I was always observing Marceau and listening to him for 40 years. How did a master at his level move through the world.

And even though Marsoe died 10 years ago,

he's still my mentor, he's still my teacher,

I'm still learning from him.

Almost every day.

Especially now that I've been diagnosed with Parkinson's.

Welcome to Rumble Strip, I'm Erica Heilman.

Rob Merman had a career as a mime clown for 40 years.

Then in 1987 he started a circus company here in Vermont called Circus Smirkus.

Three years ago he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

This is a story about the study of movement, the loss of control of movement, about

catastrophe and grace.

Here's Rob Merman.

1965. I'm 15 years old. I'm in high school watching Sunday evening television with my family, my parents and brothers and sisters and the Red Skeleton show came on. It was the Red Skeleton

Variety Show weekly one hour variety. The Red Skeleton Show came on. It was the Red Skeleton

weekly, one-hour variety show.

It was Red Skeleton and a man named Marcel Marso

doing an hour of skits without speaking.

It was pantomime, creating a whole world out of empty space.

And I love that. And now I'm 19 in college out in Illinois, Northern Illinois, and I see in the paper that this man Marcel Marso will be performing up in Wisconsin about a three hour drive away

live on stage. So I said I got to see this guy. So I got on my car. I drove the three hours in the

middle of the winter. It was snowstorm. It was ice at this theater in Madison, Wisconsin

...