http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/mime-troupe-revels-in-posibilidad/Content?oid=1939841
This year, the fifty-one-year-old theater troupe revisits its agitprop roots.
By Rachel Swan
July 21, 2010
For fifty-one years, the San Francisco Mime Troupe has adhered to a
single mission: Thwart, satirize, mock, mudsling, ballyhoo, and
otherwise undermine the capitalist economic system, by any means
necessary. Of course, "means" are hard to come by for a small
political theater group on a shoestring budget. The SF Mime Troupe
has a few fantastic writers in its arsenal, some with a keen ability
to translate high-minded concepts into layman's terms. They all
coalesce around Michael Gene Sullivan, a director, actor, part-time
Huffington Post blogger, self-proclaimed rouser, and head writer for
the Troupe's recent spate of plays, whose themes ranged from
Christian evangelism, to Iraq War propaganda, to red state-blue state
balkanization. For the past two years, though, Mime Troupe has gone
back to its old standby: Failures of capitalism. That was easy last
year with the banking crisis, and a lot harder this year. By early
2010, the economic downturn had run its course as a news item, and SF
Mime Troupe had to reach a lot farther for material.
In fact, it reached all the way to Latin America. The troupe's new
play Posibilidad, or Death of the Worker takes place partly in the
US, and partly in a small pueblo in Buenos Aires, where workers
attempt to seize their textile mill from an evil patron (Maggie
Mason). In comparison to last year's Too Big to Fail, Posibilidad
relies on a series of very simple plot-twists. Peace Weavers a
small manufacturer of organic, cruelty-free, ostensibly fair trade
hemp leisure ware turns out to be a shell for the evil corporation
Jenkins Clothing International. Jenkins uses all manner of nefarious
business practices, from sweatshops to low factory wages to CEO
kick-backs, even though it likes to keep a veneer of liberal
respectability. It turns out the company director, Ernesto (Rotimi
Agbabiaka) is actually an heir to the Jenkins dynasty (according to
the other characters, his real name is Earnest Jenkins). And, like
the business proper, he's a fraud. Easily the best evil villain to
emerge from a Mime Troupe play in three years, Ernesto sashays about
the stage in loose-fitting hemp apparel, dinging a pair of bells, and
using Enya as a form of aural assault. The workers bide their time
sewing "Made in the USA" tags on sweatshop clothing and watching telenovelas.
Naturally, the center cannot hold. Ms. Gachs (also played by Mason),
a blond woman in a stiff pencil skirt, arrives to voice shareholder
concerns about financial profligacy at Peace Weavers. Most of the
blame rests on Ernesto, who pilfered from corporate coffers to buy
his Tesla sports car and happy-ending massages, among other things.
In typical Mime Troupe villain fashion, Ernesto passes his personal
failures down to the workers, and shuts his factory down. They stage
a sit-in. The main instigator, Sofia (Lisa Hori-Garcia) boosts
everyone's morale with tales of a similar worker-takeover in her
Argentinean hometown, Posibilidad. From there, you can pretty much
tell where the story is going.
Yes, it's uncannily similar to Too Big to Fail, and understandably so
as both bear the imprimatur of playwright Gene Sullivan and director
Wilma Bonet. But compared to its predecessor, Posibilidad is more
spare and comprehensible, if a little less topical. Which is to say,
it's really just a parable about capitalism and labor politics. And
it's practically timeless. But for a couple of pop culture nods to
New Age-ism and the World Cup soccer craze, Posibilidad could been
made in the 1970s.
In a way, that makes it a better play. Despite the flashback
narrative and a few juxtapositions in time and space, it's pretty
easy to follow. The drama relies on stark contrasts between good guys
and bad guys. Among the heroes are a pregnant Argentine ex-pat, a
second-generation immigrant from the Philippines, and a no-nonsense,
working-class mother. All elicit sympathy; each has a gritty exterior
and a heart of gold. The villains all slither about the stage,
speaking in unctuous corporate patois. There's the usual corrupted
character (Joe, played by Gene Sullivan), who starts off sorta good,
then falls prey to his own hubris. The Latin theme lends itself to
Tango dance numbers and a driving musical score, provided by Pat
Moran. All elements conjoin to form a neat, ninety-minute
performance, complete with sex jokes and a song-and-dance number
called "All About the Bottom Line." Nina Ball's factory set combines
a pulley system with an exposed brick façade.
To anyone born after Reagan's inauguration, Red Scare bullying and
Marxist rhetoric might seem a little well, dated. But wait, there's
a lot of salvageable material here. One need not be a Marxist to
recognize corporate malfeasance, or feckless CEOs, or evil power
plays. It's easy to align with the workers in Posibilidad and root
for their nascent collective. (The word "collective" drew successive
cheers from the audience at Berkeley's Cedar Rose Park last
Saturday.) And granted, nothing cures the bad economy blues so well
as a little good-trumping-evil.
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