave birth to Maximilien, future collaborator of his father and a notable mime artist in his own right. soon

1931-32

Discouraged by the inconstancy of his colleagues (at the Atelier and elsewhere) Decroux worked on his

own to

prepare

for his first mime piece, La Vie primitive, which was presented one-off performance

13

June 1931 at Théâtre Lancry with the participation of his wife, Suzanne Lodieu. Meanwhile, at the end of January, the not yet twenty-oneyear-old Jean-Louis Barrault arrived at the Atelier school, in

a

on

accepted for free by Dullin. He very soon became enrolled by Decroux who, together with him and Decroux’s wife, presented a new version of La Vie primitive in the autumn, a one-off private performance at Théâtre Montmartre, the Atelier space. Decroux subsequently proposed, with the same participants and in the same place, another piece, La Vie médiévale (subtitled La Vie artisanale). Many of the pieces and the figures which would later become a fixture in Decroux’s repertory already appear in these first two creations: the fight, the fisherman, the hunter, the carpenter, the washerwoman, etc.

Meanwhile, Barrault made his debut

September,

his

as an actor on

in the part of

8

twenty-first birthday, play staged by Dullin. Also in first Decroux wrote his 1931, article, republished in Paroles sur le mime, under the title ‘My Definition of Theatre’.

a servant

of Volpone, in the homonymous

In these two years the very intense collaboration between Decroux and Barrault (who in 1933 left for military service)

took place. Living in a state of continuous exaltation, as nudists and vegetarians, the two defined amid the scepticism and the -

mockery of the other Atelier actors many of the principles and techniques which became the basis of the new mime: counterweight, imbalance, la marche sur place (or glissée), etc. Then, at the beginning of 1933, the rigour and the jealous -

possessiveness of Decroux on the one hand, and Barrault’s anxiety to rush into things and to always move on to newer experiences on the other, led to the break-up of a relationship which two or three sporadic professional meetings later on did not manage to repair. 1933-39

Beyond his activities as a professional theatre and cinema actor, proceeded with his own private experimentation, dedicating himself also to spoken choruses in socialist parties and to ‘theatre half spoken and half acted’ (Blanc 1957: 313). Decroux

Meanwhile, he continued

Thursday

as

head of the

teach in Dullins school every physical training (together with the to

teacher of Hebertism).

Paradoxically, it was the ‘defector’ Barrault by this time definitively into theatre who was the first to publically present the results of the corporeal mime research conducted under the guidance of and together with Decroux. He did so through the large mimed inserts in his first three stagings: Autour d'une mère (1935), which was an almost completely silent performance, Numance (1937), and La Faim (1939). -

-

1937 Decroux

participated (in the role of the mysterious Traveller) Capitaine, by Jacques

in the radio broadcast of Bonne nuit

Prevert, for the Club d’Essai. This was a text that some members of the dissolved Groupe Octobre had tried to stage a few months earlier under the direction of Tchimoukow and

by Kosma. The (Fauré 1977: 181).

with music 1948

programme

was

first broadcast in

1938

Interpreting the role of the protagonist in Jean Blanchon’s Captain Smith (directed by Marcel Herrand for Le Rideau de

Paris),

Decroux had the greatest

success

of his

career

The praise on the part of the critics was unanimous: ‘an artist who is above any acclaim’ (Orthis), ‘one

as a

theatre

actor.

of the most powerful actors of our time’ he

developed his individual

about

a

hundred times in the

front of one

or two

people

(Darbois). Meanwhile, presented it

mime number and

dining room of his own home in

at a time.

1940 rue de opened la Néva (later it would move, amongst other places, to rue Cadet, rue Vigée-Lebrun, rue Gergovie, and rue Falghière, to finally settle, on the return from the United States, in his father’s house in Boulogne-Billancourt, avenueÉdouard

Decroux

his

own

mime school in Paris in

Vaillant, where the school

was

based until its closure in

It is here that he

1987). presented his new solo productions, including amongst others: Le Menuisier, La Lessive, La Vie primitive (on his own), Le Professeur de boxe, L’Haltérophile, and Marche de personnages sur place. He gave about a hundred performances in front of three or four people at a

time.

1941 Thanks

funding, managed to set up a small company with his pupils, from which emerged, amongst others, Catherine Toth. With this ensemble he presented to some

Decroux

his first great collective piece, Camping, at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées, in a one-off private showing. 1942 With his

pupils and in his school, Decroux gave around sixty private presentations of a new programme (La Chirurgie esthétique, La Dernière conquête, Passage des hommes sur

la terre, Le Feu) for five to ten spectators at whom were some of the most prestigious the Parisian intellectual and artistic milieu

time, amongst personalities of

a

(including Pablo

Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Charles Dullin, Gaston Baty, Marcel Achard, Jacques Hébertot, Fernand Divoire, Lenormand, and the chansonniers Réné Dorin and Paul

Colline), and almost

all the arts press. There were letters of praise from the former and favourable reviews from the latter. The same programme was

presented

in October in

just

two

performances

at

the

Salon d’Automne and the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs. These shows

were

however also the occasion of

greement between Decroux and Baty

a

disa-

first director). After

(his having attended one of the private sessions at the school, Baty wrote him an open letter, published in Aujourd’hui magazine on 26 May, in which he accused Decroux of mutilating ‘the greater art’, theatre, ‘for the benefit of a manifestation which is [...] minor’. ‘Such an amputation does not even offer us limb has been severed, but instead the limb from which the body has been severed. And the dana

body from which

a

ger is all the greater because Decroux’s talent is great’. In his response (which appeared in Paris-Midi on 16 June) De-

had the opportunity to bring into focus one of the key principles of his mime poetics: ‘I think that an art is all the croux

richer for being poor in

means.

[...] I think that an art is

com-

plete only if it

is partial. [...] Our mime, which tries to sugthe mind by using only the movement of the the life of gest body, will be, if it succeeds, a complete art’ (1942b: 28-29). At the end of the year the

pupils dispersed and the

company

died. 1943 Decroux to

begin

interrupted the presentations of his mime numbers a new phase of research into the principles and the

expressive possibilities of corporeal

mime. The

superseding exasperated geometry of the first creations probably dates to this period (which lasted until 1945). of the

Marcel Carné filmed Les

Enfants du paradis,

written

by Jacques Prévert, with Barrault in the role of the famous nineteenth-century Pierrot, Jean-Gaspard Deburau (Baptiste), and Decroux in that of his father Anselme (as well as the gendarme in the first mime and the clothes merchant in the second). The film was released in 1945 (with the world premiere at the Palais de Chaillot on 2 March), making that ‘white pantomime’ universally popular, with Marceau attempting a few years later to

resuscitate it on stage. with studied Decroux, and having been part having of his company, Catherine Toth made her debut as a prose

After

the last

performance

be

staged by Jacques this she founded Following Copeau, the Compagnie du Myrmidon together with her husband, actor and director A. Reybaz, dedicating themselves to the discovery and development of new playwrights. actress in

to

Le Miracle du pain doré.

