Word: marceau
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ANOTHER MAJOR disappointment also mars the performance. At the start of the show, a pink-clad troubadour emerges from a fanfare and a see of light. He holds up a scroll-like banner, announcing the name of the next skit. The house lights blacken, and seconds later Marceau, dressed in his far less elaborate white costume, poses in readiness on the exact spot that the troubadour held. How does he make this miraculous switcheroo? The audience finds out at intermission, when the Marceau look-alike troubadour comes out to take a bow with his boss...
...Marceau's program varies nightly: he selects his program from a possible 30 style scenes and a possible 23 Bip scenes, and does about six of each. All Marceau's "greatest hits" are included on the list, like "The Cage," "Walking Against the Wind," "The Mask Maker," and "Youth, Maturity. Old Age and Death...
Although some of Marceau's less famous selections can be confusing, his classics may make the show worthwhile. "The Mask Maker" is a delight: Marceau first carves masks, then tries two of them on alternately, frantically switching his demeanor from one of vapid joy to one of scowling horror. The joy mask gets stuck on his head. Another successful number is "The Angel," in which Marceau portrays an angel who periodically visits earth. Just when he is in the throes of embrace or of drink, heavenly music and light surround him to remind him to behave properly...
Where the show fails, however, it bores. In the promisingly-titled "The Creation of the World." Marceau coordinates hand motions with music in what must be an appalling effort; but the significance and meaning of the gestures get lost. He flutters, jiggles, shakes, undulates and climbs--but why? His face conveys amazement, wonder, triumph, haughtiness in a way that is amusing but confusing. During these skits, a viewer's mind can't help but stray to the question of how much Marceau must pay his doubtlessly-busy masseur...
...modern audiences, who are accustomed to loud musicals and the chatty entertainment of TV and radio, sitting in a theater for two hours in which virtually the only sounds come from the audience's chuckles can be almost eerie. But Marceau's and Bip's-- anties, while subdued, provide a calm evening devoid of commercial interruption...