A Still-Eloquent Body Language

At 79, French pantomime paragon Marcel Marceau still has the power to redefine theater in his own image. In an age of relentless amplification, he gives us the wonder of silence. In an age of numbing literalism, he conjures up the magic of metaphor. In an age when every facet of meaning is desperately heightened and oversold, he dares to make demands on an audience.

Watch him closely at the Geffen Playhouse--where he opened a 19-day engagement on Wednesday--or you might miss something sublime. You might enjoy only the easy, funny stuff--the endearing lion-tamer routine, for instance, in which he can’t get his big cat to jump through a hoop.

Slip into the way you normally gaze at movies or TV, and you’ll be lost when Marceau takes on those subjects and feelings that so much entertainment is designed to keep at bay--the way, for example, that he physicalizes the duality of human nature by making his left hand humane and even spiritual, but the right hand carnal and violent. Who else can make a simple walk convey the sense of life lived too quickly and death ticking inside us with every step? Who else can make us laugh at the desperation of a street musician, yet turn his fate into a chilling parable about the corruption of art?

Forget the bland sentimentality of white-faced street mimes in our malls and parks. Except when he’s portraying children, love of life is usually hard-won or short-lived in the theater of Marcel Marceau. It might surface only after he fails to successfully shoot, stab, poison, hang and gas himself in “Bip Commits Suicide,” or in Adam’s enchantment with Eden just before he eats that apple in “The Creation of the World.”

Marceau’s hands are unforgettable in this adaptation of “Genesis,” swimming through primordial seas, fluttering in a new-minted sky, growing up from the earth to become forests and slithering as the snake that tempts Adam to his downfall. Facially, Marceau makes the evening into a gallery of comic arrogance, with each smirk or scowl individually etched, whether he’s impersonating a strolling dandy in “The Public Garden,” a manipulative naturalist in “The Bird Keeper” or a posturing prosecutor in “The Trial.”

The interplay of hands, face and torso becomes especially deft in his “Travels by Sea” sequence, when the swaying and rolling of a ship makes his body fold up into itself, preventing him from taking a drink, kissing a lady or walking where and how he likes.

As always, the ship may be invisible, but Marceau’s movement makes it utterly real. It’s like a close-up in a film; we accept the out-of-frame environment unquestioningly. A dog pulling him on a leash has force, balloons he holds on a string have lift, the whole physical world can be invoked or banished, as he chooses.

He divides the program into “Pantomimes of Style” and “Pantomimes of Bip,” the latter exploring the misadventures of a character he created at age 23. At the Geffen, however, the pantomimes of Bip have plenty of style and the pantomimes of style have plenty of Bip. But the style segments are generally colder, more risky or profound, while Bip offers human comedy at its most winsome and sly.

Assistants Gyongyi Biro and Alexander Neander introduce each segment in an older, more formal kind of mime than the one Marceau embodies, reminding us of the noble tradition he belongs to--and has transformed.

The down-and-out characters in “Soliloquy of Three Lost Souls,” for instance, belong more to silent film realism than classic French mime. But Marceau has mastered wordless acting so completely that he can adopt a grittier style here and even retell the same story three ways or, rather, in three mime “voices,” and make us eager for more.

These days, longevity and publicity alone can make you something of a legend in the entertainment world. Longevity and talent can make you a one-and-only attraction. Add genius and you have Marcel Marceau, still speaking one of the oldest theatrical languages with undimmed artistry, immediacy and charm.

Marcel Marceau, Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 4 and 8:30 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Aug. 18. $45-$49. (310) 208-5454. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.