STAGE REVIEWS : Mime Troupe Gets ‘Back to Normal’

It made sense that, in the middle of a festival bringing us the authentic arts of Nigerian drumming, Brazilian dancing and Filipino tribal rituals, an honest-to-goodness American traveling show would drop by and put up stakes. Saturday (and concluding Sunday), the San Francisco Mime Troupe--crown jewel of Santa Monica Festival ‘91, and performing outdoors in Los Angeles for the first time in more than two decades--showed a teeming crowd on the Santa Monica Pier the real thing.

It also made sense that their show was titled “Back to Normal.” After the Mime Troupe’s numerous local visits (“Spain ‘36,” “Factwino versus Armageddonman”) in big theaters where their patented broad comedic style of one part Brecht and one part vaudeville seemed an odd fit, they were now back in their element: outdoors, on a stage (designed, by Kent Mathieu) tiny enough to fit in their truck, which the group had just driven down from the Bay Area.

This is how they’ve done it for 30 years, and judging by “Back to Normal’s” passions, it doesn’t look like the Mime Troupe is quitting anytime soon.

If anything, with the show’s satiric look at America’s post-Desert Storm euphoria, they probably feel their work is just beginning. But the work is no more an uncomplicated left political message: Our heroine, Hetty (Sharon Lockwood), a frantic conspiracy theorist spouting her notions on late-night radio in the tiny Central Valley town of Normal, must confront son Jimmy (Michael Gene Sullivan), a Marine hero of Desert Storm.

The script (as always, collectively written, by Joan Holden, Ellen Callas, Elliot Kavee, Gregory R. Tate and Isa Nidal Totah) goes out of its way to show that Hetty’s unreformed beatnik style and amateur CIA investigations drove Jimmy in the other direction. “23 years of research,” Jimmy bursts out, “and you don’t even know your own son!”

“Back to Normal” gives every political wing pause for reflection while at the same time serving up a delicious example of charmingly handmade theater. From the ultra-low-tech scene shifts to a wicked send-up of the postwar TV galas (demoting such blow-hards as Kenny G. and The Arnold), director Ed Holmes never allows this show to stand still for very long--a problem with some past Mime Troupe works. And there’s nothing like seeing stage manager Tate working backstage, then later, appearing onstage in a wacky coup de theatre . Everybody, in this democratic company, gets in on the act.

Lockwood played Hetty as a wise woman who’s been out in the wilderness too long, and Sullivan’s low-key Jimmy balanced her perfectly. Leading the patriotic townfolk of Normal, Arthur Holden as the mayor puffs himself up in a way Sinclair Lewis would have loved. The ensemble, after many a summer show, has this act down pat, but Kavee really shows his stuff in four roles ranging from a high school girl to . . . George Bush, who gets carted off by a Secret Service man when he starts blurting out the Troupe’s take on the war. It’s the ultimate fantasy for those opposed to Bush’s re-election in ‘92--when, rumor has it, the Mime Troupe may be back.