< The Oregon Statesman, 18 August 1978 >

Jacques Lecoq
French master of mime meets the governor in Salem

In the case of Jacques Lecoq, words are thankfully not that important to his message. He [sic] profession is the world of gesture, and, at his L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq, theatrical training is based on movement, mime and mask.

Lecoq, who will give a lecture performance at the Portland Art museum tonight, came to Salem Thursday to exchange gestures with Gov. Bob Straub and later to enjoy a two-hour lunch at Restaurant Toulouse in the Reed Opera House.

Lecoq, though called a master by his disciples, is known to a few in Oregon and tonight's performance is his first West Coast appearance. The visit was arranged through Portland's TheatrElan, whose founder and manager Richard Hayes-Marshall studied with Lecoq.

This is only his fourth visit to the U.S., but it's a lengthy trip which will take him to the American Mime Festival in Milwaukee, Wisc., and New York City, then to Italy.

Americans, he said Thursday, make good students. They are "open, available, prepared to search. They have an extreme vitality."

In the theater of gesture, he finds Americans good performers: "American gestures are often very unfinished," which becomes more expressive. In Japan, by contrast, gestures are complete, "they're dead, they don't move anymore."

Lecoq, who founded his school in Paris 22 years ago, teaches rather than performs, taking students who some from fields like sociology and law, as well as theater, and incorporating unlikely subjects which nonetheless bear on their development as observers of behavior.

By the second year, however, only those with professional theater intent remain.

He teachers, says Lecoq, "about us as people," the fundamental of the human body, " the observation of daily things," and the transposition between the theater and these observations.

"The important thing to know," says Hayes-Marshall, who was Lecoq's student for three years, "is that his work is to review life."

"We as Americans," adds Hayes-Marshall, "think we are there before we are." He feels we have much to learn from such masters.

TheatrElan, which is five years old, is essentially a school devoted to "trying to diversify the exposure of the arts to the Portland public…we really need a diversification.

"I want Portland and the Northwest to see the talent of the master." Hayes-Marshall describes Lecoq as possibly the greatest and last of his kind. "It's an epoch, it's a period of time."

Lecoq says he hopes that his appearance tonight will be a meeting between the public and himself, that there are "no messages to give."

Hayes-Marshall says Lecoq "has no style, he presents the basics, the fundamentals."

His school in Paris, which now takes about 120 students of many nationalities, has been increasingly successful and two years ago bought its own building. It has done this with subsidies or government support. The don't publicize, relying on word of mouth for success.

"If a school can keep going for 22 years," says Lecoq, " it's pretty good."

TheatrElan aspires to teach the same kind of basics, according to Hayes-Marshall. He expects the Friday night lecture to draw well, including at least 70 people from out-of-state.

Asked if there are performers whom he, as a master, admires, Lecoq responds that "there are no heroes," no people to admire today. "We're awaiting for another generation."

The 8 p.m. lecture performance will be in the Berg Swann Auditorium. Tickets are available at the theater and Stevens & Son Jewelers.

Ron Cowan
Oregon Statesman Reporter