1944 Decroux gave private performances in the small hall of the foyer of the Beaux-arts for a public of between ten and fifty

people

at a time. In

December, he

of his pieces (La Machine and Bernhardt (the new location of the

two

was

invited

L’Arbre) Atelier).

at

to present Théâtre Sarah

On this occasion

Barrault gave a lecture on mime. Pursued by the Gestapo as a Resistance activist, Marcel Marceau, who came from Limoge, took refuge in a primary school in Sèvres near Paris (where he became a drama teacher) April, under a false name, arrived at Dullin’s

and then, in Atelier. Here,

together with another new pupil, Eliane Guyon, immediately became a fervent disciple of Decroux. Marceau presented his first mime creations to Decroux that same year: Pantomime japonaise (with three characters, all interpreted by him), Le Désoeuvré, and L’Assassin (inspired by Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment). Both Marceau and Marceau

Guyon also followed the own

school.

courses

which Decroux held in his

1945

composed and performed with Barrault (at the on 28 April) the mime interlude in the of latter’s staging Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra. The title of the piece was Le Combat terrestre. Successively it was repeated by Decroux (with his son Maximilien instead of Barrault) with the title Le Combat antique. Decroux

Comedie Française

On 27

June, at the

of corporeal mime’

Maison de la Chimie in Paris,

was

held under the

a

‘session

honorary presidency

of Gordon Craig, in front of a full audience of more than a thousand people. It was the first major public consecration of the research which Decroux had been

conducting for more

than fifteen years. The evening was an enormous success. The programme (a copy of which is reprinted in Dorcy 1958:

66—70) announced: introductory lecture by the master of ceremonies, Jean Dorcy, dedicated to ‘highlighting the doctrinal link from Craig to Copeau, from Copeau to Decroux, from Decroux to Barrault’, also evoking the ‘work of Appia’; (2) a series of mime numbers, both solo and ensemble works: ‘Evocation of Material Actions’ (Le Menuisier, La Lessive, La Machine), by and with Decroux; ‘Pupils’ Exercises’, in a study of ‘Counterweight’, with the Decroux School; ‘Characters’ (Le Boxeur, Le Lutteur, Le Bureaucrate, Quelques passants), by and with Decroux; ‘Mimed Symbolist Chorus’ (Le Passage des homines sur la terre) by Decroux, with Decroux,

(1)

an

Barrault and Eliane Guyon); ‘Materials for a Biblical Piece’ (figures juxtaposed without a dramatic link), with Decroux and Guyon; Le Cheval, with Barrault; ‘Mobile Statuary’ (with the face covered): Maladie-agonie-mort (Barrault), Différence entre admiration-adoration-vénération (Decroux), both on the same theme: La Volonté; Combat antique, by and with Decroux and Barrault (in an indivisible collaboration); (3) a lecture by Decroux entitled ‘What Distinguishes Pantomime from Corporeal Mime’.

August, Craig (who had been living in Paris for some years) published an article in Arts magazine dedicated to On 3

this event, and

to Decroux in

particular, eloquently entitled

Theatre, From the Theatre’. While rejecting any personal paternity towards Corporeal Mime, in this article Craig praised Decroux and what he considered ‘At Last

a

Creator in the

‘a serious attempt to create an art for the theatre’ (1945: 24), certainly no small endorsement, coming from him. Craig then found

an

almost

difficulties that this

prophetic

note

would

when he alluded

to

the

while

path, identifying its arduous future objective in the attempt to persuade the many who were incredulous: ‘Without them, the victory is only half won’ (25). new art

meet on its

1946 In the wake of the great success of the previous year, Decroux held five public mime sessions at the Maison de la Chimie,

and then

two

and another

thirty

at

the Théâtre d’léna. New

creations: La Voiture embourbée, Le Bureaucrate, L’Esprit malin, L'Usine, Les Arbres. The structures of the performances

proposed by Decroux and his small company were carefully they not only included mime numbers, but also poetic readings of Victor Hugo, Jacques Prévert (especially Le Temps des noyaux), and Jean Aicard (Boulanger, fais ton pain, with which, according to Agnès Capri’s magazine balanced:

Zig-Zag, Decroux had great succes at the Théâtre de la Gaité-Montparnasse, also in 1946). Furthermore, comic pieces were skilfully alternated with dramatic pieces. It is rather surprising to note that the critics, while stigmatising almost all the Hermeticism of the

by-then-classic creations Arbres,L'Usine, (later on) Méditation, were equally in agreement in their praise of the light’ numbers and in underlining the ‘strange and buffoonish comicity’ of such

as

Les

or

Decroux’s interpretation in Le Menuisier, Passants, Boxeurs, and Le Bureaucrate. 1947 Decroux and his company made their first tours abroad, Belgium and in Switzerland. (These were followed by

in

Switzerland again in 1948, Israel in 1950, and Holland and

England in 1951-52.) 1949

parallel with the tours, Decroux began the teaching abroad with a stay in Amsterdam. In

cycle of his

1950 On the occasion of the tour to

longest

mime

without

a

piece,

Petits

Israel, Decroux presented his Soldats, which lasted 75 minutes

break. 1951

Two

new

Holland

by Decroux on the occasion of the tours (Le Toréador) and in England (Jeu de dames). creations

in

1952 At the La Fontaine des Quatres Saisons Cabaret in Paris, Pierre Prévert

presented Decroux’s

new

performance, composed

of Jeu de dames, Le Poète vaincu, and Relai de Dulcinées et de petits soldats. Decroux taught for a year at the Sorbonne

University. The first version of Méditation was created during this year. 1953 First

at

the Grand Théâtre

International de

la

Cité

(18 May) and then at the Théâtre Privé of the (from 19 May to 2 June), both in Paris, Valéry Decroux and his company presented a new performance, with Le Champ de concentration, Le Fauteuil du mort, and Coup de clairon by V Hugo (spoken by Decroux). Members of the company included Marise Flach, Jacqueline Metzger, and his son Maximilien. Decroux taught for seven months (from October 1953 to May 1954) at the school of the Piccolo Teatro Universitaire

Paul

in Milan.

Circle

1954 In

May,

at

the end of his stay at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan

as

teacher, Decroux presented a performance comprised of a dozen pieces, amongst which Jeu de dames, Chirurgie esthetique, Les Arbres, Passants vus de mafenêtre, Le Combat antique, L’Usine, Chanteur et son musicien, and Soirée a

mime

(performed for the first time

on

this

occasion).

He also

taught

for two months in Stockholm and for four months in Zurich. 1955 Decroux continued his in Oslo and three in

cycle of teaching abroad (two months Stockholm). 1957

Decroux began a period of long stays in the United States, where he toured with his company, taught, gave lectures and demonstrations, and inspired the creation of some mime

schools. The first stay began on 20 September, when Decroux arrived in New York and remained until May 1958. In these six months he held

courses at

the Actor’s Studio and

at

the

Workshop, the school founded by Erwin Piscator by his wife Maria, where the founders of the Living Theatre Julian Beck and Judith Malina, amongst

Dramatic

and directed

others, had started. The son

Paris school

was

entrusted

to

his

Maximilien. 1959

Decroux left for his second stay in the United which would last until June 1960. He gave ten lectureStates, demonstrations in ten universities, as well as founded a mime In

January,

school. He to 22

taught

December and

from 23

York University from 13 October the New School, also in New York,

at New at

January 1960. On 22 November he September presented a mime show with actors trained at the New York school (Michael Coerver, Sterling Jansen, Leslie Show, Sunia to 24

Svendsen, Nell Taylor, and Jewel Walker) in a programme comprising of a choice from his repertory and a new creation, La Statue,

of the

a

duet in which he himself

sculptor.

Two

performances

interpreted the part place

of this show took

full Kauffmann Concert Hall, with seventeen curtain calls at the end. On 20 December, the same programme was in

a

presented in a small space, The Cricket Theatre, where it played for five weeks. There was great praise from the press. 1960

During his second stay in the United States, three offers

to

make

a

film of

Richard de Rochemont

began

on

23

May.

