This thesis is neither a textbook of pantomime, with instructions for the development of mimetic expertise, nor a history of pantomime. What is recorded here is the personal philosophy of the art of pantomime advanced by Jean-Louis Barrault, Étienne Decroux, Charlie Chaplin, Marcel Marceau, and Red Skelton. The section devoted to each artist contains the portions of his biography pertaining to his development as a mime and a representative sample of critical reactions to his work. In addition to this purpose, this thesis also offers evidence that the comic style of pantomime underwent a change in nature in its use by the mimes who are studied here. Whereas the comic style was original! y unique to pantomimes that had no other intent but to produce laughter or, at most, pathos by physical comedy, these mimes took the comic pantomime into the realms of introspection and philosophy.

Just as themes are important in the analysis of a movement, the means used to promote those themes are just as significant and that is the purpose of this paper. More specifically, the purposes are (1) to describe the sub-groups and report their goals, [2) to describe the numerous rhetorical devices extant in the movement, (3) to classify the subgroups into conservative or liberal categories: conservative, liberal, and those devices used by both conservatives and liberals, and (5) to suggest any trend of device usage which is apparent.

This thesis evaluates the Skyline drama program. The first chapter presents an overview of the program; Chapters II and III describe the core and the advanced curriculum, respectively; and Chapter IV examines the first year of operation and evaluates the entire project.