Robert Shields, Festival of Fools
Robert Shields, the most famous mime in America, protege of Marcel Marceau, inspiration to Michael Jackson, and star of The Shields and Yarnell Show, appeared in Santa Barbara last weekend as part of the Festival of Fools, a celebration of the legacy of Marceau, who died last month in Paris. Preceded by a film of Shields’s early improvisational street mime days in San Francisco, he entered the theater in whiteface, wearing a striped shirt and suspenders.