In

was

June,

some

chosen

Decroux received

numbers from his show. as

producer. The shoot

Decroux returned to France.

1961 Decroux’s show with his American company at New York’s Carnegie Hall this year was his last real public performance

(apart from some poetry evenings and sporadic performancedemonstrations). 1963

Returning from his third and final stay

in the United States,

new and definitive reopened Boulogne-Billancourt base, on the outskirts of Paris. From this moment on he dedicated himself to research and teaching, without however renouncing artistic creations with pupils and collaborators. The first piece composed following his return to Europe was La Ville, inspired by his American stay and born from the collaboration with Leonard Pitt, the American pupil

Decroux

his school in the

who became his first assistant. Also in 1963, a collection of texts by Decroux under the title Paroles sur le mime was published by Gallimard, edited

by André Veinstein. a

It

was a

work destined

to

become, within

short space of time, the ‘Bible’ of contemporary mime and of the great books of twentieth-century theatre.

one

1968 With his senior’

pupils, led by Yves Lebreton, Decroux long time on a performance-demonstration entitled Pièces détachées. In May, when everything was ready, the project collapsed due to the rift between Decroux and Lebreton and the consequent distancing of the other members of the small troupe (see Chapter 4 ).

worked for

a

1970-71 With the collaboration of Thomas

presented

Leabhart,

Decroux

the Maison de la

performance-demonstration Copenhagen. Alongside classic such as Le Menuisier and La Lessive (performed by pieces Leabhart), Decroux proposed a selection of exercises for the hands and the arms. These were, in all probability, the last two public exhibitions of Decroux as a mime artist. at

a

Culture in Rennes and then in

1972 Decroux

presented

an

evening of poetry readings

in

Ghent,

Belgium. 1972-81 With the

help of his

assistant

Georges Molnar,

Decroux

developed important work of systematisation of Mobile Statuary and Scholastic Counterweights, which was filmed. an

He also created three ‘Duos amoureux’ with his assistents

Jean Asselin and Denise Boulanger: Dieu les conduit, Il regardent autre chose, and La Galerie de peinture abstraite. 1981 Decroux created two new pieces:

Lyrisme politique, for Nicole Pinaud, and Belle figure sans histoire, for Monique Desjardin. Eugenio Barba’s book La corsa dei contrari: Antropologia teatrale to

published in Italy. In it the author pays homage Decroux, declaring him the only in Western theatre who is

at

the level of Asian theatre

was

masters.

1983-84 With his French and American assistants Corinne Soum and Steven Wasson, his

himself to

a

very

pupils since 1978, Decroux dedicated intense period of creative work, composing

pieces for and with them: a series of duos for both (L’Enlèvement, Casque à pointe, Le Baiser), Le Prophète numerous new

for Wasson, and La Femme-oiseau and Le Fauteuil de l'absent for Soum. Moreover, he also decided to transmit his repertory to

the

they could bring it the future (see also 1984 below).

two

stage in

of them

so

that

to

life again on

1983 The first full Italian edition of Paroles

sur

le mime

was

published by Edizioni del Corpo, with a preface by Giorgio Strehler unfortunately it is a version full of oversights and misunderstandings. For a long time Decroux planned -

present a show at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan on the occasion of the publication of the book; but the initiative

to

did

not

succeed due

to a

change of heart

on

the part of the

theatre. 1984 Corinne Soum and Steven Wasson founded l’Ecole de Mime

Corporel Dramatique in Paris, where they proposed the teaching of Decroux’s technique and developed the research they started with him. In the same year they created a company, the Théâtre de l’Ange Fou, with which they subsequently produced a number of performances characterised by a

progressive opening towards all the expressive

means

of

the actor, voice included, and by the measured recovery of scenography, props, and costumes, but always remaining faithful

to a

physical dramaturgy which was non-realistic and

non-narrative, based, à la Decroux, on transposition, allusion, evocation, and vision (Croisade in 1985, Au-delà du jardin in 1987, Le Petit Dictateur in 1988, and La Chambre envahie in

1991).

1985 An

English

Words

on

edition of Paroles

Mime

-

was

sur

le mime

-

under the title of

translated and edited

Mark Piper and Thomas Leabhart

by former pupils respectively.

1987

Seriously ill,

Decroux closed his school in March.

1988 part of the ninth-centenary celebrations since its foundation, the University of Bologna conferred an Honorary

As

Doctorate upon Decroux. Due to his

illness,

Decroux could

not receive it in person.

1989 Thomas Leabhart

published the book Modern and

Post-

modern Mime in the United States, with chapters on Copeau, Decroux, Barrault, Marceau, Lecoq and Mummenschanz, Postmodern mime, and the

new

mimes.

1991 On 12

March,

at

the age of 93, Decroux died in his home in

Boulogne-Billancourt.

Bibliography

1

Writings by Etienne Decroux 1.1 PUBLISHED TEXTS

1942 a

‘Jeunesse doit s’acquérir’,

1945 Untitled contribution

on

Comoedia 30 May Sylvain Itkine in ,

Sylvain

,

Itkine

1908-1944, Revue d’histoire du Théâtre, 3 ( 1964 ), 259 61 1960 Présence en corps ’, Revue d’Esthétique XIII : 1 pp. 13 15 -

‘

-

,

1963

[ 1985 ]

Paroles

le mime

prefaced by A. Veinstein ( Paris edition, published in 1977 by La Librairie

sur

Gallimard ). A second Théâtrale

,

:

,

is identical to the first except for an additional ‘Pour le pire et pour le meilleur’ (17 February end, References in the text are to the English edition, Words

(Paris),

text at the

1956). on

Mime

translated

,

by

Mark Piper and edited by Thomas Journal 1985 ), which is based

Leabhart ( Claremont CA : Mime on

,

the second edition. The volume contains the

following (in

chronological order): ‘

1931

Ma définition du théâtre’, pp. 23 27 Gestes et Jeux January ) -

(originally

in

,

‘

1939 Prend in Le

sa source au

Théâtre

et la

Vieux Colombier ’, pp. 1 5 -

(originally

Dance, July)

‘

1942 b Avant d’être

complet, l’art doit être’, pp. 28 31 (originally in Aujourd’hui March) 1943 Sérvitude sans grandeur ’, pp. 143 48 1944 Justification d une classe de mime corporel dans une -

,

‘

-

‘

école de comédiens ’, pp. 125 29 -

‘

1946 Rapport du mime et de la parole ’, pp. 32 (programme of the performance given at the Maison de la Chimie and the

Théâtre d’léna in 1946) ‘

1947 a Gordon Craig ’, pp. 5 11 1947b Aux spectateurs de notre école ’, pp. 130 35 -

‘

-

‘

1947 c Présentation d'un

spectacle ’, pp. 141 1948 Autobiographie relative à la genèse du

42

-

‘

corporel ’, (promotional text for the second tour in Switzerland in January 1948) 1950 Description d une pièce de mime: Petits Soldats ’, pp. 104 07 (promotional text for the tour in Israel in March 1950) pp.

