![]() But, mostly, it was this: “After the war, there are no words any more.” But Marceau had entrusted his children with his own words, in the form of his written diaries.Ī century since his birth, this is the first time that his family is telling his story in English. Why did Marceau, after the war, commit his life to performing an art form without any speech? A quotation from the man himself helped to explain: “In the silence, you can find wit, tragedy, fun, humour, pathos, comedy.” A spectrum of human emotion that the Nazis had tried so hard to stamp out. “Why he chose to be silent is a story he rarely told in public,” said his daughters. ![]() There were so many layers of silence, withdrawal, and things unspoken here, carefully and beautifully pieced together by producer Victoria Ferran. Marceau’s own father was captured in 1944 and murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz. The young Marceau joined the French Resistance at the age of 17 and helped Jewish children to escape the Gestapo by smuggling them into Switzerland. And it was this period in European history that was to have the most profound influence on him. Born Marcel Mangel to a Jewish family in Strasbourg in 1923, he adopted the more French-sounding surname “Marceau” during the Nazi occupation of France. Presented by Marcel Marceau’s two daughters, Camille and Aurélia, The Art of Silence didn’t focus directly on the art of mime performance itself, but on the complex history of the man who brought it to life. This was one of those unforgettable radio programmes that takes a subject that you thought you knew and opens it up, like unfolding a secret treasure map, revealing routes and vistas within it that you’d never known before. ![]() Still, that’s what happened when I listened to Archive on 4: The Art of Silence (Radio 4). Something I did not have on my radio bingo card this year was that radio would give me a new appreciation of the silent art of mime.
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