Mime Troup reclaim activist Christmas Carol for Working Class from corporatist revisionism
Oscar Grant Plaza 14th and Broadway
Oakland
You may have heard that the Mime Troupe is working on an
Occupy Wall Street inspired adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic story, "A Christmas Carol."
(The creation of this piece was the subject of a recent article in the Los Angeles Times.)
(See Below for article)
On Saturday, Christmas Eve, the San Francisco Mime Troupe
will have a free, public reading of this new adaptation at
Oscar Grant Plaza, downtown Oakland
at noon!
We realize this is very short notice, but we are inviting all our friends to come out, celebrate the season, show support for our brave comrades of OWS, and be part of our reclaiming Dickens' great activist story for the Working Class from the corporatists revisionists!
What the Dickens? Occupy protest inspires a new 'Christmas Carol'
Ebenezer Scrooge is a corporate banker, busy foreclosing on the hapless masses. Bob Cratchit and his beleaguered family live in a chilly tent in an anonymous Occupy encampment. The ghost of Christmas future sports a flowing black robe of taped-together trash bags and plastic sheeting. Tiny Tim dies.
At least that's how the San Francisco Mime Troupe's resident playwright, Michael Gene Sullivan, has re-imagined "A Christmas Carol" for the troubled 21st century.
Truth be told, it wasn't much of a stretch to place Charles Dickens' Victorian classic into today's Occupy world. And that, as Sullivan would be the first to tell you, is exactly the point. Dickens' novella was written in the heart of the "Hungry '40s," a time of labor unrest, unemployment and starvation across 19th century Europe. The gap between rich and poor was wide — and getting ever wider.
The Cratchits as depicted by Dickens "are an example of where most people actually are today," said Sullivan, who has spent the last 23 years with the Tony Award-winning theater group, which specializes in political satire and annoying the powerful.
Sullivan's dream is to stage a reading for a genuine Occupy audience. Unfortunately, ever since the playwright began trying to harness the classical tale for the modern protest movement, the police have moved faster than his muse.
The script is finished, and Sullivan is in the process of casting — not an easy task on short notice during the holidays, especially since Bob Cratchit has to play guitar and someone must be proficient on concertina.
And with Christmas coming, actual encampments are few and far between. Sullivan reached out to Oakland (shut down Oct. 25 and again on Nov. 14) and San Francisco (raided by authorities last week). On Wednesday, he got in touch with New York City's Working Theater for a possible reading at Occupy Wall Street, the movement's ground zero (dismantled before Thanksgiving).
He wanted to stage the show for Occupy members for many reasons, not the least of which was that hanging around in a drafty tent bearing witness to America's income inequality can get a little boring. And no matter how open-minded the Mime Troupe's audiences are, he said, "I'm sure a bunch of them have never been to an Occupy camp."