12 16 -

‘

—

mime

‘

1951 a

Prologue

pour Le toréador', pp. 115 16 -

‘

1951 b Le droit

malheur ’, pp. 57 60 Kroniek December) au

-

(originally

in Dans

,

‘

1952 a Deux mouvements contraires ’, pp. 50 56 in Dans Kroniek January ) -

(originally

,

‘

1952 b

Le

jardin des Beaux-Arts n'est pas un potager ’, pp. 117 18 (promotional text for the London tour in August 1952 ) 1953 Sénilité précoce ’, p. 67 (originally in the programme -

‘

of Casa della Cultura of Milan conference

a

by Decroux,

the occasion of

on

15 December

‘

1954 a Dosage du mime pour l’acteur

(originally Il Cigno, January) sous globe ’, pp. ‘

1954 b Le mime

1953) parlant', pp.

33 37 -

38 40

(originally published year) 1954 c Présentation de spectacle ’, pp. 101 03 (programme for a performance at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan, 7 May 1954 ) 1956 Pour le pire et pour le meilleur ’, pp. 149 53 (originally in Dorcy 1958 107-16) -

in Sweden towards the end of the ‘

-

‘

-

,

‘

1962 a Primaute du corps sur le visage et les bras ’, pp. 68 95 1962 b Un débat imprévu ’, pp. 47 49 -

‘

-

1962 c ‘Commentaires de Petits Soldats, spécifique du mime ’, pp. 108 14

ou

de l’intéret

-

1962 d in

’

‘

Jugement rétrospectif [this text is not included the English translation; page references are to the

French

original]

‘

1974 The Origin of Corporeal Mime ’, Mime Journal 1 : 27 37 References are to the republication of the text in a special -

.

,

edition

celebrating Decroux’s eightieth birthday

,

Mime Journal

,

7/ 8 ( 1978 ): 8 23 -

‘

1975 The Mask ’, Mime Journal 2 : 55 62 References are to the republication of the text in Mime Journal 7/8 ( 1978 ): 29 40 —

.

,

-

,

‘

1978 a The Marionette ’, Mime Journal 7/8 : 41 47 1978 b Hugo and Baudelaire ’, Mime Journal 7/ 8 : 49 55 1978 c Design Lecture ’, Mime Journal 7/ 8 : 65 70 -

,

‘

-

,

‘

-

,

1980 Untitled contribution

on

Mignon Charles Dullin ( Lyon : ,

68

Charles Dullin

,

in Paul-Louis

La Manifacture , 1990 ), pp. 167

--

(originally in Cahiers du Théàtre de l'Atelier September 1980 ) ,

2008 The Decroux Sourcebook edited ,

Franc Chamberlain ( London :

Leabhart and

by Thomas Routledge )

1.2UNPUBLISHED TEXTS AND OTHER MATERIAL

Decroux 1*: ‘Ecole théâtrale Étienne Decroux’ Paris .

,

Bibliothèque

Nationale de France

(undated page and a half of typescript with handwritten corrections in ink, dating back to the early 1940 s) Decroux

Ibis*:

Bibliothèque

Letters

to

Gordon

Craig ( 1947-49 ).

Paris

,

Nationale de France

Decroux 2*: ‘Note

autobiographique

remise par M.

Decroux à M. A. Veinstein 1931-1952 ’. Paris ,

Nationale de France

Etienne

Bibliothèque

pages of typescript whose drafting should date to just after 1952 ) Decroux 3*: ‘Curriculum vitae d’Étienne Decroux’ Paris

(two

.

,

Bibliothèque Nationale de France (two pages of typescript dated July 1956) Decroux 4*: ‘Précis de mon deuxième séjour aux Etats-Unis’ Paris Bibliothèque Nationale de France (a typescript page dated June 1960 ) .

Decroux 5*: Audio-recorded interview Decroux 6*: Audio-recorded

on

,

masks 1974 ,

conference, untitled, January 1976

Decroux 7*: ‘Facultés radicales’

(handwritten

notebook of about

seventy unnumbered pages, contains information on exercises, approximately dating to the early 1980s; I consulted a photocopy version made available

2

Writings

on

by Corinne

Soum and Steven

Wasson)

Decroux and Other References 2.1 PUBLISHED TEXTS

AA.VV. (various authors) —

1965

Jaques-Dalcroze. L’homme, le compositeur, le créateur de la rythmique ( Neuchâtel La Baconnière ) 1980-82 New Mime in North America ( Claremont CA Mime Journal) 1983 New Mime in Europe ( Claremont CA : Mime Journal) .

Emile

:

—

.

—

.

:

—

1991 François Delsarte 1811-1871. Sources-Pensée, catalogue of exhibition organised by Théâtre National de la Danse et de .

the Musée de Tolon, 21 March 14 May 1991 1993-94 Words on Decroux ( Claremont CA : Mime Journal)

ITmage at

—

-

.

—

1996 Theatre

—

1997 Words

on

.

—

Sports ( Claremont

&

.

CA : Mime Journal)

Decroux 2 ( Claremont CA : Mime Journal)

1998—99 Transmission ( Claremont CA : Mime Journal) .

ALIVERTI , Maria Ines

1988

.

‘ .

Le

rose

di Provins’ in Maria Ines ,

Aliverti

(ed.), Jacques Copeau, Il luogo del teatro ( Florence La Casa Usher), pp. 213 74 1997 Jacques Copeau ( Roma and Bari : Laterza) AMEY Claude 1978 Lexperience française du théâtre agit-prop’ in Claude Amey (ed.), Le Théâtre d’agit-prop de 1917 à 1932, III: Allemagne, U.S.A., Pologne, Roumanie ( LAge d’Homme/La Cité : Lausanne ), pp. 129 43 ANGELINI Franca 1988 Teatro e spettacolo nel primo novecento ( Bari : Laterza) ANGOTTI Vincent L. and Judie L. Herr 1974 Etienne Decroux and the Advent of Modern Mime ’, Theatre Survey 15 : 1 17 APPIA Adolphe 1899 Die Musik und die Inszenierung ( Munich : Bruckmann ); references in the text are to the Italian edition by Ferruccio Marotti Attore, musica e scena ( Milan : Feltrinelli 1975 ), pp. 87 162 1921 L'Oeuvre d'art vivant ( Geneve-Paris Atar ); references in the text are to the Italian edition by Ferruccio Marotti Attore, musica e scena ( Milan : Feltrinelli 1975 ), pp. 165 27 ARGAN Giulio Carlo 1975 Arte ’, in Enciclopedia del Novecento ( Roma : Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana), pp. 274 76 ARNAUD Lucien 1952 Charles Dullin préface de Jean Vilar ( Paris : L'Arche ) ARNHEIM Rudolf 1954 [ 1974 ], Art and Visual Perception ( California : University of California Press ) :

-

—

.

‘

.

,

.

,

-

.

,

.

‘

.

,

,

.

-

,

.

,

.

,

,

-

:

—

.

,

-

,

‘

.

,

.

—

.

,

.

,

.

,

ARTAUD Antonin 1921 .

,

‘ .

L'Atelier de Charles Dullin’

,

in Oeuvres

( Paris : Gallimard 1961 ), pp. 153 54 ; references in the text are to the English translation in Artaud 2001 pp. 3-4 1922 a. Le Théâtre de l’Atelier’ in Oeuvres Complètes II pp. 155 57 ; references in the text are to the English translation in Complètes

,

II

-

,

,

‘

—

,

-

Artaud 2001 pp. 6-8 ,

,

,

‘

—

1922 b. Mise

au

point

propos de Charles Dullin’, Théâtre

à

en

Europe 9 (1986 ), 42 43 1931 Sur le théâtre balinais ’, in Artaud 1938 pp. 36 49 1932 La mise en scène et la métaphysique ’, in Artaud 1938 pp. 23 35 -

,

‘

—

-

.

