ABSTRACT
From my daily work with him over a four-year period, and subsequent visits over more than a decade, I know of Etienne Decroux’s deep and abiding conviction for what he called the Cathedral of Corporeal Mime, a project he imagined would consume the lifetime of many workers; I know too that he pursued his mission determinedly and single-mindedly. As one who believed his sincerity, and not an impartial observer (if such a thing could exist), in this book I have told, in the measure possible, Decroux’s story as I think he would have wanted it told.With the same information, a different writer could tell the story of a misfit and sometimes a buffoon, a megalomaniac, a man with typically nineteenthcentury French views of women, and one who alienated many.
