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the san francisco mime troupe reader The San Francisco Mime Troupe Reader susan vaneta mason The University of Michigan Press ann arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2005 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid-free paper 2008 2007 2006 2005 4 3 2 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The San Francisco Mime Troupe reader / edited by Susan Vaneta Mason. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-472-09842-X (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-472-06842-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. San Francisco Mime Troupe—History. I. Mason, Susan Vaneta, 1946– II. Title. PN2297.S25S26 2005 792.3'09794'61—dc22 2004022451 ISBN-13 978-0-472-09842-2 (cloth) ISBN-13 978-0-472-06842-5 (paperback) During the life span of the Babyboomers now turning 40, the United States plus all countries within our reach have come to be ruled by a shadow (now no longer a secret) government of spy agencies, right-wing billionaires and military fanatics. Our oceans have been turned into chemical dumps, half the world’s rain forests have vanished, holes have appeared in our ozone layer, and our hopes for the future have been buried under a steadily mounting pile of unimaginable weapons. During the same period, a single topic has dominated the American stage: personal relationships. —Joan Holden, 1988 In our society we have things that you might use your intelligence on, like politics, but people really can’t get involved in them in a very serious way— so what they do is they put their minds into other things, such as sports. . . . it occupies the population, and keeps them from trying to get involved with things that really matter. In fact, I presume that’s part of the reason why spectator sports are supported to the degree they are by the dominant institutions . —Noam Chomsky, 1989 We live in a society that rewards and honors corporate gangsters—corporate leaders who directly and indirectly plunder the earth’s resources and look out for the shareholders’ pro‹ts above all else—while subjecting the poor to a random and brutal system of “justice.” —Michael Moore, 2001 Foreword Encompassing more than four decades of political satire, the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s longevity is itself a political and artistic triumph; this theater ensemble, like a character Brecht’s Herr Keuner described, has now outlived many of its enemies. Presidents, dictators, and corporate executives who inspired the Mime Troupe’s satire are now out of power, and survive in some cases only as footnotes to history. By contrast, the Mime Troupe is still actively entertaining audiences, as its comic opposition to abuses of power and wealth goes on in its ‹fth decade, with free performances in city parks and annual tours across the country. Tyrants and plutocrats come and go; but then so does topical theater. Satire is not often staged with posterity in mind; play texts like the Mime Troupe’s often go uncollected, nuances of humor and physical comedy in the plays vanish along with the actors after the last curtain call, and oncetimely plays are rarely revived, unless Aristophanes wrote them. This might explain why some of the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s most popular plays could not be found in print until now. Fortunately for posterity, and for those now reading the book, Susan Mason has assembled some of the Mime Troupe’s ‹nest texts, and provided engaging introductions to the history behind the plays, so their context can be more fully appreciated. Though on the page they inevitably lack the full humor and body of a live performance, these plays remain important and enriching documents of American theater history, models of satire from which new generations can learn much about art and politics. In the United States there have been few satire ensembles comparable to the San Francisco Mime Troupe—none with a comic body of work seen as widely as these plays have been through years of national and international tours. If the Mime Troupe’s theater collective , critical of its own country’s military and economic programs...

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