1975: Power Play

Did you know that the electricity sold by PG&E legally belongs to the city of San Francisco? The San Francisco Mime Troupe tells this and a lot more most San Franciscans don't know about our "public" utility in Power Play, a comic science fiction musical melodrama about the history of PG&E and the future of nuclear power. Power Play transforms several months of research -much of it supplied by the Bay Guardian- into half an hour of fast-paced comedy. This one casts light into such dark corners of local history as the controversy over the construction of Hetch-Hetchy dam, the congressional compromise requiring public ownership of Hetch-Hetchy power and the deals that got PG&E the power in spite of the law, and explores the near-certain consequences of the government's -and the energy industry's- current policy of proliferating nuclear power plants.

Five actors play nine parts in this quick-changing intermillenial adventure, as a time traveler and an outraged conservationist take on a succession of greedy capitalists, mad scientists, and corrupt politicians.