Billionaires of the world, unite!

The San Francisco Mime Troupe has been comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable since long before the Occupy movement made it fashionable to rail against the 1 percent. But there's no denying that the shift in pop culture toward questions of economic justice has given their latest lampoon a great deal of traction.

In "For the Greater Good, or the Last Election," writer-director Michael Gene Sullivan spoofs Dion Boucicault's 1857 melodrama "The Poor of New York" in a heroic tale of put-upon plutocrats who just want to count their zillions in peace. In this scathing satire of a culture that lionizes the rich, a fat cat banker not only succeeds in bilking a war hero of his nest egg but is actually lauded for it. Elections are bought, innocents slain and the free market worshipped above all else.

In the Mime Troupe's latest biting lampoon, performed free in various Bay Area parks through Sept. 3, it's the 99 percent, who are to blame for the world's suffering. Only by sacrificing everything they have can the poor become worthy of serving their betters.

After all, as the playwright sees it, that's pretty much the view of the world one gets from the average Fox News broadcast. As is always the case with this Tony-winning band of left-wing rabble rousers, politics is the thing. Subtlety? Not so much. If you don't already agree with their point of view, which is part Groucho, part Karl but all Marx, then the play will do little to convince you.

Indeed this Bay Area institution has often been knocked for preaching to the converted but perhaps that's the point of "For the Greater Good." At Wednesday night's performance in Redwood City, the audience happily booed and hissed from first Reagan joke to the last Dick Cheney punchline. Shoutouts to the evils of Ayn Rand and trickle down economics drew rapturous applause.

Exuberant performances more than make up for some awkwardly stitched parts of the text. Ed Holmes has such fiendish fun as the Wall Street titan Gideon Bloodgood and Velina Brown is so touching as Lucy, the naive daughter of the veteran he cheats, Capt. Algood Fairweather (also Brown), that the less effective parts of the narrative hardly matter.

Gideon loathes everything about liberals, from affirmative action to lentils but there's no one he despises so deeply as the leader of the Occupy movement Damian Landless (Reggie D. White plays the role with gusto). He's a caped villain with an evil cackle, crafting a sinister plot to empower the people. Gasp!

In this topsy-turvy world, Bloodgood is a hero of Shatnerian proportions (Holmes' stentorian delivery is priceless). Landless is a scoundrel worthy of mustache-swirling, not to mention an unemployed drama teacher. And hippies conspire to taint all that is American, especially baked goods. In the last Occupy encampment, vegan cookies are baked over fire pits amid drum circles.

Unfortunately, there are times when the narrative gets a bit muddled, the pace sags and not all of the songs rock as hard as the soulful ballad "Take Back America."

But there's no denying the riotous sense of empowerment in this tribute to our democracy, in all its frailties. Political musical satire has rarely been so infectiously patriotic. Too bad it's only summer because "The Last Election" really makes you want to get out there and rock the vote.