Emmanuelle Delpech-Ramey likes to get stupid. If people gasp, laugh or perhaps want to slap the woman, well, all the better. And while she admits to being a fun-lovin' goofball in real life, the bulk of Delpech-Ramey's dopiness is done in the name of her art, especially the art of theatrical clowning.

Unlike a circus clown, a theater clown is, as Delpech-Ramey explains, highly psychological. "The humor is not so much outside, like slapstick, as with a circus clown. It's more inside … The theater clown is happy to be stupid, or just get in trouble all the time … The theater clown is very much about the actual person as opposed to being about circusy things like juggling."

Delpech-Ramey says that as a child she "was not designed to be the funny one. I was the strange one. Atypical." Even as a kid she knew she wanted to be onstage singing and embodying characters. She grew up in the South of France, moved to Paris at age 10, and as a young teen she trained in text-based theater but also found herself drawn to other methods. She got turned onto clown, as those in the trade call it, at Fratellini Circus School of Paris, and learned mask and commedia dell'arte from Ario Teatro. Studies at Ecole Jacques Lecoq bolstered her experience in clown and bouffon, and introduced her to improvisational physical theater. She also met Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel and Dan Rothenberg, of Philly's Pig Iron Theatre Company, who were taking classes at Lecoq as well. She soon scored an invitation to perform with Pig Iron.

"I was thinking of doing a show on Joan of Arc, so it made sense that we would have a French person come over," says Bauriedel, who surmised Delpech-Ramey could pull off the formidable lead based on her ability and instinct."Emmanuelle transforms completely from the inside and the outside when she's on stage. She's a very special, deep person."

Quickly feeling at home with the experimental movement theater ensemble that she now refers to as "family," Delpech-Ramey has performed in numerous Pig Iron productions in a range of roles, including a bitter old prince (Hell Meets Henry Halfway), an emotionally stunted WWI nurse (Gentlemen Volunteers), a mischievous clown (Flop) and a mentally disabled woman who is nonetheless full of joy (James Joyce Is Dead and So Is Paris: The Lucia Joyce Cabaret).

For her riveting performance as Madeline in Lucia Joyce, which netted the actor a Barrymore Award, Delpech-Ramey immersed herself in "the sensation of being crazy. To me it's easier to get lost. You lose yourself in a different way of breathing, of looking. It's all about the senses for me."

This heightening of senses is among the reasons Delpech-Ramey enjoys mime. "It's pure imagination. When you mime you ask people that are watching to just go along for the ride. So I'm going to physically describe something and you see whatever you want. Mime opens up the poetic space. … It's a lot of fun, because as an actor you have no limits. If you want to escape, you create a boat. If there is a problem, I just kill my partner and they float away … Mime just never stops. It gives dramatic expanse, and that's what I like."

Delpech-Ramey explores that expanse in full with the Live Arts show Madame Douce-Amére, staged by a collective she co-founded called Fins for Wings. The premise is simple: An old lady living alone in her house is haunted by the ghost of her husband (portrayed by violinist Claude Ferril). A wordless play that is essentially a duet between actor and musician, much of the movement is based on sign language, to which Delpech-Ramey became attracted as yet another means to communicate in a silent way. She notes, "In sign language you have to look at people's eyes which relates to clowning. But I'm not signing, I'm using sign to express some things and make it bigger so that it becomes something more."

The action includes the Madame venturing into the audience. She may poach from a woman's pocketbook or pull someone onstage. "The character is going to be the seducer. She really wants the audience to interact," Delpech-Ramey asserts. "So people will forget it's just theater, and it becomes an opportunity to share something."

Madame Douce-Amère, Sept. 7-9, 9:30 p.m. (with post-show discussion on Sept. 9); Sept. 10, 5 and 9:30 p.m.; Sept. 11, 2 and 5 p.m.; $15, Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St., 60 min.