,

‘

—

.

,

-

—

1936

‘Le théâtre

.

Barrault 71

d’après-guerre (now in -

,

Paris’

à

( 1970 ), 3 19

Cahiers Renaud-

,

Oeuvres

Complètes

,

VIII

,

1971 209 27 ) -

,

—

1938 Le Théâtre et

son

.

in the text

double (Paris

:

Gallimard ); references

translation The Theatre and Its

to the

English by Victor Conti ( London Calder 1993 ) 2001 Artaud on Theatre edited by Claude Schumacher and Brian Singleton ( London : Methuen) ARTIOLI Umberto 1978 La teatrologia artaudiana’ in Umberto Artioli and Francesco Bartoli (eds), Teatro e corpo glorioso. Saggio su Antonin Artaud ( Milan Feltrinelli), pp. 9 233 are

Double translated

:

,

—

.

,

,

‘

.

,

.

,

:

ASCARELLI

Roberta

,

.

1983

dell’attore’ in Studi in ,

.

-

.

‘Da Diderot

a

Goethe. Sull’arte

di Giovanni Macchia II ( Milan :

onore

,

Mondadori ), pp. 669 78 ASLAN Odette 1974 L'acteur au XX -

.

.

,

BALSIMELLI R. and L. NEGRI ,

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‘

MARC Yves 2003. Etienne Decroux: maître de mouvement’, in .

,

Pezin

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pp. 443 52 -

,

‘

MARCEAU Marcel 1960 .

,

.

Eart de la pantomime ’, Revue d’Esthé-

tique 13 25 30 :

,

—

—

—

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1982 Interview in Balsimelli and

Negri (eds) 1982 pp. 90 92 1987 Sull’arte del mimo. Riflessioni edited by Angela Vincenti and Gaston Fournier-Facio ( Montepulciano : Editori del Grifo ) 1991 Interview on Decroux on the occasion of his death (edited by Ghislaine Quintillan), in ‘Paroles pour un mime’ Telex Danse .

-

,

,

.

,

.

,

,

38 : 12 MAROTTI Ferruccio 1974 ‘Per un’analisi dei teatri orientali: la .

,

.

codificabilità del

«gestuale». (La gestualità tra significazione pratica’ in Letteratura e critica. Studi in onore di Natalino Sapegno, IV ( Roma : Bulzoni 1977), pp. 651 64 MATHO (Mathilde Dumont) 1991 ‘Decroux, le sculpteur. Les élèves, sa glaise (entretien avec Martine Encoignard)’, in ‘Paroles e

,

-

,

.

un

pour

.

mime’ Telex Danse 38 : 9 ,

,

MEYERHOLD Vsevolod E. 1907 ,

Theatre ’, in —

—

1922 1933

‘

‘ .

First Attempts at

a

Stylized

Meyerhold 1969 pp. 49 58 Biomechanics ’, in Meyerhold 1969 pp. 197 204 Ideologia e tecnologia del teatro ’, in Meyerhold 1977 pp. -

,

-

.

,

‘ .

,

77 91 -

—

1969

.

Meyerhold

Theatre translated and edited

on

,

by

Edward

Braun (London : Methuen ) —

1977 L’Ottobre teatrale 1918/1939 edited .

,

( Milan :

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Malcovati

Feltrinelli )

MIGLIORE Francesca 2001 .

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MIGNON Paul-Louis 1990 Charles Dullin ( Lyon : La Manifacture ) MILLOSS Aurelio 1982 Lapertura di una nuova éra nella storia .

,

.

‘

.

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.

della danza’ in Leonetta ,

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Tanz Theater. Dalla

danza espressionista a Pina Bausch ( Rome : Di Giacomo ) MOLINARI Cesare 1979 Leggere il teatro. Un manuale per l’analisi .

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del fatto teatrale ( Florence : Vallecchi ), with the collaboration of Valeria

Ottolenghi 1921 Cinq Nô. Drames lyriques japonais ( Paris : Bossard ) PEZIN Patrick (ed.). 2003 Étienne Decroux, mime corporel ( SaintJean-de-Védas : L'Entretemps Editions )

PERI

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PICON-VALLIN Beatrice 1989 ‘Lentraînement de l’acteur chez .

,

.

Meyerhold ’, Boujfonneries 18 / 19 :

212 19 -

,

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Meyerhold ( Paris : CNRD ) (Monique Bertrand) 1991 comment s en défaire (entretien

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‘Paroles pour un mime’ Telex Danse 38 : 9 PINOK Matho and M. DECROUX 1975 Ecrits ,

et

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in

,

.

,

,

empreinte

son

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pantomime,

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mime, expression corporelle. Origine et principaux moments d'évolution ( Paris : Publication du TEMP) POESIO Paolo Emilio 1961 Jean-Louis Barrault (Bolona : Cappelli) PRONKO Leonard 1967 Theater East and West. Perspectives .

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.

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Toward a Total Theater ( Berkeley : University of California Press ) PUPPA Paolo 1971 ‘Etienne Decroux owero la poetica dell’auto.

,

.

amputazione’ RANDI

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Elena

La Scrittura Scenica 4 : 41 69 -

,

,

1991

.

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.

e

la questione ermeneutica: la

drammaturgia d’attore’ Il Costello di Elsinore 12 : 73 96 1996 Il magistero perduto di Delsarte. Dalla Parigi romantica alla modern dance ( Padua Esedra) 2001 Anatomia del gesto. Corporeità e spettacolo nelle poetiche del romanticismo francese ( Padua : Esedra) RANDI Elena (ed.). 1993 François Delsarte: le leggi del teatro. Il pensiero scenico del precursore della danza moderna (Rome : Bulzoni ) RÉMY Tristan 1964 Georges Wague. Le mime de la Belle Epoque ( Paris : G. Girard) RICHARDS Thomas 1997 The Edge-point of Performance interview by Lisa Wolford ( Pontedera : Documentation Series of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski) RILKE Rainer Maria 1903 Rodin ( Berlin ); English edition, Auguste Rodin translated by Jessie Lemont ( New York : Sunshine Turn 1919 ) RUDLIN John 1986 Jacques Copeau ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press ) -

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‘

RUFFINI Franco 1988 a. Lattore ,

.

teatrale ’, Teatro

—

e

il dramma. Saggio teorico di

Storia 5 : 177 247

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-

,

,

Teatro e università

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proceedings of a conference held in Bologna,

20—22 May 1988 ( Rome : Associazione Nazionale dei Critici di Teatro ), pp. 24 26 -

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,

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—

1994 Teatro .

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.

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boxe. L’‘atleta del cuore’ nella

e

scena

Il Mulino ); translated into

( Bologna Boxing: The :

Theatre and English Flies ( Holstebro, Malta, Wroclaw, Icarus Publishing Enterprise and

Actor Who

London and New York :

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del novecento

as

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,

SAVARESE Nicola

(ed.). 1983 Anatomia del teatro. Un dizionario di teoria teatrale ( Florence : La Casa Usher ) 2010 Eurasian Theatre: Drama and Performance Between East and West from Classical Antiquity to the Present ( Holstebro, Malta and Wroclaw Icarus Publishing Enterprise ) SCALA Enzo 1982. ‘Un’esperienza alla scuola di Etienne Decroux’ in Balsimelli and Negri (eds) 1982 p. 141 SCHINO Mirella 2001 Teorici, registi e pedagoghi, in Storia del teatro moderno e contemporaneo ’, in Roberto Alonge and Guido Davico Bonino (eds), Avanguardie e utopie del teatro. Il Novecento ( Turin : Einaudi ), pp. 5 97 2004 La nascita della regia ( Rome and Bari Laterza ) 2009 Alchemists of the Stage: Theatre Laboratories in Europe ( Holstebro, Malta and Wroclaw : Icarus Publishing Enterprise ) SCHLEMMER Oskar 1925 Mensch und Kunstfigur ’, Bauhaus.

