It’s been nine years since Swiss puppeteers Mummenschanz (Sat/26 and Sun/27, Zellerbach Hall) last took the stage in Berkeley. But they’ve been keeping busy with their latest, years-long world tour celebrating 50+ years of imagination-driven physical and object performance. And after a pandemic-curtailed, livestreamed appearance at San Jose’s Hammer Theatre Center in March 2020, they’re more than ready to delight Bay Area audiences with their “Mummenschanz: 50 Years” retrospective, presented by Cal Performances.
Harking back to an era when mime was a cutting-edge artform infiltrating the mainstream all over the world—thanks to performance pedagogues such as Jacques Lecoq in Paris and the Marcel Marceau-trained Roy Bosier in Italy—Mummenschanz combines mime’s meticulous physicality with an innovative approach to object puppetry, using rippling fabrics, black light, and human-sized slinkys to create a visual wonderland.
The brainchild of three Swiss performers—two of whom (Bernie Schürch and Andres Bossard ) trained with Lecoq and one (Floriana Frassetto) with Bosier—Mummenschanz was formed in the early 70s. By 1973, they were touring the world. In the US they appeared on The Muppet Show, Captain Kangaroo, and Sesame Street, and had a successful Broadway run from 1977-1980. Their joyful inventiveness and silent, almost Existential, commentary on the human condition immediately struck a chord with audiences, and they’ve been staples of the stage and screen practically since their inception.
“It’s a visual form of theatre,” the company’s artistic director Floriana Frassetto describes it over the phone. “It’s poetic, it’s playful, it’s interactive, it’s emotional.” The last of the three original founders remaining with the group, Frassetto still performs regularly as part of the ensemble. She also assembled the 50-year retrospective program currently touring, including many of the most popular and iconic acts from the Mummenschanz repertoire: squabbling characters with toilet paper rolls for faces; a game of languid catch between earthworms made of springs; looming giants of fabric, air, and light; malleable masks of putty and whimsy.
Although you can expect to see the 73-year-old Frassetto onstage inhabiting several such characters, she’s passed her famous “Slinky Man” body over to the younger members of the troupe. “The costume weighs 17 kilos” she mentions in a behind-the-scenes video on the company’s YouTube page. “Naturally it’s my beloved baby, but my colleague performs it wonderfully.” Mostly Millennials, many of these newer company members trained at Switzerland’s Accademia Teatro Dimitri, in the Italian-speaking Ticino region, which specializes in physical performance styles.
Calling themselves “Musicians of Silence,” Mummenschanz members utilize every inch of their human instruments and ingenuity in their shows. With individuality obscured by stage black outfits, oversized masks, and billowing textiles, each performer brings this stunning symphony of movement, texture, and emotion to life with nothing more than their bodies, a few carefully-selected props, and ingenious lighting (courtesy of Eric Suage).
Like any chamber ensemble, they demonstrate what could be termed a collective virtuosity in a composition of beautifully-blended, embodied rhythms. But while their practice is one of rigor and detailed choreography, their core essence, Frassetto assures, is “playfulness.” Indeed, humor is a cornerstone of their oeuvre, capturing attention, and skillfully holding it throughout. Juxtaposing it with moments of melancholy, frustration, and ardor for greater emotional heft.
With three performances scheduled for their Berkeley appearance, including two matinees—one an audio-described show with haptic tour (Sunday, October 27)—Mummenschanz is poised to reconnect with their Bay Area fans from “6-to-106 years old.” A timeless, analog artform holding its own in an increasingly digital age.
“I love Berkeley,” Frassetto enthuses about the trip, “it’s one of the greatest places in the world, because it’s really where the (modern) revolution began.” And with that she bids me farewell, to prepare for the long flight over, and play her silent song for a new generation of performance-goers, and revolutionaries.
MUMMENSCHANZ Sat/26 and Sun/27, Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. More info here.
