As summer comes to a close, so does the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s 2023 season of free live performances of its scathingly scintillating production of BREAKDOWN. This year, you can also enjoy it as VOD here through 9/4, password PowerToThePeople!, yes the exclamation point is part of the password).
Every year the Troupe takes on one issue, in this case homelessness and how mainstream media (read Fox News) exploits it for ratings, and refracts it as a musical comedy through the lens of radical social justice. The result is a formidable indictment of the status quo that is, nonetheless, a truly invigorating experience. (Last three live performances schedule here,)
In BREAKDOWN, we have ambitious reporter Marcia Stone (Jamella Cross) attempting to climb the on-air ladder at Fox News by finding the story that will confirm the worst fears of its viewers about the left in general, and the homeless in particular. Where better to go than San Francisco, a city? And where better to find her story than the Tenderloin? There she encounters much less dystopia than she expected, forcing her to stage the social breakdown her viewers expect.
It’s an easy target, especially with Fox on the decline, its viewers abandoning it for the far more right-wing (can you say Fascist?) alternatives, but as a symbol it could not be better, nor could Andre Amarotico as the impishly mercurial (and amorally venal) owner of Fox, Rupert Murdoch. In Amarotico’s hands, Murdoch truly is the symptom of everything wrong with mainstream media, transgressing all decency with a chewy Australian accent and the attention span of a flea. He, and all he represents, deserve broad strokes with which he is depicted.
A more tempered approach is taken with those in the Tenderloin, and the dedicated social worker, Saida (Alicia M.P. Nelson) who fights red-tape, underfunding, and apathy to help them. It’s a passionate performance tinged with the right amount of chipper world-weariness. As her latest client, Yume, an unhoused (the term espoused here) woman troubled by hallucinations and a fear of any government agency trying to help her, Kina Kantor is formidable and heartbreaking. As her fellow street dweller, Felix (Jed Parsario) has a sparkling bravado as an unstoppable kid brimming with ideas to get him out of poverty.
As with all productions, the cast plays multiple roles in a impressive quick-change extravaganza. Nelson doubles as a newly unhoused woman discovering the hard way that the system isn’t designed to help. Cross switched between a hard-bitten journalist repudiating her working-class African-American roots to Saida’s ditzy social media influencer roommate, while Parsario essays Saida’s other roommate, a freelance DJ, as well as her harried boss. Amarotico morphs into the kindly, aged Greek owner of a Tenderloin store in whose doorway Yume sleeps. It’s a transformation that retains Amarotico’s sparkle as he spouts old Greek sayings and bemoans the changes in his close-knit neighborhood.
The music is rousing, and the songs become revealing soliloquies dripping with irony. Irony is rife, but it doesn’t preclude the whimsy used by playwrights, veteran Michael Gene Sullivan and newcomer Marie Cartier, a longtime member of the Troupe and also a social worker (interview with her here). The salient points made throughout are, as usual, designed to challenge the audience out of its complacency. For every line like the one pointing out that while San Francisco is a progressive city run by a conservative government, there are surprising insights that give much-needed reality checks about under-reported issues designed to combat the sin of complaisance.
BREAKDOWN’s final performances are this Labor Day Weekend. Here is the schedule. Don’t miss the chance to see a theater piece that obeys Aristotle’s dictum to both delight and enlighten.
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