Silent Night

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

MARCEL MARCEAU ON BROADWAY

No Beckett, no carrots, almost no gloom, but surreal Acts Without Words nonetheless. Scene: a bare Broadway stage. Standing, center, a man a week shy of 60 but supple as a teenager, lean in tights, innocent in whiteface.

The man, Marcel Marceau, making his first Manhattan appearance since 1975, does not speak. He is Everyman, and his stage is Everywhere. He mimes timeless little stories, occasionally tinged with rueful reflections of contemporary life. He calls a dating service in search of a companion, and is sent a dozen of them, so diversely demanding that he flees his home.

Aided by apprentices, the man makes beautiful images. After a banner unfolds to announce THE PICKPOCKET'S NIGHTMARE, the man stands between two screens, and mystically his arms and hands elongate, detach from his body, swim through air. As the dying light turns them orange like giant goldfish, six hands wriggle, free in space.

The man seeks laughter, as a train rider so jolted he pops his grapes into his seat mate's mouth, and tears, as a soldier whose trench mate dies in his arms. The man loves symbols. He slides his hands across his face, as if trying on masks. His expression changes quickly, precisely, but never subtly: it is a childlike grin, or a petulant frown, or a quivering rage. In another moment, the man is a sculptor, chiseling a massive imaginary block until it becomes a miniature, a fragment, then dust. Slow fade, then, to emphasize that this is a self-conscious metaphor for the man's own meticulous, minimal art. --By William A. Henry III This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.