Pantomime speaks in a universal language, and it is usually baby talk. At New York's City Center, the Polish Mime Theater has added music, choreography and a variety of props to the basic vocabulary, all to no avail. The company puts extravagant technical competence at the service of canary-brained ideas.
Known as the Henryk Tomaszewski troupe, after its director-producer and leading actor, the ten-year-old company is actually considered avant-garde in Poland—though it is ideologically safe enough to be permitted extensive tours outside the Communist bloc. Despite its considerable success in other European...