Drama Masks: SF Mime Troupe marches forth through country’s ‘Wreckage’

This is Drama Masks, a Bay Area performing arts column from a born San Franciscan and longtime theatre artist in an N95 mask. I talk venue safety and dramatic substance, or the lack thereof. 

Have a fun 250^th for our bastard nation? I mostly stayed clear of mainstream media, but some highlights included: 1) white supremacists marching through DC like they owned the place; 2) our transphobic SCOTUS saying San José Mayor Matt Mahan (inspired by London Breed) can go right ahead and arrest homeless people for being homeless; and 3) SF Sup. Matt “Lock up all the addicts!” Dorsey asked a pro-Nazi chatbot for good reasons why people in Gaza deserve to die by the hands of Israel, thus conclusively he is SF’s Mike Lindell: weaponizing his own former addiction to target other addicts as he leans on Big Tech to spread his right-wing conspiracy theories.

Truly, this is the greatest country in the world. Where else could a twice-impeached failed businessman with numerous sexual assault allegations rise from his already-affluent background to the highest office in the land? Where else would such a chronic loser set new standards for his title by {checks notes} 

• instigating the longest government shutdown in the country’s history
• rolling back racial equity initiatives to the Jim Crow era
• letting a racist South African trust-fund baby just up and take everyone’s social security info
• kidnapping the leader and spouse of a sovereign nation (Venezuela)
• demanding another sovereign nation (Greenland) become the 51^st state
• saying “no endless wars” before entering into endless wars with Iran and Lebanon
• sending his personal army of ICE goons into the streets to murder US citizens
• saying “no higher prices” before enacting tariffs that raise the prices of, well, everything
• profiting of his PotUS positing by using US tax dollars for at least $2B worth of crypto grifting
• destroying the White House
• transforming the Reflecting Pool into a literal swamp
• destroying the White House lawn for a shitty MMA fight
• greenlighting the Paramount-WB merger just so he could throttle CNN (and order a new Rush Hour sequel)
• making FIFA reverse a Team USA penalty
• picking a fight with the Pope
• and turning himself into a literal golden idol.

All of that is just in the past year-and-a-half. Again, these are just off the top of my head. Forgive me if I forgot a few. (Killing SNAP benefits, demanding the Nobel Prize, making air travel even worse, etc.)

It’s easy to forget his desecration of the arts. Whether it be sticking his leathery grimace on US passports, sticking his bankrupt name on the Kennedy Center (only for it to be taken off), or the way he gutted the NEA, our country now finds itself full of major media powers all-to-willing to capitulate, and a citizenship refusing to accept that capitulation.

When all is said and done, how will this story be written? I’m old enough to remember when any one of the above listed was enough to instantly nuke one’s career, political or otherwise. Now, this Epstein associate has done all that and more without consequence. It’s like that time Mr. Burns went for his check-up and was told that he had so many diseases that they essentially cancelled out one another. This story is tragedy and farce at the same time.

Where does that put someone like me? Well, like the citizens of Whoville after the Grinch stole all their presents, we push forward. 

I’m not a flag-waver. Hell, I’ve personally witnessed a great many flag-burnings. But I do believe in the collective power of the people. People wonder why I still do what I do when I’m barely scraping a living off it. It’s because I’m always amazed by how much story there still is to tell.

No, I haven’t made a full-time living off arts writing, but I love the fact that companies go out of their way to get my attention. They feel it’s important to have a voice like mine—PoC, genuinely Bay Area, fully independent —shining a light on their works. It offers a perspective they just won’t get from the still-majorly-white alternatives. They want to see themselves reflected in critique the way they try to reflect themselves on stage or on canvas. I wish I had the time and money to get to them all.

You notice me, and I notice you. And, it turns out, others notice us all.

So, when I look back over the story of the past 250 years, I don’t see it from the perspective of the disease-spreading pilgrims, I see it as a Black Panther would, as an indigenous tribe member would, as a suffragist would, as San Francisco’s very own Wong Kim Ark would. I see it from the perspective of everyone whose story isn’t awarded golden statues. As both an artist, activist, and journalist, I still love telling that story. 

Most of all, I know that story isn’t over.

SF Mime Troupe presents Wreckage: A Musical Tragicomedy

What would the 4^th of July be without sitting outside in Dolores Park (CO² levels hovered around 423ppm the whole time) in the sun watching Socialist theatre? That much I expected. Getting a large crowd to join in a chant of “Tax! The! Church!”? Now, that was unexpected.

Such is the dénouement of Wreckage (through September 7 at various Bay Area parks), SF Mime Troupe’s latest call to arms. Though SF isn’t specified this time (there’s an Escape from New York-style Liberty head in the set design), the setting has the air of Silicon Valley-vicinity.

Michael Gene Sullivan’s script follows Felicity (Chloris Li), a good Christian girl eager to serve the Swaggart-like Brother Gideon (Jed Parsario)—mind you, Gideon’s definition of “service” is more prurient than the girl realizes. Still, Felicity takes Gideon’s word to the rundown city streets, where flower merchant Mari (Keiko Shimosato Carreiro) is happy to still have customers. She doesn’t like the way the world has gone, but she believes the lesson of her parents—victims of internment Order 9066—was to keep one’s head low and go unnoticed.

That’s hardly an option anymore, now that every digital device in the city is forcibly updated with “Claudine” (Li again), the new AI app so intrusive, even it disillusioned creator (Sullivan) is having second thoughts about implementing it.

Wreckage goes some places that are dark even for a Mime Troupe show: Though never explicitly detailed, there’s the suggestion of a sexual assault committed by Gideon, and the play stops cold in the latter-half to see Mari’s mother (Li) recounting her tenure in an internment camp through Japanese theatre techniques. As important as these elements are, they’re awkwardly wedged into the show that’s otherwise pretty enjoyable. It’s stances against the military (when one realizes they’re part of ICE murder-squad) and organized religion (what with the Bible preaching altruism and all) are as inspired as the songs are entertaining.

Mime Troupe shows don’t often require a trigger warning, but be advised of the above darkness amongst the pro-worker satire this time.

WRECKAGE: A MUSICAL TRAGICOMEDY runs through September 7^th at various Bay Area parks. Further info here.

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