No, not that kind of mime.
On Sept. 3, Bakersfield was host to a group of actors, The San Francisco
Mime Troupe. This was their first performance in town. This year
they are celebrating their 50th anniversary.
They have a regular summer schedule, consisting of about a fifty-mile
radius around the bay. The Troupe also travels internationally, performing
in Mexico, Nicaragua and Israel. They are a nonprofit organization
funded mainly by government grants and “hat” donations, after show
collections from the audience. According to Jenee Gill, the troupe’s general
manager, “there is no corporate funding.” This year’s production
was titled “Too Big To Fail.”
According to Gill, “The San Francisco Mime troupe was founded in
1959 by R.G. Davis. It grew out of the beat movement, and soon picked
up speed when the counter culture movement began.” Forming in the
cradle of California’s artistic movement at the time, San Francisco was
ripe with cultural and political change in the late fifties and early sixties.
Davis needed an outlet to display his growing theatrical ideas and created
the Troupe. The first few seasons were indeed the mimes most are
all familiar with. However by 1961 they changed to a format of farce
they continue with today, a farce of the newest issues facing our society
for free in local parks.
The stage was small and constructed and put together by the actors.
The set consisted of African motifs made of straw and a single doorway
set higher than the main area opening to the audience. A three-piece band
was located to the left of the stage. Their instruments included guitars,
drums, flute, ukuleles, keyboards and even some authentic African instruments
including a calabash, kalimba and a banjo.
After the Troupe had warmed and the pre-show was about to begin, a
crowd of about 45 were laying claim to a spot in the summer grass. Bakersfield
College’s own professor of theatrical arts Kim Chin was there
along with several of her students. When the pre-show music began, the
three-piece band started playing contemporary popular music like The
Police, “Spirits in A Material World,” songs with complex Arabic scales
on guitar and funky bass driven songs.
When the show began a man dressed in African garb, calling himself
the storyteller, told the tale of a lion and his kingdom needing to eat,
how the animals could not help themselves and the lion would feed them
at the price that he never shall go hungry. The lion had depleted all of
the food hunting and so began eating the animals. The animals rose up
against the lion and ate him. The storyteller involved the audience by
prompting them to be the crowd of animals chanting, “Help us for we
cannot help ourselves!” And then as they overthrew the lion, “We can
help ourselves!” He then told of the story that would unfold, “Too Big
To Fail.” At the end of the production the storyteller tied in that first old
African folk tale that he recanted and that made all the difference.
With an ensemble consisting of various age ranges, from early twenties
to mid sixties, and also being the artistic directors collectively, it
offered a different kind of entertainment for Bakersfield.