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| Shadows, (photos by Eva-Maria) |
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| Chateau Pourtales, France - where my family and I once lived |
A spiritual view of stillness
Muriel Lebrun Marceau's early years as an actress involved her in the theater. Later in her life while watching a performance by Marcel Marceau, the famous French mime, she became aware of an element that she feels can lift theater from the entertaining to the inspirational. She discussed this in the following interview, conducted by Journal staff member
Eva-Maria Hogrefe: Would you say that the reason spiritual qualities uplift human consciousness is that they speak of God?
Muriel Lebrun Marceau: Yes. The expression of such qualities enriches one with fresh inspiration and stills the distracting commotion of human fears. For me the stillness sometimes conveyed in art is almost a prelude to prayer.
Religious thinkers
in the arts
in the arts
Eva-Maria: Do you mean that such stillness can express a kind of willingness to listen to God and His ideas?
Muriel: Yes. When I pray I often think of the words from the Bible in Psalms "Be still, and know that I am God." Ps. 46:10.
Eva-Maria: What are the qualities in the art of mime that you find so inspiring?
Muriel: Seeing Marcel's performance on stage for the first time, I thought it was the most beautiful experience I had ever known in the theater. I was touched by every movement and facial expression—the beauty, the harmony, the total lack of clutter in each gesture, but at the same time everything being conveyed that was meant to be conveyed, without a word spoken.
Eva-Maria: What do you think helps give the art of Marcel's mime the element of spirituality?
Muriel: I think an important part of it is innocence. Jesus told his followers that one has to become humble, like a little child. Marcel expresses those childlike qualities. He also has such incredible control over his body
Eva-Maria: That hints at the prayer-like stillness you mentioned before. It's not just being quiet. An absence of noise is no assurance of spiritual stillness. Silence can hide all kinds of self-imposed limitations —loneliness, boredom, frustration. Spiritual stillness is filled with purity and peace—with love that expresses divine Love. That stillness makes the activity of the Christ in consciousness so very apparent.
Muriel: Yes. I think a good mime rests in that stillness. That may be why Marcel never seemed to doubt his talent, this gift from God.
Eva-Maria: Did Marcel ever explain to you what he was trying to convey?
Muriel: Well, like Pagliacci the clown, Marcel is trying to show the pretenses that people sometimes hide behind when they see themselves as vulnerable—attempting to deceive themselves and others.
Eva-Maria: But, interestingly enough, he portrays deception as an imposition on himself and his neighbor, a mask that can be removed. As something we do not have to hold on to.
Muriel: Pulling off the mask is like letting go of the old and putting on the new—a death and a birth. It reminds me of what Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health: "Truth makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away and 'all things are become new.'" Science and Health, p. 201. I think a successful mime has to be spiritually-minded and honest within himself in order to uplift an audience through the stillness of mime.
Eva-Maria: Could we summarize what we've discussed by saying that a love for spiritual values is not a hindrance but a help to artistic endeavors and the way we each perceive art?
Muriel: How can it be anything but a help. For me spiritual values have enlarged my perception and appreciation of art. And stillness, I feel, is an essential ingredient in all areas of art. Dancers, for example, dance in silence to music. For me, inspired silence is an expression of Soul, God.
I think Christian Science has taught me how to quiet my thought and while watching mime, listening to music, watching dance, or looking at a painting, to feel and experience the deepest kind of love —the universal love of God. This has enlarged my understanding of every form of art that I'm witness to. Things that I would never have seen are now, through spiritual discernment, accessible to me.
From the November 1995 issue of The Christian Science Journal
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WISDOM statue in Boston
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