The San Francisco Mime Troupe always needs a villain — it does political theater — and for the past eight years it’s been able to skewer the low-hanging fruit of the Bush administration. This year, with Obama’s dice still rolling madly and the Republicans satirizing themselves off a cliff, the troupe has turned to the economic collapse, dipping into a morass of cheap loans, credit default swaps, debt, privatization, collateral, rampant spending, bubbles, dividends, greed, and, we pray, Jim Cramer, all told from the perspective of an African man and his humble asset (one goat). The troupe’s new show, Too Big to Fail, concerns the financial turmoil of Filije, a newlywed in Africa, who borrows money against his goat from a demon bitch of Wall Street, at a nice little teaser rate. He loses his goat. He wants it back. Go ahead, substitute “home” for “goat.” If you’ve lost either, it’s okay to cry at the funny parts. The play premieres today in a park, then hits more than 30 others around the Bay Area and beyond through the summer.
July 4-5, 2 p.m., 2009
