Silence Speaks

Snap Studios. You know, no one would be shocked to learn that I love fantasy. I love how modern fantasy reimagines history, like George R R Martin's Game of Thrones. He was loosely, very loosely modeled on the English War of the Roses, which was cool. And the one thing that carried over from the history to the fantasy is the part of the fool. The gesture, the clown, the joker, in Game of Thrones, the closest we get to this ancient role is Tyrion Lannister. No, officially he's no gesture. He's a lord, a Lannister. Hand of the king, but look at him. Drunk. The one everyone underestimates. The only one with the freedom to say the quiet part out loud and only get a goblet of wine in the face for his trouble. The only one licensed to tell the truth. Because if anyone else says to the king, your war is failing. The peasants can't afford eggs. Your queen is sleeping with the bodyguard. Well then it's off with your head. Kill the messenger. But one person who can say what's actually happening has to be the joker. Because he's just playing, right? Just having fun. He can say whatever he wants until he can. Then it's off with his head too. And today on Snap Judgment, bad news because our joker stumbles across the line. And he does it without saying one word. Snap Judgment probably presents silence speaks. My name is Glen Washington. Silence is a virtue. But I don't have. When you're listening to Snap Judgment. Snap. Now, this should not be, but a lot of people in the US are familiar with this story, right? Black men with black windows coming from the street area into courtyard. They take this person from building. That's Gregory telling Snap producer John Fasil about how authorities drag his neighbor away in the middle of the night. They brought him into his van, their van, and they just appeared. That's it. Was it a man? Man. Yes, man. No, no, salad. Salad. Never can forget that. That was 1951 about 1951, 1952. That was Stalin. Stalin. Back up. Back up. Back up. Back up. Since he left the Soviet Union five decades ago, Gregory Gurevich has lived in the same little apartment in Jersey City just across the river from NYC. Is this all your artwork? Yes. I accept this one. What's this one? The walls are just completely covered in paintings. There's mounted sculptures. And these masks are yours too? Yes. Wow. The feathers. He brought me upstairs, equally decked out. And in this little closet, there was a suitcase. Yeah, this is what I came in with this briefcase from Soviet Union. And we look, I can take it out for you. Wow. You're a brave person. Okay. He was full of documents. Birth certificate. All the stuff. Photographs. This is my childhood. Siberia. Childhood. Childhood in Siberia. Yes, exactly. And buried in the pile, Gregory pulls out a glossy black and white photo of a young man wearing white clown makeup. That's me. I gotta take a picture of this. Gregory was, is a mime. And here in America, mimes are kind of a joke, right? Like maybe you're picturing, you know, someone standing on a street corner, pulling an invisible rope, trapped behind an invisible wall, performing for tips. But in the Soviet Union, in the 1960s, when talk was perilous and everyone was listening. In Russia, you say, between three of us, one can be betrayer. Mime was a way to speak up without saying a word. So mimes criticized government by using silent performance. So it was only form of criticism, which was permitted because it was no proof that they did it because they were silent. So your first performance, how big was the crowd? So it was about 20, no, not about 20, about 50 people, sick people, people who are attached to the bed, but they can maybe stand up and can walk, can wash themselves, can go to bathroom possibly. Gregory gave his first mime performance somewhere around 1962 when he was in his early 20s for patients at a hospital in Leningrad. And how did they react to your performance? It was fantastic. Audience received me so well and just unbelievable. It gave me energy to continue. Gregory had rehearsed obsessively in his mother's apartment by the Neva River. He had about 20 minutes' worth of material. How to pick up flower, how to go against the wind movement. When I performed in the hospital, that was really imitation of Marcel Marceau. Tour imitation. The year before, Gregory had gone to see Marcel Marceau, the famous French mime at the Leningrad Palace of Culture. Did you know that it would be a totally silent performance? I had no idea. I didn't know it would change my life. And in the packed theater, in the dark, he'd watched Marcel Marceau, white face paint, black pants, striped shirt, mime picking up a flower in a way that he'd later copy. He sees a flower and the way he is bending his body and how he smells the flower. All his gestures were stylized. It was not regular gestures like in real life. It was like a magic, complete magic. But Marceau was also known for stories. Short plays of pantomimes, he called Mimo dramas. They could be deeply philosophical, like the one where he plays a man trapped inside a cage who manages to wriggle out, only to find himself trapped inside a smaller cage. And so on and so on, until he dies. With your body, you express a condition of human being. So you really related to that Marcel Marceau piece? Very much so. Of course, very much so. It evoked my inner feeling towards the system where I was in. Gregory's Jewish and Jewish people in the Soviet Union face a lot of discrimination. It was difficult for him to get a job. He had a special mark on his passport. So he understood that while the state promised equality, I felt on my skin and my body resistance. Oppression and secrecy were its currency. People were ready to change