August 29, 2000 San Francisco Mime Troupe in City for Sale! A musical political satire about the crisis of unaffordable housing Summary Facts:
The country’s leading political theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe performs its latest hilarious comedy about an urgent issue of the day: this time, the current crisis of unaffordable housing. In City for Sale! on Thursday, October 5 at 8 p.m. in UCSB Campbell Hall, the Mime Troupe attacks big business interests that are creating a state-wide crisis through urban gentrification and planned redevelopment. In its usual manic—and far from silent—fashion, the Mime Troupe uses a creatively convoluted plot and pointed satire to reveal the effects of political events and corporate trends on the lives of ordinary individuals. As with all Mime Troupe productions, City for Sale! is performed to an original musical score, performed live on stage, that ranges from rock music parodies to corridos, gospel and samba. It is written by Mime Troupe veteran Joan Holden and her daughter/co-author Kate Chumley. In City for Sale!, a populist mayor elected on a platform of saving the city for its inhabitants is seduced by corporate plans to redevelop a neighborhood, which would result in the area becoming unaffordable for most of its eclectic, long-standing residents. Three musicians, an auto-body shop owner and a sculptor/mechanic/gardener, among others, are being ousted from their suddenly-chic homes to make way for Yuppie commuters to the Silicon Valley. When the residents make a vocal case against the changes, the mayor must contend with her social activist history and conscience. The San Diego Union-Tribune hailed the play for "the sheer wit of the writing and exuberant skill of the actors (which makes) for a hilarious, socially mordant romp." The play is performed in a typically protean, Mime Troupe-style set, a cubist collage of industrial and classical architecture that evokes both Yuppie decor and ancient notions of urban centers as hubs of civility. For 40 years, the San Francisco Mime Troupe has been performing, with dialogue and live music, in the style of commedia dell’arte—traditional 16th century Italian street theater that uses archetypal characters to convey moral messages. Its productions also incorporate such theatrical forms as melodrama, science-fiction, mystery, fantasy and the Broadway musical. The Troupe has brought outrageous political comedy to the people with free summer shows in San Francisco parks every year since 1962. It received a Tony Award for excellence in regional theater in 1987. It has also received eight Drama-Logue Awards and two Village Voice Obie Awards for Off-Broadway theater-one for "uniting theater and revolution and grooving in the parks." UCSB Arts & Lectures has presented the San Francisco Mime Troupe six times in the past: Damaged Care in 1998, 13 Dias/13 Days: How the New Zapatistas Shook the World in 1997, Escape to Cyberia in 1995, Offshore in 1993, Seeing Double in 1989 and Steeltown in 1984. Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, this residency is sponsored by The Santa Barbara Independent and is supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the California Arts Council, a state agency. For tickets or more information, Editor: For photos, please call |