,

—

.

:

.

,

,

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‘

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:

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.

—

.

‘

.

,

.

büicher 4 ,

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,

,

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SÉVERIN (Séverin Caffera) 1929 L’homme blanc ( Paris : Plon ) SHAWN Ted 1954 Every Little Movement: A Book About Delsarte .

.

,

.

.

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SKLAR , Deidre

.

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.

‘Etienne Decroux’s Promethean Mime’

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,

reproduced Phillip (ed.), Acting (Re)Considered second edition ( London : Routledge 2002 ), pp. 129 39 SOLIVETTI Clara (ed.). 1976 Un futurista di contrabbando sulle scene imperiali’, Carte Segrete 32 11 57 in

—

,

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.

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‘

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.

,

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,

.

,

edited

.

,

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STEBBINS Genevieve 1885 .

,

Routledge ) Delsarte System of Expression ( New

.

York : E.S. Werner ) STREHLER Giorgio 1974 Per un teatro umano. Pensieri scritti, parlati e attuati edited by Sinah Kessler (Milan : Feltrinelli) .

,

.

,

—

1983 Preface in Etienne Decroux Parole sul mimo edited .

,

Valeria STÜBER

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,

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pp. 5 8 Geschichte des Modern Dance

.

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-

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:

SUREL-TUPIN Monique 1985 Charles Dullin ( Louvain : Éditions des Cahiers Théâtre Louvain ) .

,

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‘

Passaggi

.

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sottopassaggi. Esercizi (ed.), Drammaturgia

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I

del Battello Ebbro ), pp.

123 54 -

TINTI , Luisa 1980 .

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.

e

la rivoluzione del teatro ( Rome :

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,

.

Disegno ( Milan : Feltrinelli 1980 ) ,

VEIGA Ribes ,

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.

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.

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,

,

.

,

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,

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.

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.

.

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WALEY Arthur 1921 .

,

The Nô

.

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WEISS William 1979 .

,

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Torgeir 1989

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.

.

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e

-

,

WIGMAN Mary 1963 Die .

,

.

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WÖLFFLIN Heinrich 1886. .

,

der Architektur ’, in Kleine

Prolegomena zu einer Psychologie Schrijten ( Basel : Schwabe & Co

AgVerlag ); reference in the text is to the Italian translation, Psicologia dell'architettura (Venice : Cluva Editrice 1985 ) WORRINGER Wilhelm 1908 Abstraktion und Einfühlung ( Berlin : Piper) ZORN J. W. (ed.). 1968 The Essential Delsarte ( London and New York : The Scarecrow Press ) ,

.

.

,

.

,

2.2 UNPUBLISHED TEXTS AND OTHER MATERIAL

ARNAUD Lucien undated. ‘Ecole d’Art Dramatique Ch. Dullin’ Paris Bibliothèque Nationale de France (two and a half pages of .

,

.

,

typescript, undated but

can

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‘

BLANC André 1954. Notice établie par A. Blanc’ Paris Bibliothèque Nationale de France (a biographical note on Decroux, .

,

two and

BURNIER

.

half pages, dated November 1954 )

a

Luis Otàvio

,

,

.

1985

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Sur la formation de l’acteur

(Master’s thesis, University of Paris CHRISTOUT Marie

’

III )

Françoise 1989. Letter to the author ( 27

-

.

,

January 1989 ) DUFOUR René-Jean 1989 ‘Petite histoire d’un grand art: le mime, hier et aujourd’hui’ (an essay on historical perspectives presented at the University of Quebec, Montreal) FLACH Marise 1992. Interview with the author ( 31 January 1992 ) .

,

.

.

,

LEABHART Thomas 1992. Letter to the author ( 10 .

,

July 1992 )

LEBRETON Yves 1991 Personal communication .

,

—

.

1992. Interview with the author ( 27 June 1992 )

LINDH Ingemar 1992. Interview with the author ( 13 June 1992 ) PITT Leonard 1992. Interview with the author ( 11 April 1992 ) .

,

,

.

POZZI Lucia 1991 .

,

‘ .

Lazione mimica. Marise Flach

e

il mimo in

’

Italia

(thesis, University of Bologna, DAMS ) ROGANTE Giovanna 1980 Decroux e il mimo corporeo University of Bologna, DAMS )

’

‘

.

,

SOUM Corinne 1995

.

‘

Limprovisation (fifteen-page manuscript) .

,

—

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à

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l’Ecole Étienne Decroux

’

2000 Personal communication .

—

2004 Personal communication .

SOUM

Corinne

,

pédagogiques

,

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Steven Wasson

éventuelle du mime

1989 a.

‘

Programmes préparation à une reconnaissance corporei par les institutions ’, I (seven

et techniques

.

en

unnumbered pages of typescript) 1989 b. Programmes pédagogiques et techniques en préparation ‘

—

reconnaissance éventuelle du mime

à une

institutions ’, II —

(seven

par les

corporei

unnumbered pages of typescript)

1990 Personal communication .

—

1991 Project for a performance-homage on the work of Decroux (sixteen unnumbered pages of typescript) .

—

1992. Letter to the author ( 24

SUREL-TUPIN Monique 1979 University of Paris III ) .

,

February ‘ .

1992 )

Charles Dullin

’

(doctoral thesis,

VOGELS Fritz 1992. Interview with the author ( 12 ,

.

April

1992 )

WEILL Etienne Bertrand 1992. Letter to the author ( 20 May 1992 ) ,

.

Index

177

a

,

,

Aicard, Jean 223 Aliverti, Maria Ines 47 50 54

,

Marc 215

Amey, Claude 216 Aragon, Louis 45

Aristophanes

,

,

84 215 ,

,

,

,

,

,

,

153

,

,

159

,

,

180

,

,

,

80 88 89 91 99

,

,

,

,

110

,

,

193 95

,

Beauchamp,

,

Becker, Jacques 215 Beethoven, Ludwig van Bellugue, Paul 118

111

Eric 148 185 188 ,

,

Bing, Suzanne 47 50 52 56 58 59 69 95 213 214 -

,

,

,

114 116 144 180 192 ,

,

,

,

,

195 198 222 ,

ix , 209

Edmond 89 181

,

,

,

Bausch, Pina

Bentley,

-

,

Appia, Adolphe 13 18 34 50 ,

Asselin, Jean 108 227 Aslan, Odette 63 93 ,

,

,

,

,

,

,

Blanc, André 215 218 Blanchon, Jean 219 Blasis, Carlo 176 ,

Bonora, Barbara 28

,

Bonfanti, Jean-Claude 15 Bougai, Marguerite 123

b

Bach, Johann Sebastian 111 Balsimelli, Rossano 138 139 Banville, Théodore de 109 Barba, Eugenio xv 2 13

