7thriv

San Francisco likes to revel in its self-proclaimed rep as a hotbed of cutting edge, avant-garde art. So, it's funny how many of SF's leading lights are decades-old institutions, with the Sixties the decade to which many trace their origins. Now, the SF Mime Troop - an agit-prop satirical theater group with an undeserved reputation for humor and political insight is celebrating its 50th - yes, 50th - anniversary. That's 50 years of cursing, giant puppet heads, and screeching diatribes about NixonReaganLimbaughGingrichBushPalin. SF Mime Troupe Turns 50

Few American performance companies can boast such longevity, let alone small troupes with no endowment. Who would've thought that an avant-garde arts experiment would become one of the nation's best-known companies within its first decade? That it would launch careers as diverse as those of Peter Coyote, Shabaka and Bill Graham? That a gritty anti-establishment troupe would win a Tony award? Or that mimes could be this vocal?

Actually, the Mime Troupe has hardly ever been silent. From the first performance in 1959 of what was then the R.G. Davis Mime Studio and Troupe - "Mime and Words" - founder Davis tried to signal a distinction between his work and silent mimes like Marcel Marceau. Davis, who studied with Marceau's teacher Étienne Decroux, worked with physically based, or mimetic, acting. Through decades of performing commedia dell'arte and original musicals in the parks, the Mime Troupe has made lots of noise.

It's also changed considerably over the years. Davis' Mime Troupe embodied the progressive turbulence of the '60s, spreading its cultural and political influence on tour. Davis left in 1970 and the company became a collective, as it still is. The troupe of the next three decades, though it continued to tour and mount indoor shows until funding dried up, is best known for its rousing park shows by Holden, director Dan Chumley and composer Bruce Barthol. The 21st century Troupe, exemplified by actor-playwright Michael Gene Sullivan and actors Ed Holmes and Velina Brown, keeps up the struggle to sharpen the collective's message through its summer shows.

"I think the Mime Troupe's job has always been to challenge the accepted stories of American-style capitalism," Sullivan says, taking a break from rehearsals for the customary Fourth of July opening in Dolores Park. The new musical, "Too Big to Fail," focuses on the national addiction to credit, using fables told by a traditional African storyteller to explore "an economy that needs us to be indebted consumers

No one goes to see the Mime Troupe to be enlightened. They just want to see their progressive politics affirmed. Another 50 years should be no problem.