Arts Correspondent

It took a chance television program to spark Maxim Fomitchev's imagination, inspiring him in what has become his life's work. The Russian-born performer, a mime, who also writes and teaches, remembers as a 13-year-old watching a famous mime on television.

"I copied his performance on the spot," Fomitchev recalls. "My mother was so amazed she phoned the TV station and tracked down the mime and asked him to meet with me. He saw that I had raw talent and suggested that I take mime training."

Today, the Vancouver, Canada-based performer, who goes by the nom de mime Max-i-mime, tours internationally in his own productions, as well as acting on television (The L Word) and in feature films (Saving Silverman).

His one-man, character-driven show, Rainman Returns, comes to Washington's Gallaudet University Gil Eastman Studio today through Sunday as just one offering in the two-week QuestFest 2010, an international visual theater festival with performances and workshops throughout the D.C. and Baltimore region.

Though Fomitchev is deaf, he stated that even from an early age, while he's faced challenges, he hasn't missed much: Spoken "language becomes language of the body and expression," he wrote in answer to a series of e-mailed questions.

Where he did struggle was in growing up as a Jew in the Soviet Union. "We did not have religion, but there was still a fear of being Jewish," he recalled.

Fomitchev's mother even chose to list her son's nationality as Russian, not Jewish, on his identity card hoping to make life easier for him.

"Being surrounded by the anti-Semitic attitude was a huge part of growing up Russia, and it pained me deeply," he said, "but as a teen, I would sometimes pretend to agree with the hateful, ignorant remarks made against Jewish people. This uneasy feeling seemed like it was always with me in Russia."

Though his parents are hearing, both his grandparents were deaf, and Fomitchev grew up speaking Russian sign language and lip-reading. As a deaf youngster, he faced additional prejudice: "Being deaf, and signing in public was another target on my back, and I experienced a lot of bullying and ridicule ‹ not just by kids, but by adults ‹ especially in the [Moscow] Metro."

After six years of intensive mime training, he studied traditional acting methods, including the acclaimed Stanislavski technique, at Schukin University of the Arts. He became a member of the Zakutok Players, a Russian troupe that toured worldwide.

A visit to Washington, D.C., in 1991 set the performer on his path to freedom and inspired him to leave his homeland behind. "I was at the deaf university, Gallaudet, and I will never forget meeting all these empowered 'normal' deaf students, so full of confidence for their futures. I could not believe there were deaf people studying to be doctors and lawyers and engineers, whatever they wanted, as if they were free," he said. "And I saw they were free. And I wanted to be free."

Vancouver, Canada, happened to be the final stop on his Zakutok's tour. Close enough, Fomitchev thought, to the United States to make a break and start life anew.

Starting over in the West, he learned both English, including lip-reading, and American Sign Language. Today, Fomitchev lives with his wife, Selena Lohan, and two children in Vancouver, where he performs in theaters, festivals and schools, bringing a magic suitcase full of characters to adults and children alike, from a mad-for-science robot to the Chaplinesque, raincoat-clad Rainman.

The couple founded MimicBaby, a business to teach sign language to infants through classes, DVDs and a children's television show under development. As the star and muse for the MimicBaby DVDs, Fomitchev remains most proud of his own son's first sign, spoken at 7 months old: "light." He reports that his daughter was 5 months when she began signing "milk."

"It's so amazing to have that early communication," he said. "Now my son is 7, and he is fluent in ASL; we are very close."

Rainman Returns pays tribute to another great Russian mime, Slava Polunim and his acclaimed Slava's Snow Show. With his title hinting at the 47.2 inches of average annual precipitation in Vancouver, in Rainman Returns Fomitchev's character recreates an intimate dance with his lost love using props and physical comedy.

While there's nothing particularly Jewish about being a mime, and none of his characters would, at first glance, be considered Jewish, Fomitchev noted, "All my characters share something in common Š they are outsiders. I feel my characters, whether it's a Russian immigrant, a homeless man, a weird scientist, a mime rock star, or a break-dancing robot, they all feel like misunderstood outsiders looking in on mainstream society. And I feel that way sometimes as a Jewish person and as a deaf person in a hearing world."

Rainman Returns is onstage March 11-14 at the Gil Eastman Studio, Gallaudet University, in the District. Tickets, $15-$10, are available at www.questfest.org.