Must-See Theater for Delegates
There is still room in the arts for troublemakers, and there are probably no better practitioners of political theater than the San Francisco Mime Troupe Democrats in Denver take note: a large white truck with the big red star is headed your direction.
The Mime Troupe -- which not only speaks truth to power, but sings it powerfully as well -- will serve up Denver with their new play, Red State, about the mythical town of Bluebird, Kansas, a city hollowed out by runaway factories, collapsing infrastructure, and plagued with boarded up libraries, schools and businesses.
Like all Mime Troupe productions, Red State combines humor and song to present trenchant political issues delivered with an edge that cuts deep. Red State takes place on election night 2008, and the story line is that the town has the opportunity to break a tie for the presidency, turning down-and-out Bluebird into an international media circus.
The play, written and directed by Huffington Post commentator Michael Gene Sullivan, is filled with characters who spin in an out of the action -- among them a woman who "houses" her family in an Oldsmobile, a vet returned from Iraq to find that what he fought for over there is no longer available back at home, a voting official whose ambition outweighs her ethics, a fundamentalist farmer who has lost his farm (and parades around with a huge Jesus on a cross), a harassed soldier's wife who must scrounge the gas to get her daughter to preschool 40 miles away because local services have all been de-funded,, and a factory worker whose rejection of his socialist father has turned him into a right-wing libertarian -- allowing the Troupe to demonstrate the consequences of endless tax cuts and misguided policies.
The Mime Troupe style has evolved over the years, incorporating multiple elements from its performing history -- commedia dell'arte, vaudeville, Brecht, melodrama, and musical theater, all of which contribute to the "spoonful of sugar" that makes audiences laugh and clap along as they digest difficult political realities. In Red State, Mime Troupe stalwarts Velina Brown and Lisa Hori-Garcia are joined by Bay Area actors Robert Ernst, Noah James Butler, Lizzie Calogero, and Adrian C. Mejia in an ensemble that delivers the message with talent and verve. Music has long been a dynamic part of any Mime Troupe performance, and Pat Moran blends blues, country western, and folk for an exceptionally strong musical debut as Mime Troupe composer,arranger, and lyricist. (Velina Brown's solos are showstoppers.) There are at least three songs that you want to hear again and again.
As always, the Troupe does a lot with a little. The set is simple, but by using spinning panels and movable canvases it shifts from library to tavern to town square, depicts a flight to Washington, a tornado, and an "over the rainbow" alternate reality called "Ruby City" in a (gasp) red universe.
While the Troupe's main targets are the Bush administration, corporations, and the war in Iraq, good political theater makes everyone a little uncomfortable. Yes, Fox News ("Countdown to Armageddon") and CNN ("Special Report: Anna Nicole Smith: Who would she have voted for?") take it on the chin, but so does National Public Radio ("Antiques Road Show: Election Night Special"). Democrats who think globalization is a good thing are going to squirm, and liberals who shrink from economic populism -- well, they are going to be uncomfortable.
The Tony-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe, which performs for free in parks throughout Northern California (well, they do pass the hat) and has toured both nationally and internationally, is getting ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary of annoying public officials, skewering greedy politicians, and hammering the powerful. Red State is a play in the best traditions of that long history. What the Democrats will make of it in Denver is not clear, but its must-see (un-TV) theater is a thoroughly good time even as it brings home the survival issues -- economic survival, the survival of the planet, of the Constitution, and real national security -- that this election is all about.
Conn Hallinan is an analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus
Anne Hallinan is an actor and former member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe.