"Theater makes us confront issues"

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Mime Troupe presents African spy thriller Eloise Chitmon, Edris Cooper, and Jesse Moore perform in the San Francisco Mime Troupe's "The Mozamgola Caper." The new comedy was inspired "by the similarity of U.S. policy in Nicaragua and front-line states in Africa," says co-author Joan Holden. "Mozamgola" plays at San Francisco's Thes Artaud through March 8 and moves to Cincinnati, Atlanta, and other cities in April. Call (415) 285.

belief that life is worth struggling Oskar Eustis: 18 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1987 About 90 people heard a panel discussion on the topic by five playwrights and directors. The opening presentations were followed by an "open mike" discussion in which other theater workers took part.

The panelists were Philip Bennett, artistic director, Bennett Theatre Lab; Oskar Eustis, dramaturge and resident director, Eureka Theatre; Joan Holden, playwright in residence, San Francisco Mime Troupe; Carol McCord, managing director, Oakland Ensemble Theatre; and Leland Moss, director of "The Aids Show" at Theatre Rhinoceros.

Below, we are printing major from the opening remarks given Holden and Oskar Eustis.

Art can inspire social action. I've had some solid proof. In the late '60s, from time to time, the Mime Troupe used to get draft cards when we passed the hat in the parks.

We get letters: "I thought you would like to know that after we saw your play 'Electro Bucks,' we organized a small local of electronic workers in our plant in Oregon." That kind of response.

But in our society, art more often sustains action than inspires it directly. The cases in which a play can point to a direct action to take-to vote or to occupy the student union, for example-are relatively few. But the ability of theater to rekindle people's energy to renew hope, to combat social amnesia, and to be a joyful example of struggle is always there.

We always hear that we're living in an age of apathy. I don't think it's apathy so much as fear. Theater has marvelous means to make people look at horrible truths. If theater does that with joy and talent and art, it makes them not so fearful. When people see other people confronting these issues straight on, they can do it themselves.

We got a "fan letter" recently that said: "With all the images of death that are constantly thrust on us by society in the mass media, your plays present us with images of life.' I go to plays because I expect to see some kind of image of my life, to learn something about my life, to see it reflected by people who have thought about it and who can present it artistically.

People often go to Mime Troupe plays like they might go to church. They are looking for something different, I expect, than a " great artistic experience." There's some kind of affirmation, of ritual exchange going on.

In the death culture that we live in, any play in which life is of value encourages people to resist the forces of destruction. I think that's true of plays that are vastly different from the kind of plays that I do.

I happen to be a political propagandist, and I will argue for hours with any one that says that propaganda can't be art...Shakespeare wrote propaganda.

But other people have different visions. They don't write about the day's news, and yet the images they present about the life we live are important for people to see. The way that their plays value life affirms Boston Socialist Action P.O. Box 1046 GMF Boston, MA 02205 (617) 391-7087 Chicago Socialist Box 80B, 2520 N. Lincoln Chicago, IL 60614 Cincinnati Socialist P.O. Box 37029 Cincinnati, OH 45222 (513) 272-2596 Cleveland Socialist P.O. Box 6151 Cleveland, OH 44101 (216) 429-2167 excerpts by Joan Detroit socialist ActIon P.O. Box 19613 Detroit, MI 48219 Grand Rapids Socialist Action P.O. Box 3505 Grand Rapids, MI 49501 Los Angeles Soc P.O. Box 60605 Terminal Annex Los Angeles, CA 90060 (213) 250-4608 Minneapolis Socialist P.O. Box 14087 Dinkeytown Station Minneapolis, MN 55414 for more information.

people's for.

Traditionally, the social responsibility of the artist is not at question. The classic view is that all good art is "pleasant and useful." Or that it "holds a mirror to society." Just like you need to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, for some reason we need to see our lives mirrored on the stage or in the movies.

We're looking for reflections. And I think that all plays which reflect reality and value life sustain social action in that they combat despair.

Theater is one of the few forums that we have left. It's one of the few places where strangers are brought together by a live experience. It can be a powerful inspiration.

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New York, NY 10025 Phoenix Socialist Action P.O. Box 5161 Phoenix, AZ 85010 (602) 263-5190 San Francisco Socialist Action 3435 Army St., Suite 308 San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 821-0458 What we do at The Eureka Theatre is obviously quite different than what the San Francisco Mime Troupe does. I often think that we are afforded a blessing and a luxury by the fact that we are in a city where the Mime Troupe exists-with its almost reckless optimism and its faith in change in the audience and change in this country.

In every different social setting, theater serves very different roles. I think that the first responsibility of any theater artist is to ascertain who their audience is and what impact they can actually have on that audience.

We are operating under a kind of tension. We at The Eureka Theatre definitely consider ourselves a left theater. At the same time, we exist within a very bourgeois context. We are a regional repertory theater—we perform six plays a in year, we sell subscriptions, we put out nice glossy brochures-all the kinds of things that a bourgeois theater does.

Within our community, we are trying to raise certain kinds of questions with plays. All of the productions that we do that are most successful are productions that focus on a certain kind of questioning process.

They are not didactic in the sense of trying to convey or teach information. Joan used the word " reflection." What I think our theater can do is a process of reflecting our society and the personal lives of the people in the audience. We can then allow people to reflect upon their own personal and social choices and, hopefully, come to a higher level of struggle.

A concrete example was in a play we performed, Carol Churchill's "Top Girls." The play was addressed to an audience that is already consciously feminist. The question was, "Is it possible to be a feminist without being a socialist?"

Now, that play I am particularly pleased about because I think it directed a question to our audience that was geared to precisely who our audience is. I think that the great majority of our audience would describe themselves as sympathetic to the basic goals of feminism. So, we've got the starting point for a dialogue.

A play that didn't work, however, was a play "Neither Fish nor Fowl," which I translated from the German. It was about the printers and the labor movement. In Christine Taccone Germany it was an enormous success. Here, we got a lot of union members down to our production, but almost exclusively from among the printers' trade.

The play was asking a question that was not posed on the agenda of the American labor movement as precisely as it is before the German movement. The question was—given the increasing automation and resulting decline in the quality of work, can the workers movement take up questions beyond wages and simple economic demands?

One of the rocky roads that we are now engaged upon is the process of trying to get away from our dependency upon British and German plays, which are the products of considerably more developed theatrical, cultural, and political movements than in this country. We have made a conscious attempt to try to develop and work with American writers, of which there are all too few.

We are also trying to create a role for ourselves within the American regional theater movement. Within that field, we are trying to establish ourselves as a voice on the left.

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TELEVISION REVIEW Revolution- with totalitarianism and Stalinism.

In one scene, the townspeople of Milford, Neb., turn away in disgust as the banner of Lenin is paraded through town. The message is unmistakable: Lenin and the advocates of socialism are responsible for thoughtcontrol, forced confessions, and concentration camps.

This message of "socialism equals Stalinism," is, of

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