Once again, the Tony Award-Winning San Francisco Mime Troupe is bringing their season performance to the Ukiah High School Cafetorium on Thursday, July 30.
The Troupe’s 67th Season is entitled Wreckage: A Musical Tragicomedy. The show is written by Michael Gene Sullivan, with music and lyrics by Daniel Savio, directed by Lisa Hori-Garcia and music direction by Daniel Savio and Will Durkee,
Michael Gene Sullivan is a resident playwright, actor, and a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe (SFMT), as well as a board member. He has performed in, written, co-written, and directed over 35 plays for the Troupe.
Sullivan has performed with all four of the Bay Area’s Tony Award-winning theaters: SFMT, American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, and Theatreworks, and has also performed, directed, or written plays for SF Playhouse, California Shakespeare Theater, Denver Center Theatre Company, Marin Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre Co., Magic Theatre, TheatreFirst, Lorraine Hansberry Theater, African American Shakespeare Company, Marin Shakespeare Company, and the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Sullivan is also the author of the nationally and internationally produced stage adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984, as well as his critically-acclaimed The Great Khan. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for theatre, a Djerassi Center Artist Fellowship, and the International Prize of Hope. He is a member of the Dramatist Guild, and an alumnus of the nationally acclaimed Playwright’s Foundation.
Sullivan is the recipient of the Charles Dean Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting and Dedication to Bay Area Theater, The San Francisco Chronicle Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting, The Israel Baran Award for Playwriting, The Bay Guardian’s Upstage/Downstage Award, the Dean Goodman Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting, the Sacramento Area Regional Theatre Award for Best Direction and the Stanford University’s Media Equity Award. Theatre Bay Area describes him as one of the region’s “stellar theatre artists, supporters and champions that have changed the face of Bay Area theatre.”
Wreckage begins with a question: “Is it just us, or does it feel like everything is falling apart?” The tale opens with Mari, a flower seller barely managing to survive in an increasingly unaffordable city. Mari is being forced to share her street corner with Felicity, an evangelical believer torn between joyfully anticipating the Rapture and the discrepancies she’s found in her church’s accounting.
Meanwhile, Bobbie, a successful software developer, begins to realize that his new AI agent is far from intelligent. Does he tell his bosses at “Anthropomorphic” the dangerous truth or deliver a world-endangering product that will boost the company’s stock? These conflicts build while Lance- a patriotic, immigrant National Guard member is deployed against protesters who are exercising the very freedom of speech he joined the military to defend.
Hallucinating robots, economic collapse, protesting frogs, people praying for the End of the World- the players ask the audience to contemplate if this is the democracy we were promised, followed by a second question: when it’s all over, will there be enough left to build something new out of this “wreckage?” The UDJ enjoyed an exclusive, wide-ranging conversation with Sullivan.
“Theatre is the town square for people to analyze issues. Live theatre, performed in a small community, provides two hours that validate that you’re not crazy,” he smiles. “The point of all our plays is to analyze the issues in the community, and look around, see your neighbors and friends and realize you are not alone.”
Keeping the torch of political, satirical theatre alive has been the raison d’être for Sullivan and troupe members.
“It’s a lot. People say during these times, it must be so easy to come up with stories, but it’s quite the opposite. In sketch comedy, it’s easy to be sarcastic or sardonic. Making fun of an event is easy- but when you’re trying to present an analysis while entertaining, you have to step back and present something a little more objective- something that has a philosophical and psychological take. We put all that together in a set of seemingly disparate elements. Our plays take a lot of research. I watch the news every day for hours. I read articles and interviews from around the world. To write a really compelling play, I have to absorb it all.”
The stories told by the troupe are always stories about relatable people, and usually their lives bump together in a surprising way- allowing for the possibility of transformation. Music, humor, and humanity are the underpinnings of every SFMT show.
“I try to find stories highlighting different aspects of working-class people that may not overlap. Telling multiple stories about different people allows the audience to say, ‘Hey, that guy is me, that guy is my uncle,’ and hopefully, come to the conclusion that we’re all in this together.”
The underpinnings of Wreckage lie in the concept that the populous has been fooled or fooled themselves.
