Bernadette Plageman after the US premier of “The Way of the Cross, No 2,” pictured with Father Jon and costume designer Joe Plageman.
If you were away from Haddonfield in August, you may have missed Bernadette Plageman’s inspirational mime and spoken word performance of “The Way of the Cross No. 2” at Christ the King. The original play, which combined poetic text and expressive movement, was the last work dedicated to the stage by Paul Claudel, a renowned French playwright and diplomat. Etienne Decroux, the great French mime who trained Marcel Marceau and Bernadette, inspired Paul Claudel for this visionary work.
Bernadette recalls that she became interested in learning how we use expressions and gestures to communicate at an early age. She shared that her dad Joe, would spontaneously perform for her family during Saturday morning breakfast. In the 1980s, Bernadette left the United States to study the French art form of mime in Paris, France. When asked about her art, she shared that the face remains somber, allowing the fluid movement of the body to express the emotion of the unspoken word. Bernadette explained that this drama beautifully illustrates Christ’s generosity and willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of all others. After the performance, Father Jon stated, “She did not merely pronounce the lines but preached them with the conviction of a true believer. Her graceful, purposeful movements heightened, not distracted, the attention of the audience to the pregnant meaning of those words. The costumes and stage art, created by her father, likewise focused the audience’s hearts on the drama of Christ’s Passion and his call to each of us to become part of it.”
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