in the Soviet Union. They were ready to change in the system because systems stuck. All this idea of communism, of socialism, people didn't believe it any longer. In my heart, I wanted to help people. I wanted to, if somebody is tied with ropes, I want to untie these ropes. That's the Caspian Sea. Oh, that's Marcel Marceau on the beach. Back in his apartment, Gregory shows me some photos of him and Marcel Marceau by the Caspian Sea. You look so young and handsome in this, Gregory. After his hospital performance, Gregory put together a small troop of mimes from Leningrad, who he trained and choreographed himself. And they joined a traveling theater that performed on stages and in farmers' fields across the southern Soviet republics, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Azerbaijan, where they happened to play the same city as Marcel Marceau. And we went to his hotel where he stayed. And I told the receptionists that we are mimes. And he came downstairs and he was so happy because he felt very lonely over there, no one to talk to and so on. And that's you two together in the surf. Yes. Louncing. What were you guys talking about? All about pantomime. All about pantomime. By this point, Gregory had started to perform original material, stuff he wrote himself provocative, political. And Marcel Marceau liked his work so much that he encouraged Gregory to audition for the theater of Arkady Rykin, a famous Soviet comedian. 1,200 people minimum in the audience, the biggest theaters in Soviet Union in different cities. Rykin was known for his imitations of bumbling bureaucrats and other Soviet characters. He was subversive, but entertaining, subtle, but pointed. And he wanted to add a mime troop to his show that also pushed buttons, slyly. I was very nervous. I was very nervous. The audition happened on a bare stage with a big time comedian and two others in the audience. Gregory had decided that his group would perform a piece he'd written called Man in the Sea. A group of pearl hunters are already under the water, hunting for the pearls. Man in the Sea starts with three mimes, all wearing black leotards. And they're moving in slow motion, like they're underwater, stooping here and there to pick up pearls from the sea floor. And at the center of the stage, a woman in a blue dress lies flat. Arms and legs slightly raised, and she's waving them, undulating like she's part of the ocean current. Gregory plays the pearl hunter, entranced by this woman underwater. And as he comes closer, she rises and they fall into this kind of slow motion dance. They're looking into the eyes of each other and they're really falling in love. And suddenly he feels that he needs to get air and she doesn't understand. As the pearl hunter motors his arms, trying to swim towards the surface to breathe. I need to go away, I need to go away, I need to get air. The mermaid summons her powers. You stay here, I love you, you must be with me. She extends her arms and thrusts them forward. She can control the ocean's currents. And the pearl hunter can't swim against it. He's struggling, flailing. Finally his arms go slack and drift upward above his head, like he's suspended in the water. He loses his consciousness and he's gradually falling down on the ground, on the bottom of the sea. So many pantomimes end with death. Yes, we didn't follow American principle, every one was supposed to be happy end. Happy ending or not, they got the gig. This was exactly what Arkady Reichen and his producers were looking for. And what's the message in Man of the Sea? The artist must be free to express himself. And if government controls, the artist dies, the artist cannot really survive. And that's what happened to you? Exactly. When Snap returns, Gregory faces off against the machine. Stay tuned. Welcome back. The only show that would ever dare feature a story about a Soviet mom who speaks truth to power without actually speaking. He gets away with it, until he doesn't. Snap judgment. Gregory spent three years with the Arkady Reichen theater, playing to full houses. People were sitting on the steps between aisles. Basically, you became the most popular mime in Russia, is that fair to say? Absolutely. You cannot even imagine how positive reaction was. The early and mid-60s were a comparatively liberal time in the Soviet Union. Yeah, you had to be careful about speaking your mind, but if you did, you might just get a talking to instead of being disappeared or shot. That all changed in 1968. When Red Army tanks rolled into Soviet Czechoslovakia to crush protests there, but also to send a message everywhere. It was very serious. If you joke or if you laugh on principles of communism, you go to prison or you will be destroyed. At around the same time, Gregory and his troop were gearing up to take their next leap to television. We were invited to a television studio in Moscow to perform pantomime, okay? And I selected man and machine pantomime. Why that piece? Because that's the most political... That seems like the piece that you would be most likely to get in trouble for. I think it's the strongest piece in my performance. I just wanted to present the strongest piece of my company, that's it. Man and machine starts with a mime walking towards the front of the stage. Person is going free. He's swinging his limbs at a care in the world, about to walk into the audience. So he can go to see sun, to see beach, to see force. And suddenly, when he came close to the end of the stage, he touches the wall. An invisible wall, a barrier, a force field. And he's frustrated, he doesn't know what to do. He's turning his body around, he's trying to find exit. Then the wall moves. Wall pushes him back. Pushes him back. And