ABSTRACT
Since founding his school in 1956 Jacques Lecoq has emerged as the most articulate exponent of a physical theatre. His influence is world-wide and more than any other teacher his work is at the heart of what Stephen Daldry views as 'an explosion of form in British theatre'.1 The work of Steven Berkoff and Moving Picture Mime Show in the seventies and eighties did much to bring his work to a wider public attention and when I visited his school in Paris in 1990 more than half of his students were British. Today with the remarkable achievements of Theatre de Complicite, with Philippe Gaulier, a former teacher at Lecoq's school, now basing his own school in London and with an increasing number of Lecoq-trained artists working in all aspects of our theatre it is safe to conclude that Lecoq's teaching is making its mark on British theatre practice. But what is this teaching with masks; where does it come from and why is it so special?
