Marcel on the Train
Theater review by Adam Feldman
An interesting fact: In the early 1940s, before he became the world’s most celebrated mime, a young Marcel Marceau was part of the clandestine French Jewish Resistance, which helped smuggle kids out of Nazi-dominated France. ''Marceau started miming to keep children quiet as they were escaping,” a fellow FJR member would later say. “It had nothing to do with show business. He was miming for his life.'' That certainly sounds dramatic, but—as illustrated by Marcel on the Train, a fictionalized biodrama by actor Ethan Slater and director Marshall Pailet—what makes a great footnote does not always make a great play.
Marcel on the Train | Photograph: Courtesy Emilio Madrid
As he proved in SpongeBob SquarePants and more recently in the Wicked movies, Slater has a real gift for movement. Marcel on the Train gives him ample opportunity to showcase it as Marceau tries with varying success to entertain his 12-year-old charges, Life Is Beautifully, and distract them from the dangers outside. The adolescents, all played by adult actors, include the virtuous Adolphe (Max Gordon Moore), the mischievous Henri (an amusing Alex Wyse), the sour and pessimistic Berthe (Tedra Millan) and the cowering Etiennette (Maddie Corman), who—perhaps in response to unspeakable trauma—never says a word.
Marcel on the Train | Photograph: Courtesy Emilio Madrid
Most of the play unfolds in a single train car, but director Pailet makes the most of a claustrophobic...