While most well-informed people who attend "Doing Good" won't find this account of international capitalism's shameless exploitation of poor countries surprising, its depiction of how easily youthful idealism can be corrupted - a process that is then rationalized by rhetoric about assisting people to be self-reliant - may prove disturbing.
"Doing Good" describes the progression from altruistic young Peace Corpsman to cynical huckster for projects benefiting America's multinational corporations
Mime Troupe does good job taking on capitalism, do-gooders
Charles Brousse
Caption: "Doing Good" which opened Saturday and plays through today in Dolores Park, is the most ambitious and riskiest new piece the company has put up in many years. Chronicle photo by Adam Traum
Since it has been presenting summer seasons of free shows in public venues around the Bay Area and adjacent regions for more than three decades, most people probably know that the San Francisco Mime Troupe isn't your usual standard brand acting company. It's an entirely different breed of theatrical animal, whose relationship to, say the Ross Valley Players roughly resembles that of a coyote to domesticated canines.
Its latest venture, "Doing Good," which debuted Sunday in San Francisco's Dolores Park, will visit Mill Valley's Community Center on Thursday, and the Bolinas Community Center on Aug. 11. If you're a Mime Troupe groupie, you're in for a treat because this is one of the collective's best shows in years. If you've never attended, be prepared for an enlightening, possibly confusing, almost certainly entertaining experience.
Like political street theater all over the world, the Mime Troupe's mission is to get its message across. Instead of the usual theatrical values - carefully constructed scripts by leading writers, nuanced acting, artfully designed sets and costumes - it offers a free-wheeling, semi-improvised presentational style that is in keeping with its informal outdoor performance spaces. That approach also meets the needs of audiences who are more interested in the message's content, and impressed by the messenger's energy and passion, than in any aesthetic refinements.
And yet, the danger is always present that if production elements are too vestigial, content too muddled or too didactic, performances too sloppy, or - horrors! - an inadequate sound system breaks down, that all-important message can be lost. It's a conundrum the Mime Troupe has faced since it began operations under that name in 1961. Since then, the record has been decidedly uneven, with some years being strong enough to warrant the company's pride in receiving a Tony Award for Excellence in Regional Theater, while others came close to being an embarrassment.
Helped along by a reasonably coherent script that was stitched together by a quartet of writers (Kiki Shimosato, Jeffrey Morris, Ellen Callas and Erin Blackwell) from a scenario by Don Chumley and longtime resident playwright Joan Holden, a trio of excellent songs in the Brechtian style (lyrics by Bruce Barthol and Amos Glick), and a riveting dance sequence staged by I Made Moja, "Doing Good" is among the group's more effective recent outings. Though still far from what it could be (and may become as the versatile ensemble gains confidence over the next few months), the production is already strong enough to fully engage anyone who is concerned about the direction of American foreign policy and willing to discard conventional preconceptions about what theater ought to look like.
Instead of following the Mime Troupe's normal practice of developing a completely original script, Chumley and Holden have given the project welcome structure by basing their concept on John Perkins' memoir, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man." The book describes the author's progression from altruistic young Peace Corpsman to cynical huckster for projects benefiting America's multinational corporations. In the process of adapting it for the stage, characters' names were changed and narrative sequences altered, but the general outline remains intact.
Fresh out of college in 1968, James (Noah James Butler) and his girlfriend Molly (Lisa Hori-Garcia) are at loose ends about what to do with their lives. At the suggestion of her Uncle Ray (Michael Gene Sullivan) and to avoid being sent to Vietnam, James marries Molly and the two enlist in the Peace Corps. Their first posting is in Ecuador, where they immediately are introduced to the plight of dirt poor farmers whose small plots are being taken over by wealthy elites competing to cash in on the gathering scramble for oil rights. To get these potential troublemakers out of the way, they are transferred to Indonesia, just in time to participate in the events that led to Gen. Suharto's military coup. Molly helps coordinate a breast-feeding initiative sponsored by UNICEF but, becoming increasingly jaded, she soon abandons both job and marriage for a series of cushy jobs in the States.
Meanwhile, James considerably upgrades his pay packet by joining an economic development company called Games Corp. (think Bechtel), which teams with the American-sponsored World Bank and IMF to convince Third World countries like Iran and Afghanistan that they should incur massive debt for infrastructure projects they don't need, but which create immense profits for American multinationals. He quickly learns the tricks of the trade, from bribery to arm-twisting, until the inevitable payback occurs.
While most well-informed people who attend "Doing Good" won't find this account of international capitalism's shameless exploitation of poor countries surprising, its depiction of how easily youthful idealism can be corrupted - a process that is then rationalized by rhetoric about assisting people to be self-reliant - may prove disturbing. Which is, of course, exactly the Mime Troupe's intent.