Boulanger,

,

,

,

14 ,

18 24 27 29 139 152 168 -

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

vii , -

74

,

76

,

79

,

80

,

82

,

87

-

104 128 131 159 161 167 ,

,

,

,

Brook,

Peter vii ,

209

xv,

xvi ,

xvii , 19 , 23 , 34 , 36 40 , 66 , ,

Breton, André 44

,

,

,

,

Bumier, Luís Octavio 168 169

169 187 202 209 227

Barrault, Jean-Louis

Denise 208 227

Brancusi, Costantin 153 Brecht, Bertolt 194

,

68

,

Benjamin, René 58

100 ,

,

202 215 216

,

,

Beauvoir, Simone de 82 Beck, Julian 225

Arnheim, Rudolf 175 Arnaud, Lucien 73 74 79 81 82 Artaud, Antonin x 12 27 45

,

,

155

,

92

,

Baudelaire, Charles 109

,

56 65

,

,

149 165 214 215 220

—

,

101

,

,

Baty, Gaston 25 26 35 72 88

Actor’s Studio 225

,

,

222 , 229

,

79

-

205 208 215 217 218 221

Abond’ance, Alfred 74 Achard, Marcel 35 220

Allegret,

180 84 , 189 , 202 , 204 ,

,

,

,

c

Camilleri, Frank vii Capri, Agnés 223

xvi xix -

,

,

Carné, Marcel 37 215 221 Carpentier, Georges 44 112 Casini Ropa, Eugenia 114 18 ,

Les Copiaus 21 55 56 63 66 70 71 79 82 92 103 197 ,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

10

Charlie 44

81

,

157

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

49

xi ,

55 ,

,

,

,

,

,

,

Cunningham,

Merce 209

d

Dalcroze, Emile 50 52 93 114 -

,

,

,

116 , 117 , 144 , 194 , 195 , 198

Darbois, 219 Dasté, Jean 38 47 71 ,

,

,

103 , 161 ,

197

Comédie Française 36 222 ,

Champs-Elysées

39 46 215 219 ,

Compagnie des Comédiens de

Dean, John xvii Deburau, Charles 143 Deburau, Jean-Gaspard 37

143 ,

,

215 221

Grenoble 38

,

Compagnie du Myrmidon 221 Compagnie des Quinze 66 68 ,

,

Decroux, Etienne passim Decroux, Maximilien 36

122 ,

,

124 , 131 , 133 , 136 , 167 , 217 ,

71 92 197 ,

222 , 224 , 225

Les Comédiens-Routiers 71 , 98 viii , ix ,

Copeau, Jacques

2 , 9,

xv,

13 21 24 26 27 34 38 40

,

44 47 49 73 75 80 83 88

,

-

,

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

114 121 124 145 149 153

157 198 210

,

,

,

44 ,

,

63 64 66 71 112 120 122

Chennevière, Georges 52 57 Cicero, Marco Tullio 196 Clark, Kenneth 83 Claudel, Paul 112 195 Clouzot, Henri-Georges 215 Cocteau, Jean 35 220 Coerver, Michael 225 Colline, Paul 220

,

,

40

,

50 52 55 91 106 107 108

,

Chenal, Pierre 215

,

38

,

Cruciani, Fabrizio

,

Comédie des

-

180 181 188 195 222 223

,

176 185 189 ,

34 36

,

,

,

Chaplin,

20

,

,

,

99 197 214 ,

,

Géo 157 ,

,

Chamberlain, Franc ix Chancerel, Léon 63 70 71 98

,

Craig, Edward Gordon 3 5 9

François 120 212

,

,

,

,

Corrals,

Caviglioli,

,

,

200 202 214

—

198

,

,

,

-

,

-

,

,

,

,

Delannoy, Jean Delarue, Delsarte,

215

Maurice 182 , 183 , 185

François 115

116 ,

,

144 156 198

90 92 93 97 99 102 103

,

108 112 114 118 121 128

,

147 159 162 176 177 193

,

De Marinis, Marco viii x xx 2 3 8 12 13 16 19 23

214

,

27 29 34 55 108 112 144

,

152 161 193 205 206 208

,

,

209

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

195 97 -

,

,

,

,

200 04

,

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

213

,

54 55 ,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

Marie-Hélène 47 52

,

-

221 , 222 , 229

Copeau,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

De Martino, Ernesto 30

,

,

Fokine, Michel 146 Frank, Waldo 55 64 Frank, André 99 100

Desjardin, Monique 227 Diderot, Denis 12 Di Giacomo, Jerry 121 139

,

,

,

Divoire, Fernand 220 Dobbels, Daniel 99

,

Dorcy, Jean 34 37 46 47 53 55 60 71 80 82 88 89 97 ,

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

100 103 110 142 143 167 ,

,

-

,

Frasnedi, Fabrizio 198 Fratellini, Brothers 47 52 Frondaie, Pierre 89 215 Fuchs, Georg 114 192 193

,

Fuller,

,

Loie 194

180 184 197 214 216 222 ,

,

,

,

,

Dorin, Réné 220

g

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 221 Dramatic Workshop 225

Gance, Abel 215 Garcin, Héléne 122 123 Gelabert, Raoul 110 Gide, André 58 Gontard, Denis 66 214 Graham, Martha 116 Granville-Barker, Harley 58 Grillon, Janine 133 Grotowski, Jerzy vii ix x xv

Dufour, René-Jean 130

Dullin, 46

,

32

-

Charles 35 39 40 45 ,

72 84 -

,

,

88

,

,

93

,

,

114 177 181 195 197 215 ,

,

,

,

99 , 100 ,

,

,

,

217 220 ,

Duncan, Isadora 44 110 194 ,

,

,

196

,

,

Duvivier, Julien 215

,

,

,

2,

6 , 7 , 24 , 26 28 , 30 , 90 , 91 , -

132 , 139 , 145 , 209 e

Eco, Umberto 184 Ecole du Vieux-Colombier 48 Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich 193 195 ,

Groupe Mars 216 Groupe Octobre 215 216 218 Groupe Prémices 88 216 217 Groupe Proscenium 71 88 103 Groupe Une Graine 88 216 217 Gurdjieff, George Ivanovich 27 ,

,

,

,

,

,

,

196

Engel, Johann Jakob Engelhard, Hubert 184 Evreinov, Nicolas 114

,

,

,

118 193 , 195

Eliane 3 28 29 36 40

,

123 131 133 143 167 177

,

Guyon, ,

f

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

221 , 222

Clelia xiii

Falletti, Fauvette, Bruno 122 Feldenkrais, Moshe 27 Flach, Marise 111 124 ,

133 185 205 224 ,

,

,

Flaszen, Ludwik xv Flaubert, Gustave 145

h

Hébert, Georges 52 ,

125

,

,

62

,

198

Hébertot, Jacques 35 220 Heggen, Claire 139 Herrand, Marcel 215 219 ,

,

118

,

Howarth, Jessmin 51

Lebreton, Yves 121

Hugo, Victor 109 110 155 223 224 ,

,

,

131 33

,

137 138 172 174 188 208

,

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

227

Lecoq, Jacques

i

vii , viii , xiv, xvii ,

Institutet för Scenkonst xvii

37 38 63 79 118 120 168

Itkine, Sylvain 101

177 198 206 08 229

,

,

216

,

Jaques-Dalcroze (see Dalcroze)

