What Does Obscene Mime, Daddy?
By Peter Berg
July, 1966
"This group has a monumental reputation for productions
ridiculing the police, our city, our Government, religion and this
commission. I don't think the average voter wants this kind of thing
going on in the parks in front of their children."
There is simple reason for San Francisco's position as a culturally hip
city that has nothing to do with its civic 'cultural' establishment. Any
map will show it's a literally far-out place, a last stop for those
crawling to the far rim of the U. S. vacuum jar. Three choices are
apparent on arrival: fall into the Bay (bridge suicides are traditional
and appear as features in the city newspapers -- captioned by number),
take a long leap to another continent (Far East 'trips' are becoming
standard)k or balance with your back to the Pacific to survey the country
you've almost left from an amazingly clear vantage point. Since the
'50's', themes associated with these conditions have obviously applied to
the general state of American consciousness. Cool jazz, beat poetry and
the Eastern Rite of Zen-heads imploded in from San Francisco to
temporarily fill the now-what void of prosperous lethargy following the
Second World War. Now there is a crack of radical protest movements in art
and politics developing along the Berkeley-San Francisco axis that may
eventually run down the walls of the jar itself.
The City Fathers (a name for a rock group at San Quentin?) have
followed every vital development with an avid interest -- by jailing the
principals as quickly as possible. San Francisco has the distinction of
being first to arrest Lenny Bruce during a show, and the only city to
bring Ginsberg's "Howl" to trial. While the crust of American
popular culture is breaking apart with its strongest generational-social
revolution, the old men of San Francisco continue to sponsor Arthur
Fiedler in the park. And actively suppress any attempt to disturb their
Garden Of Hours.
The case of the S. F. Recreation and Park Commission versus the S. F.
Mime Troupe, a radical ("guerrilla") theatre group which
supports itself from donations collected after its free commedia
dell-arte shows in the city parks, has put the issue on center stage.
Not surprisingly, the case itself resembles a spectacular public commedia
dell'arte play that could be titled, 'Don't Mime on the Grass.' The
last-ditch appeal of John Conway, Jr., new vice-president of the
commission, signals like the righteous rhetoric of Il Dottore, a
stock commedia character for a 'traditional' finale in
establishment style. But commedia is the soul of caprice, a trick
lens that brings out strange shapes underlying the most ordinary actions,
and no one can predict the plot's final twist.
This piece has a simple enough theme -- does the Mime Troupe have the
right to perform free shows of its own choosing in the public parks. Commedia
uses masked characters though, and the length of the work (nearly two
years) with continuous scene-shifts from park to court has confused the
main action. What's the hassle, really? Has it been worth it? "I like
it, but is it Art?"
An explanation of the masked stock types. Il Dottore, a generic
part for windbag, currently played with guileless conviction by Mr.
Conway, Jr. has previously featured other actors -- perhaps adding to the
confusion of the uninitiated. Listen for the stern voice of a warden of
public morality, it is always Il Dottore. When Walter Haas, last
year's commission president, had the part he gave us an admirably pompous
reading. "Disgusting spectacle" he intoned, revoking the
Troupe's permit to perform an adaptation of Giordano Bruno's 16th century
classic, "Candelaio". Commission General Manager James Lang
filled in for Haas to have the Troupe's director arrested while performing
without the forbidden permit and testified that the play was "lewd
and vulgar". Dottore's original argument was the classic reductio
ad smut. The issue was plain. Dirt.
The role of Brighella, a nettlesome and unredeemable tough, has
been R. G. Davis' since his arrest in that part on August 6, 1965. [sic]
"Candelaio" provided slim evidence for bona fide
obscenity charges, Davis claimed, and the commission's action suppressed
the right of free speech by invoking prior censorship. Was this a typical Brighella
routine to evade the law? Honorable FirsGerald Ames (as plain Judge)
soberly considered Lang's complaint that "an actor turned his back to
the audience and simulated relieving his bladder." Brighella
got a 60-day suspended sentence.
The last act began in the spring of this year with two new
developments; the Mime Troupe applied for a permit to present an
adaptation of Moliere's "The Miser" under the old rules, and the
commission invented new rules. Non-profit organizations engaged in the
theatrical arts applying for permits to perform in city parks (the Mime
Troupe is the only group in San Francisco which fits this description)
were now required to present an advance summary of shows for review,
restricted to certain parts of only five isolated city parks (the Troupe
ad requested nine popular ones), forced to purchase $50,000, $25,000 and
$5,000 insurance and hire uniformed security guards for each performance.
It was Davis' turn to go to court, charging repression and harassment.
Next, a surprise. A new Judge, Joseph Karesh, thoroughly immunized
to doses of suspected obscenity by his experience with the city's topless
cases, reproved the commission for attempting censorship. Would the
commission please reconsider their plan of attack?
The next scene, an interlude in a vacant lot, was provided by the
premiere of the Troupe's "The Miser". Davis put the show on one
block from the first city park scheduled for the summer season because,
"The ACLU told us not to harass the commission."
Is the play dirty? "It concerns the supremacy of money in our social
values, and that's a real obscenity."
Judge Karesh took stage the following week to declare more surprises.
The Mime Troupe was being harassed by regulations that were not only
arbitrary but suggested an unconstitutional attempt to exercise
censorship. The commission was advised to reconsider all the new rules
with the exception of those governing parks in which the Troupe could
perform. (Watch out, Brighella.)
Dottore-Conway's final argument came at a commission meeting
called to consider Karesh's request. With amazing frankness he admitted,
"The heart of the matter is whether this commission has jurisdiction
over the content of performances put on in the city parks." Next came
the famous invocation to support the local police, revive civic pride,
patriotism and love of God so children could be protected from the Mime
Troupe. What happened to the obscenity bit? Conway's fellow commissioners
out-voted his proposal that a permit be denied the Troupe rather that
confront Judge Karesh a second time. Everyone seemed to forget how lewd,
disgusting and vulgar the Mime Troupe was supposed to be. Who'll protect
us if Brighella simulates relieving his bladder again, or worse?
The Mime Troupe has been allowed to perform for a few weeks while the
commission rewrites its rules for Judge Karesh's review. Will Brighella
have the last laugh? Dottore can still pick the parks, and commedia
is completely unpredictable. Comic cops may reappear on stage at any
moment.
Has it been worth it? Seldom has the use of obscenity charges to
suppress social criticism been shown so clearly. Public opinion turned
away from Berkeley's Free Speech Movement when on insignificant case was
puffed-up into a "Filthy Speech Movement". Lenny Bruce's social
commentary has been outlawed in most important American cities and some
foreign countries by harassment-arrests that labelled him a dirty-talking
dope-fiend. At this point the Mime Troupe's offense is
"ridicule", and unless Judge Karesh reconsiders we may have been
watching an important victory against defining as "obscene" any
challenge to the status quo.
[Located in the San Francisco Mime Troupe
Archives at the University of California at Davis, Shields Library,
Special Collections, Accession Number: D-61. Box 81, Folder 1.]
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