San Francisco Mime Troupe Kicks Off Musical in Berkeley

After decades of performances in Berkeley, the San Francisco Mime Troupe still knows how to pack a park. On Saturday, about a hundred people attended the troupe's first East Bay performance of in Cedar Rose Park.

When Saturday afternoon's performance was over, the audience — that heartily laughed during the show — was slow to leave the sunny park. Children were still playing on the grass and activists, who have used troupe shows as meet-ups for years, were still chatting amongst themselves on blankets and under sun hats.

The audience could recognize many aspects of the play — doomsday scenarios, thinly veiled references to the resurgence of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the green movement and global warming debate going mainstream and the woes of unfunded arts organizations. "Well, we can always do shows in the parks," said a character after its theater group loses its lease.

A little fun is poked at those on the left, as well. Discussing her sister Suze's job in the corporate world, character Elaine said, "You might as well work for Monsanto!"

President Obama, and corruption between big banks, companies and politicians are also critiqued through comedy. A character known as "Working Class Man," played by new actor Cory Censoprano, beats up a politician guilty of stalling health care reform, Goldman Sachs and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Clearly, the troupe's definition of "Working Class Man" isn't the entire country's, but it works in Berkeley.

"I think it's really inspiring to be in your community and see people who are politically active and activism minded," said audience member Lauren Levy. "It's inspiring for folks who are already doing that work to see it in the arts."

The major storyline in the play revolves around a struggling anti-capitalist theater group called Theater BAM! In the play, the only thing standing between the group and certain doom is a grant from Green Planet, Inc. "Can we take corporate money without being corrupted?" asks a character before the group bursts into the song, "It's All Dirty Money."

Theater BAM! accepts the grant, but then finds itself fighting for creative control of its production and to maintain its message.

For the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the storyline is familiar. "That's actually real life," said actress Keiko Shimosato Carreiro, who's been with the troupe since 1987 and plays Ms. Haverlock, the corporate funder in "2012 — The Musical!"

Carreiro said the troupe got a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for its production this year. But when the troupe submit a change of scope to update the play's content and change its style, members were shocked when, for the first time after many years of grants, the NEA threatened to take back the grant. "If we have $50,000 pulled out of our budget, we can't do the summer shows," said Carreiro. "Hence the play within a play, so we could kind of fit in two stories."

Playwriter Michael Gene Sullivan orchestrated the play around the premise the troupe proposed for the grant, "the destruction of the planet as seen through the eyes of a small group of time travelers who witness the future and return to the present day to demand change before it is too late," according to the NEA's 2011 grant announcement.

"My audition was for a vaudeville, and then, oh my god, it's '2012 — The Musical?'" said Censoprano, 21, who considers the troupe production his first real acting gig. "But everyone did a really good job of biting the bullet."

The audience agreed. "I thought it was excellent," said J Moses Ceaser of Berkeley's Enlight Storyworks. "I've seen the mime troupe four times over the past 15 years, and I thought this was the best."

Upcoming shows:

Saturday, July 16, Willard Park, Berkeley, 1:30pm music, 2pm show

Saturday, July 23, Mosswood Park, Oakland, 1:30pm music, 2pm show

Wednesday, August 3, Lakeside Park, Oakland, 6:30pm music, 7pm show

Thursday, August 4, Lakeside Park, Oakland, 6:30pm music, 7pm show

Saturday, August 13, Live Oak Park, Berkeley, 1:30pm music, 2pm show

Sunday, August 14, Live Oak Park, Berkeley, 1:30pm music, 2pm show (ASL interpreter on site)

Saturday, September 17, Willard Park, Berkeley, 1:30pm music, 2pm show

Sunday, September 18, Willard Park, Berkeley, 1:30pm music, 2pm show

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