,

Paul 143

Lexa, Maria 132 L'Herbier, Marcel 215 Lifar, Serge 82 Lindh, Ingemar vii

Simone 74

Jones, Desmond 138 Jonson, Ben 215

,

xvii ,

xvi ,

132 133 168 177 208 ,

Jooss, Kurt 116 Jouvet, Louis 45 47 52 57 65 ,

,

,

,

72 76 83 88 195 197 215 ,

,

,

,

,

The Living Theatre 209 225 Lodieu, Suzanne 39 88 217 ,

-

,

,

,

Leonardo da Vinci 168

Jamois, Marguerite 80 Jansen, Sterling 225 Jeanniot, Marcelle 74

,

,

,

Legris, Roger 216 Lenormand, Henri-René 220

j

,

,

-

,

Legrand,

Jollivet,

,

,

,

Lo

Jacomo, Maryse 3 Lorelle, Yves 88 98 156 167

,

,

k

,

,

,

195 215 ,

Kantor, Tadeusz ix 16

Lust,

Klee, Paul 153 Klier, Vernice 130 Kolankiewicz, Leszek 2 7

m

,

MacKaye, Steele 115

,

Magli,

Kumiega, Jennifer 209 Kusler

Leigh,

Barbara 47

50

,

,

52 53 57 59 60 121 ,

,

,

,

Annette 102 , 112

,

Valeria xiii

Mallarmé, Stéphane 109 Maheu, Gilles 208 Maistre, Aman 47 49 213 Malina, Judith 225 Marc, Sylvain 122 Marc, Yves 19 139 Marceau, Marcel vii viii ,

l

Laban, Rudolf von IX, 116 117 ,

,

144 198 ,

Lamballe,

,

,

Lucienne 52

,

,

xiv,

Lazarus, Daniel 52 Leabhart, Thomas viii ix xiii

,

80 81 83 98 104 120 123

,

15 22 24 30 31 34 45 46

,

124 131 143 158 162 167

,

55 59 68 69 83 108 112

,

169 175 182 189 206 221

,

113 129 132 133 139 142

,

229

,

,

xvi , xvii , 16 , 19 , 36 , 37 , 40 ,

-

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,

,

,

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,

,

,

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,

,

,

,

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,

157 160 161 180 227 229 ,

,

,

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,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

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,

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Marey, Etienne-Jules 118

,

,

,

Picasso, Pablo 35 153 220 Picon-Vallin, Béatrice 2 7

Marque, Albert 52 53 Marotti, Ferruccio xi Mastrominico, Bianca xviii ,

Matho

,

,

,

Piccolo Teatro di Milano 124

(Mathilde Dumont)

,

205 224 225 228

112 ,

,

,

,

Pinaud, Nicole 227

135

Meldolesi, Claudio

xi , 17

Metzger, Jacqueline Meyerhold, Vsevolod ix

Pinok

,

,

,

,

2 , 7,

,

,

,

Buonarroti

44 ,

193 95 197 199 200 -

,

Michelangelo

,

112 ,

,

xv,

11 14 24 90 93 114 144 ,

(Monique Bertrand)

125 126

224

,

109

Piper, Mark ix xiii 229 Piscator, Erwin 225 Piscator, Maria 225 Pitt, Leonard 132 133 208 226 Porché, François 89 215 Pozzi, Lucia 125 185 205 Prévert, Jacques 110 218 221 ,

,

,

,

,

,

Migliore, Francesca

101

,

Mime Centre 138

,

,

,

Moine, Louis 52 Molinari, Cesare xi

Prevert, Pierre 215

Monk, Meredith 209

Puppa, Paolo 108 147

,

223 ,

224

,

Mummenschanz 229

Mussorgsky, Modest Muybridge, Edward

111

q

118

Quintiliano,

n

Marco Fabio 196

r

Negri, Livio 138 139

Ravel, Maurice 111 Renaud, Madeleine 36 74

o

Reybaz,

,

,

Odin Teatret xiv 2 23 172 208 ,

,

,

209 The Open Theatre 209 Organic Theatre xviii

Orthis, 219 Osiński, Zbigniew 2

,

,

André 221

Richards, Thomas 28 Rilke, Rainer Maria 177 Rimbaud, Arthur 155 Rochemont, Richard de 226 Rodin, Auguste 44 109 144 ,

,

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Rogante, Giovanna 121 p

Parijanine 60 Pélisson, Giselle 132 Peri, Noël 58 Pezin, Patrick 180 Picabia, Francis 45

,

177 133

,

,

134 , 146 , 151 , 171 74 , 176 , -

177 Romains,

Rouffe,

Jules 46

,

47 52 215 ,

,

Louis 143

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 15 44 ,

102 , 113

,

Rudlin, John 49 53 Ruffini, Franco 2 7 52

Svendsen, Sunia 225 226

,

,

,

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,

113 , 177 t

Tairov, Aleksander Yakovlevich

s

Savarese, Nicola 152 168 169 ,

,

68

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195 198

Nell 226

Taylor,

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Théâtre Alfred Jarry 89 216 Théâtre des Arts 83

Scala, Enzo 121 Schino, Mirella 2 5 7 27 ,

,

,

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Saint-Denis, Michel de 63 71 ,

,

Théâtre du Mouvement xiv 139 ,

Theatre Sarah Bernhardt 40 74

197

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74

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Théâtre du Soleil XV

,

Seragnoli, Daniele 77 Shakespeare, William 36

Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier 71 ,

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Thévenaz, Paulet 50 Toth, Catherine 122

,

,

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xiii , 2 , ,

Mikhailovich

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200 15 18

20 21 23 24 27 98 ,

133 , 219 ,

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221

Sokoloff, Vladimir 74 Solivetti, Carla 90 194 ,

,

122 213

222

Shawn, Ted 156 Show, Leslie 225 Sklar, Deidre 133

Soum, Corinne

,

123 , 221

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Trotsky,

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111 ,

,

112 , 116 , 117 , 121 , 122 , 132

-

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v

Vakhtangov, Yevgeny Bagrationovich 195

212 , 228

Stanislavski, Konstantin Serge-

Paul 177 224

Valéry,

,

Stebbins, Genevieve 115 Stein, Daniel 208 Steiner, Rudolf 27 117

Veiga, Ribes 27 Veinstein, André 40 226 Verlaine, Paul 109 Verriest-Lefert, Guy 175 167 Verriest-Lefert, Jeanne 175 167 Verry, Pierre 36

Stephann,

The Vieux Colombier School 21

yevich

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Stoessel, Clarita 47 Strehler, Giorgio 41 188 205 ,

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60 62 65 67 69 71 72 74

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79 83 92 94 97 99 102

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112 , 116 , 118 , 122 , 159 , 161 ,

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78 81 82

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Strindberg, August 89 216 Surel-Tupin, Monique 74

,

34 38 39 45 47 51 53 58 ,

228

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,

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76

,

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203 213 ,

,

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214

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Wasson, Steven

Vigny, Alfred de 109 Villard, Jean 214 Vivaldi, Antonio 111 Virmaux, Alain 89 193 Virmaux, Odette 89

133 36 161

—

-

,

,

170

,

175

,

44

Weiss, William 99 Wigman, Mary 116 Wolfflin, Heinrich 155 156 ,

w

Wague, Georges 143 196 Arthur 58

Walker, Jewel 226

,

29 , 34 ,

123 , 124

,

,

177

,

Weill, Etienne Bertrand

Vitray, Georges 57 213 217 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)

Waley,

,

208 212 228

,

,

xiii , 15 17 , 98 ,

111 , 112 , 116 , 117 , 121 , 132 ,

z

Zorzi, Ludovico

xi