Mime Troupe Seizes Time

Mime Troupe Seizes Time

DETROIT — Cold fresh breezes of incisive political analyzation have once again blown through muddied movement minds; the San Francisco Mime Troupe has returned. Not a cultural revolution, but the furthering of revolution in the form of culture seems to be their “most important product”.

The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a collective. Sharing experiences and bound together by a common ideology, Its members are free to perform various roles in tune with themselves and without the restrictions that individualist fame imposes. The heroine of the first act becomes chief carpenter when the stage is to be disassembled. All acts are preceded by the troupe forming a circle, forgetting the audience, and singing songs of liberation. This seems done more to re-establish the “rhythm” and togetherness of the group, than out of any attempt at “performance”. The collective is productive, together and totally without the elitism of superstars detached from the audience. Our group picked up on this right away and the troupe became no more a part of the performance than the audience itself. Therefore OUR movement brings us the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Fet us, the show, begin.

This year’s repetoire consists of a genuine turn of the century melodrama replete with handlebar mustaches and free-flowing capes plus a post-surreal documentary reflecting on issues demanding such immediate revolution that its well developed poignancy could only shatter the exposed emotions of this concerned participant/observer.

The Independent Female: Or Man Has His Pride deals with women’s lib. in a manner for which the mime troup has received well deserved fame. It is a simple political satire of the woman who must choose between the institutional man who will give her everything (including perpetual childhood) or a meaningful identity and the right to grapple with the threateningly alive problems of our time, i.e. independence. That satire can be such free-flowing, unexpurgated feet stomping teste-tickling FUN is refreshing to rediscover on a cold, grey winter evening for sombre grey movement minds. The issues raised in Independent Female are older than that custom of roasting tryrannosaurus (roasted by whom?) and only offers a reaffirmation of ideals that are clearly consistent with any movement of liberation. Its appeal lies mainly in the audience’s need to express their alignment with such ideals and temporarily dissolve their bleak awarenesses in the solvent of release; laughter. For this male reviewer, women’s lib. is made real, is personally relevant, in that the liberation of women from roles must also liberate men from all such preconceived notions of heavy hunter, insensitive provider and responsible warrior chief; those roles which man and his institutions consistently define as masculine. The liberaton of women becomes the liberation of men becomes the liberation of property becomes LIBERATION. But how do I relate to the Mime Troupe’s need to have males as heavies in the audience? My male guilt is no more useful to the women’s movement than white liberal guilt is to the Panthers. It may even be counterproductive. It appears that the Mime Troupe has not yet grappled with the fact that their audience is already made up of at least concerned and struggling movement members. The Panthers have gone far beyond this, playing on white liberal guilt; as early as ’68 they were calling for a realignment with white radicals and the formation of the White Panther Party. A flaw in the Mime Troupe’s production, and perhaps in the women’s lib. movement as well, is this exclusively female-oriented' rhetoric, leaving sympathetically concerned men with only their guilt and no room to relate to this essential aspect of our movement. What do I do with myself when women begin to chant, “Free our sisters, free ourselves!”?

Seize the Time is documentary in the most effective sense of the word. By presenting excerpts from the Chicago Conspiracy transcripts and Bobby Seale’s Seize the Time (book) in a painfully slow courtroom dialogue, the true surreal character of the government’s conspiracy stands out. Marshalls with white pistols and skull-like white masks only add to the eerie reality of Julius “Justice” Hoffman’s courtroom in a re-enactment of the gagging of Bobby Seale interspersed with various pig-Panther confrontations of the past. No humor here. Only a stark realism that manages to shatter all the barriers to awareness that we have constructed in order to survive and function. Once these awarenesses are in full bloom our emotions are unguarded, raw nerve endings in a sea of pain, to respond to this new famous saga of the roots of our revolution.

“7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER of black people.

8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.

9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group, or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.”

And once again, perhaps more poignantly than ever before, our open and nakedly exposed minds are told to “SEIZE THE TIME” . . . it’s the only time you got.