The Art of Mime

MIME, being a dramatic art, has need of words. But as it is the art of silent acting, these words are not vocal, they are the words of movement.

Every part of the body of the mime is eloquent, but it is by gesture that the actual word phrases are conveyed. Gesture is a term much misused, and it is well to begin by some definition of it.

Gesture may be said to be a movement having a definite word or occupational significance, and may be divided into:

(a) Speech gesture.

(b) Occupational gesture.

(c) Gestures od natural emotional significance.

All gesture is rhythmic. It must follow either the rhythm of the spoken word, the actual reconstruction of an occupation or the natural rhythm of emotional development...

In considering gesture as 'speech of movement' we must remember that point of view of the audience is visual, and not aural. Every speaker seeks, first and foremost, to be audible to his audience, no matter how big the theatre in which he speaks. Every actor seeks to sway his public by emphasis of his words, and the sincerity of his inflection; every story-teller keeps a child's interest by the simplicity an vividness of his speech. The mime must, by some means, combine all these in his gesture. The audibility of the actor becomes clarity of movement; the emphasis of tone in the speaker becomes attack and sustaining power in the mime. Inflection must be in every movement as it is in every spoken phrase. The simple and vivid point of view of the story-teller must lie behind every gesture of mime. And so we understand from the outset that gesture is not 'posturing', but speech. Words spoken from the heart and the brain, interpreted by gesture apparatus.

No artist is a mime until he speaks in gesture with all the ease and passion that great actor can put into the words of Shakespeare. The 'words' of gesture are not many, but their variety and inflection are infinite. "

(Irene MAWER)