New-York tribune., 1905-04-23
AN "ACROBATIC CLOWN"
Methods of Marceline, Who Uses
Pantomime Instead of Speech.

There Is nothing so ancient as clowning. and
there is nothing so new The humor of the
clown is Of the most rudmentary form, and the
most universal in its appeal Children laugh
at it with full comprehension, their elders smile
at it with equal comprehension and often equal
enjoyment To be good clown is to add to the
gayety of nations. to confer a benefit on man
kind. But good clowns are as rare as good TRACE
dians Perhaps the very elementariness Of the
humor makes it the harder to carry OFF with
success. Anybody fall down; few can make
all sorts and conditions of men laugh by doing
So But Marceline, the clown at the Hippo
drome can He is star" clown, at the top
of his profession. He is a genius in his line.
Already the favorite of the children Of London,
he is becoming the favOrite Of the children or
New-York, and Of their elders. His name is
likely to become familiar to everybody in this
city before he leaves the HippOdrome com
pany.
IarceIine is a little man. Spaniard. thirty
two years old, rather grave off the stage. with
a quick, nervous way OF walking and talking,
and a curious accent when he speaks English,
which he does with a fluent vocabulary. how
ever He speaks six other languages, for his
training has been cosmopolitan. and he has
kept his mind open to learn. There is nothing
of the clown about him off stage. He might be
the foreign agent for some mercantile firm.
started
of family" But he grew a bit stout for that
, sort of work. and decided to become what he
calls an "acrobatic clown" He could at that
time speak only Spanish. with smattering OF
French so it was out Of the question to do an
act which required dialogue He set about
devising humorous pantOmine which would do
away with the necessity Of speech and make
his main bid for attention his acrobatic feats.
The most amusing Of these feats at present is
his weird somersault in the air where he comes
down on his shoulders and back without touch
ing his hands to the ground, rises and keeps on
somersauIting around the ring. At each flip
over the audience expects 10 see him break his
skull but he never even makes a sound as he
falls keeping up his rotations till the house
is in a gale of laughter.
II studied out that trick long ago." he said
the other day. Il saw some men do 1t using
their hands and 1 decided it would make hit
If it could be done without the hands. So 1
tried It, found the trick which is really not half
so hard it looks. and have been doing it ever
since. My other stunts you call them, 1
| evolved in the same way. Wherever played
| I could always get somebody to talk to me in
| the language of the country. and it was easy
to reply in pantomime. which has the advan-
tage in humor over speech. I think. since the
] children especially are amused at the sight OF
/ clown who never says a word, and can, apPar-
| emily. only emit whistle. People say l am
| doing something all the while That. too is
studied out When 1 see a wire. I fall over it.
in the fashion best shown by experience to raise
laugh; when I meet stage hand I run into
! him. and so 1t is nothing but horseplay, yet
| il has to be arranged carefully as anything
else. HOrseplay can be right or wrong, funny
or sad as 1 have discovered 1 suppose 1 have
while the stage a sort of feeling that I am
playing part and make people see me as a
! character. 1 think that sense of character must
lie behind horseplay if it is to be really funny.
That may be. Also why the children in London
were so fond of me. 1 stood for something def
mite in their minds"
Marceline has played for the last five years
at the London Hippodrome fifty-twO weeks in
the year. twice day, and never missed a single
performance. Such a record is remarkable test
of endurance. for his act is violent one
violent that of any acrobat. Perfect health
must be an essential Of his equipment. And
yet he never trains, like athlete. He eats
what he wishes drinks as much as he wants to-
and often does not so TO bed till late in the
morning.
MY seven weeks Of rest before the New
York season opened were the first In five years.
he said the other day, and they hindered me
more than they helped, 1 think, because was
soft when 1 began again. 1 bruised my arms
and hips. and for a few days my head which
does touch bit in that sOmersault, thought it
may not seem 10, panied me. However, the
pains passed away after few days of work
My only training is the regular work in the