Étienne Decroux

Étienne Marcel Decroux ( born July 19, 1898 in Paris, † March 12, 1991 in Boulogne- Billancourt ) was a French actor and mime. He is considered the father of modern pantomime and as co-founder of the modern physical theater.

Life

Decroux began his theater work in 1923 with an education at the school of the Vieux- Colombier theater under the direction of Jacques Copeau. From 1926 he was a staff member and student of Charles Dullin and worked under the direction of Gaston Baty, Louis Jouvet and Antonin Artaud at the Théâtre Alfred Jarry. End of the 1930s, he formed his own mime school, which existed until 1987 in the rue Edouard Vaillant in Boulogne -Billancourt. However, he joined the school again soon because of the Second World War. As early as 1931 he made his debut with a first sketch La vie primitive, 1940, 1941 and 1942 was followed by other.

In 1943 he was teacher of pantomime at the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt and directed by Jean -Louis Barrault at the Comédie - Française. 1947 to 1951 he toured several European countries, after that he had an engagement at the theater Fontaine des Quatre Saisons. In the fifties, he became more teacher - and in some cases production activities under Giorgio Strehler at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, at the Actors Studio and the University of New York and the Netherlands, Switzerland and Norway.

1954 Decroux received in Stockholm, Sweden at the Choreographic Institute (now the Stockholm School of Dance ) Professor of pantomime, the only organized within the framework of a public university education pantomime Scandinavia. Since he was considered not very sociable in his capacity as a teacher with the students and the pantomime much scientific mediated as his charismatic student Marcel Marceau, the professor ended a year later. Ever Decroux was often headstrong and stubborn; his outbursts were admired as feared as the intelligence and learning of self-taught. Maybe Decroux was bitter about the glory of his former students Marceau and Barrault.

As a film actor in the film Les Enfants Decroux was du Paradis ( German: Children of Paradise ) in which he the father of mime " Baptiste " (played by Barrault ) embodied, and can be seen in many more.

Among his students and staff Jean Soubeyran the ideal embodied his " Mime corporel " Wolfram Mehring, who later distanced himself from him and his own theory and practice of the actor elaborated, Daniel Stein and Andrea Clausen and his son Maximilien (actually: Edouard ), and finally his " master student " Grillon (i.e. Janine Grillon ), " an ingenious all-round artist whose playing talent from Valerio extends to the covetous by all role subjects" and later with Wolfram Mehring the Théâtre de la Mandragore co-founded and many masks and costumes created this group.

Decroux ' son Maximilien led the school of his father during his visits abroad continue until father and son parted because of the growing influence of the son by mutual consent and the latter in 1960 founded his own school in Paris.

Effect

Étienne Decroux developed until his death a strict and comprehensive methodology of body training that he called " Mime corporel dramatique ". He had thus the attempt to give the pantomime own ( and the art of acting a new one) language with its own grammar. With his demand: "Un homme nu sur une scène nue " he was long before Grotowski an advocate of a " theater of poverty", in which the ( trained ) actor takes center stage and not the trappings. In addition, the study of his apartment in the rue de Gergovie was in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, often for performances of his plays and meeting place of French literature and theater scene.

Quote

" Only when the actor refrained to come accompanied his body on the stage, he will be able to do without it, to study the art of the body. "

Filmography (selection)

Works

• Étienne Decroux: Paroles sur le mime. Gallimard, Paris 1963.