“There are people in our world purposely trying to make everything in our experience so confusing and chaotic, while they’re insisting this is truth. They ‘flood the zone’ with so much cognitive dissonance, it makes people question their opinions.”
“We’ve landed here. How do we accept the situation we’re in so we can change it? What about yourself do you hold onto or let go of? What assumptions have you made? For example, there are things we’ve accepted as standard ways to serve our country. One character thought he was serving the state. Now he’s policing his own community. Is that why he joined? My job is to make their stories into a form of satirical analysis. We don’t blame anyone. But we do suggest that you’ve been fooled by some of the most powerful con men in Western history. The trick with our shows is to depict normal citizens who come together in unusual situations and have a cathartic experience. We never make fun of them or their situations.”
Sullivan continues to find inspiration in the famous Charlie Chaplin film, Modern Times. “When you’re writing political plays, you take a person and expose them to the machine- whether the machine is militarism, the economy, or something else. Now they’re grinding in the gears. What do they do? Do they become part of the machine? Do they get ground up? Do they leave the machine? Do they change it, reject it, adapt or die? The comedy comes in as people are adapting or trying to find their way out.”
SFMT shows don’t have villains. “In our shows, the villain is the system- the machine. When you reduce that to a single person, it’s easier for the audience not to see their own culpability.”
Needless to say, Sullivan is not a fan of President Trump. But the play is not about political parties. “Trump is the peak- the most corrupt, most inane, profit-driven, perfect American leader for what we’ve created. He’s a symptom of the real American sense of exceptionalism- the racism, sexism, and homophobia. Someone can be living in a shack on the side of a road during the midst of a tornado, but the most important thing they feel is that they are Americans. And they’ve been told that to share this exceptionalism degrades it. Because of that threat, they emphatically need people to be beneath them. That’s where we’ve gotten with our democracy. Oligarchs convince enough Americans they’re being oppressed by those of non-European descent. The rich are oppressed by the working class. Men are oppressed by women. The cognitive dissonance foisted upon us is so loud we can’t tell truth from lies. Our job is to tell the audience they are trying to drive you crazy.”
But Sullivan’s political critique is not exclusive to the right. “There is a sea change taking place. People in Democratic leadership are scared of people on the left. A lot of these leaders grew up and came to political maturity when people were being smeared as a Red, as a Communist, and encouraged to turn in your friends. Today, especially young people are saying, ‘So what? I’m a socialist.’ The Democratic conservative leadership doesn’t know how to handle it. I understand the Democrats’ effort to be a big-tent party. Democrats have always been a party of compromise. Farmers and industrial workers equal the hammer and sickle- but no one wants to go there,” he smiles.
“Republicans just lie. They promise three cars in every garage, the best health care anywhere. Democrats are stuck with trying to tell the truth, but they end up mealy-mouthed. Our economy is completely dominated by government spending. Money is directed to the market rather than serving the people. We could develop affordable electric cars, but we don’t dare get in Detroit’s way. There’s plenty of money to fund health care and schools, but capitalist middlemen are the choke point in serving the people.”
People have urged Sullivan to run for office, but he’s not interested. “If I had a ton of money, I’d find someone more qualified. I don’t know how to craft laws. Up until 80 years ago, most lawmakers were lawyers. There’s been an idea that lawyers are the problem, but businesspeople don’t know a damn thing about making laws. Government is a not-for-profit, service organization. But instead, businesspeople’s entire motivation is to make a profit. That is the wrong psychology. I would want people much more qualified than me, try to find people passionate about learning everything they can about minutiae, regulations, how to inspire people, and have the bravery to say what they actually believe. And I’d still make fun of them,” he smiles.
“I have a YouTube channel where I talk about politics. I define terms and put them in a historical context, relating things to where we are now. For example, the word revolution comes from the word revolve- meaning things going from top to bottom, bottom to top. That’s why the rich are never revolutionaries. People try to pitch coups as revolutions. But they can never be revolutions,” he concludes.
Music begins at 6:30 p.m., with the play starting at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are free, but the Troupe appreciates donations of any amount, with a suggested donation of $20. RSVP: sfmt.org/rsvp-ukiah