Means of Resistance: Marcel on the Train and Twelve Minor Prophets

"You might not thrill to the thing itself, but once you know that the genre-defining mime, Marcel Marceau, used his skills to entertain orphaned Jewish children while helping them to escape occupied France - the noiselessness of his act essential, as Nazi soldiers stalked the corridors of the trains to the Swiss border listening for runaways - then you at least have to respect what Marceau called "the art of silence.""

"Marcel wasn't actually Marceau at all - he was born Marcel Mangel, to a Ukrainian mother and a kosher-butcher father from Poland. In his twenties, during the Nazi occupation of France, he joined the Resistance, Frenchifying his surname to survive. Marcel's father didn't make it: He was killed at Auschwitz in 1944. But Marcel, his older brother, and their cousin, Georges Loinger, posed as Boy Scout leaders taking their troops camping,"

"It's such a stunner of a historical fact that it's easy to see how a contemporary artist would want to make it into a play (or a movie). It's also understandable that such a dramatization might have a tough time living up to the sheer, indisputable wow-ness of the event itself. Such is the case with Marcel on the Train, a post-passion project for Ethan Slater, who stars as the young proto-mime in the new play, which he also co-wrote with its director, Marshall Pailet."

Marcel Marceau, born Marcel Mangel to a Ukrainian mother and a Polish kosher-butcher father, Frenchified his surname and joined the Resistance during Nazi occupation. He used mime skills to entertain orphaned Jewish children and help shepherd them; the silence of his act aided escapes as Nazi soldiers patrolled trains bound for the Swiss border. His father was killed at Auschwitz in 1944. Marceau and relatives posed as Boy Scout leaders, chaperoning children on train journeys and Alpine hikes, rescuing hundreds. A contemporary play, Marcel on the Train, co-written and starring Ethan Slater, dramatizes these events but falls short of the historical impact.

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