Network to host SF Mime Troupe's 'Steeltown, U.S.A.'

Network to host SF Mime Troupe's 'Steeltown, U.S.A.'

By HARMEN MITCHELL

NEWS ARTS WRITER

Without waving the flag or turning into Phil Donahue, it’s nice to think that we live in the sort of country where the most ideologically fervent guerillas with the most advanced weaponry are the writers and artists.

And, this week, we are going to see a prime example right here in Ann Arbor.

On Wednesday night, the Performance Network will host a performance at the Michigan Theater by the internationally renowned San Francisco Mime Troupe.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the San

Francisco Mime Troupe is touring the Midwest with “Steeltown, U.S.A.,” described as a “musical comedy” that is a “musical look at plant closures and the de-industrialization of America.”

For those not familiar with the SFMT, any skeletal explanation can hardly clarify the situation. But, amid the festival of contradictions in the makeup of this radical institution, comes admiration for the group’s tenacious grip on its principles and art.

The biggest challenge came earlier this year when the group applied for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Risking charges that it might be. unwilling to bite the hand that feeds it, the SFMT will receive its first grant in 1986.

“Steeltown, U.S.A.,” for all its apparent brashness, is probably the group’s most subtle work, with a structure rather unorthodox even by its own standards.

"Steeltown, U.S.A,” for all its apparent brashness, is probably the group’s most subtle work. It begins in the present, then switches back to 1945, as one of the main characters, a steel worker, returns from World War II to find Annabelle working in a steel mill.

The Performance Network presents the San Francisco Mime Troupe in Steeltown, USA.' at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Michigan Theater, 603 E. Liberty St. Tickets are S3.50-S12.50 at the Michigan Theater box office. For more information, call 668-8480.

The people of 'Steeltown' look to the future.