S.F. Troupe: The Last Angry Mimes

It’s another Sunday in Frances Willard Park, better known as Ho Chi Minh Park, site of violent Vietnam-era protests. The San Francisco Mime Troupe, world-renowned vagabond thespians who pack their stage, set and sound system in a truck, assembles to perform as riot police casually prepare for a nearby demonstration. Suddenly, a group of naked men and women, slathered in mud and grunting like gorillas, runs by.

When the mud people try to ascend the stage, they are chased away by the actors, who tote trunks and pull security duty when the need arises. “We thought you were progressives!” one naked man yells. He and his clan retreat, bellowing, “Bourgeois! Bourgeois! Bourgeois!” Truly, when this troupe gathers to perform, anything can happen.

Members have been arrested, banned from college campuses, run out of towns. The actors approach their commedia dell’arte melodrama like a guerrilla outfit, sniping at the Establishment from all sides.

For three decades now, the Mime Troupe--yes, the members talk, and often scream--has kept up the attack, picking up three Obies and a Tony while performing to audiences across the United States, Europe, Central America and the Middle East. Now the troupe is bringing its latest assault, “Social Work,” to the Ivar Theatre in Hollywood for a six-show run, Thursday-Sunday.

“Social Work” is a satire featuring an overworked and overwhelmed social worker who fantasizes about snuffing out those at the top of the food chain--corporate CEOs--and even includes a scene in which the “Lady in Red” chases President Bush around stage with a chain saw.

“We’re left-wingers, we’re radicals,” actor Ed Holmes says unabashedly. A meaty and festive fellow, Holmes, like his colleagues, takes questions head on. “We are not saying this show is the truth; this is just another perspective on the truth,” he says. “We attacked the Persian Gulf War (in 1991’s “Back to Normal”) as a big sham, and the polls said 91% of the country supported (the war). We represent the 9%. We wanted to take that show on the road, but people didn’t want to touch it.”

The anemic state of the economy, though, has made it increasingly difficult to take their firebrand message on the road to the masses. There are fewer venues outside the Bay Area because presenters around the country are seeing their arts budgets slashed.

Money problems are nothing new to the troupe, which has a $63,000 budget deficit. This year’s operating budget is about $725,000. Last winter, troupe members, who earn $300 to $375 a week, laid themselves off for four months.

“We’re struggling,” says director Dan Chumley, who joined the company in 1968. Basically, we’re broke all the time. But people like what they are doing. It’s not a job; it’s a life.”

The Mime Troupe began its hallmark free plays in the parks in 1962. Graham, the group’s original business manager, organized his first concerts to benefit the troupe, thus beginning his multimillion-dollar music promotion empire. Graham died in a helicopter accident last fall and the Mime Troupe has yet to request help from the promoter’s company.

Says playwright Joan Holden, a longtime Mime Troupe member: “You pay your most pressing bills, and hold everything else off. You tell people not to cash their paychecks until $2,000 comes in.”

“Politics is the glue that holds the company together,” says Bruce Barthol, former bass player for Country Joe and the Fish who is now the Mime Troupe’s chief composer and music director. “People are here because they want to deal with political issues and they have a sense of humor.”

The troupe has been accused of preaching to the converted: Any park performance in the Bay Area draws the granola and tie-dye crowd. Mime Troupe members agree, but say they act as cheerleaders for beleaguered activists and their ilk, and, on occasion, do perform in front of unsuspecting audiences anticipating a different kind of mime company. The troupe uses comedy to open minds to its political pitch. “We do angry plays,” Chumley explains. “Rich people have taken and kept. There is an anger in this country that was present before the French Revolution. I think the riots in L.A. show how angry people can get, and we are not afraid to talk about it.

“Joan (Holden) says she always writes the same story: The story of people finding the strength to keep going in the face of insurmountable odds,” he says.

“Social Work” incorporates two themes: A young black Republican is haunted by doubts after the Rodney G. King incident and a social worker seeks revenge against the rich. “Everybody is worried about welfare,” Holden says. “The poor are being blamed for our problems. They are seen as the reason the economy is bad. That’s what the Republicans are saying. They are all concerned about welfare crime, that someone steals $17 a month, but those same people cheat on their taxes every year, not to mention the corporations that cheat hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes.” In “Social Work,” the “wealthy” sing: “We’re rich folks, really rich folks. We’re the kind of people you’ll never be.” Meanwhile, a social worker bemoans “an ever shrinking Band-Aid trying to cover an ever expanding social wound.” During the Berkeley performance, several hundred people, young and old, cheer when Gov. Pete Wilson is pushed off a balcony by the “Lady in Red.”

The Mime Troupe’s dose of irreverent, in-your-face humor is too strong for some. “Not only do people not have money, but they are afraid,” says actor Holmes. “People have said, ‘We’d really like to have you back. But things are really conservative now.’ It’s the new McCarthyism. It’s McCarthyism Lite. It’s just like Pat Buchanan. We call him Hitler Lite.”