July 12, 2001
By Jean Schiffman
Among the al fresco summer shows, the San Francisco Mime Troupe came up with one of its
funniest spoofs yet, 1600 Transylvania Avenue. If nothing else good comes of the Bush presidency,
it will provide plenty of fodder for the irreverent Troupers, and playwrights Michael Gene Sullivan
(who also directed) and Ellen Callas don't miss a comic beat.
Parodying Dracula, 1600 presents an America ruled by all-powerful "corporate bloodsuckers" from deep
within their White House lair (superb comic actor Ed Holmes is an uncanny Cheney look-alike, and
Amos Glick nails a smug, malaprop-spouting buffoon of a president). Will idealistic inventor
Shamina Jones and intrepid Prof. Van Helsing (Velina Brown and Victor Toman, both spot-on) save
the country from the bloodsuckers' evil clutches?
|