he tries to resist. Back. It's impossible. Back, to the back of the stage where the machine is waiting for him. Two mimes in the atards with their arms bent in an elbow. Their legs are spread out so they stay firmly like Parismen. Their expression of the face is complete anger. Mouth is anger, brows up, eyes are in anger. Gregory played one of these two mimes, representing an inhuman machine. They wrap their arms around the free man and then spin around him. And he's fighting, he's fighting, but he cannot do anything, absolutely. And finally, he gave up. He falls to the ground. And then the two machine men grab him, pull him up. Taking the same physical position like they are. The free man has become part of the machine. Now three of them face to the audience, spreading legs like Parismen with angry faces. And another man is coming on the stage. Another free guy, swinging his arms, clueless as to what's about to happen to him. He touches the wall. The wall pushes him back. And again, the machine arms, the arms of these three mimes, wrap around him. And this machine is waiting for him to die. And he's twisting, turning around on the ground. And suddenly, the universe gave him energy and he started to move. He starts to tear down this invisible wall. He's beating this wall. He's hitting this wall. He's hitting this wall with legs, his arms, with everything. And he's breaking this wall on the right and the left. Like buildings are crashing down. Watches around him, is crashing and falling down on the ground. And he's celebrating, he's lifting his arms. He's happy. He's dancing. He's going toward audience. And what happened with machines? They're falling down. Heads hanging down, their arms hanging down and they're completely destroyed. We celebrate freedom. We celebrate human element. We celebrate spirit of human being. Freedom of choice, freedom of existence, freedom of what we want to do. That's what this piece means. The allegory of a monstrous, unfeeling machine was unmistakable. Obvious even. If Gregory had wanted to test the limits of Soviet repression, he couldn't have made a better choice. Microphones and cameras and everything, they surround us. We are ready to perform. And on that Moscow soundstage, they had just started their performance. Ted barely gotten into it. Suddenly, telephone calls from administration of television studio. What are you doing? Are you crazy? Do you know what this piece is about? It turns out that someone high up had been watching playback in the control room. And they were not happy. We completely prohibit this piece to go on air. Stop that immediately. And that's it. That's it. How many people would have seen it? All country. All country, all the Soviet Union, everywhere. Everywhere. Any point of the Soviet Union. Gregory was banned from TV. Banned from performing and teaching MIME. Loss. Loss. Big deal. Big loss. Government prohibited me to express myself. He went back home to Leningrad, where for the next few years, he struggled to make a living. He says he was so poor at one point he could only afford bread and tea. Did you feel like you were drowning? Absolutely. I had no purpose of my life. But why do you think that you were never thrown in the back of a van? I could be. Very easy. It was just luck. Absolutely luck. You pay for your decisions, you pay for everything. Sometimes you disappear completely from the world. So people forget you completely. And the government will be proud that they reached their goal to destroy people who are against the government. Gregory knew that if he ever wanted to make art again, he'd have to leave the Soviet Union. But before he did, he decided to stage a break-in. He asked four MIMES, former students of his, to meet him at midnight, wearing black. Petsileta is black color. Petsileta is black color. Outside the Leningrad Palace of Culture, an industrial behemoth with soaring windows, where he'd first seen Marcel Marceau and later performed himself. It was a place he was no longer allowed to set foot in. Can you imagine 12 o'clock at night time when I was not permitted to go there day time even? And storage person, he knew me and he respects what I did because he's seen my pantomime on a big stage and he let me in. And quickly, with just one light in a small classroom studio, while one of his friends filmed with a rented eight millimeter camera, they performed four of Gregory's pieces. They did the acrobats. Two acrobats are coming on the stage. Funny walk. Slapstick ensues. It's a comedy pantomime. They did black square. It's a symbol of society. An abstract piece where the mimes move in lockstep to a piece of music that speeds up increasingly. So much that they finally break out. They collapse. Completely break out. And I was predicting speed of society of today. They did jungle where a woman cuts her way through the jungle and wrestles a snake. They did man in the sea. Why did it feel so important to film these? Because I created first pantomime companies in Leningrad to have record of that. They left just as quickly as they came. And only a few weeks after that, Gregory left the Soviet Union through a loophole that granted some Jewish people passports to travel to Israel. He never went to Israel. He flew directly to Vienna, then New York City, where a refugee organization put him up in a rundown hotel. And then I went on Fifth Avenue. I was walking everywhere. I had no money. And it was on Fifth Avenue in New York that he saw his first American mime. Do you remember what he was doing? He was doing pulling rope. Pulling the rope. Wall. Yeah. Simple stuff. And then imitating people walking on the streets, which is very primitive. And everybody was very impressed with that what he did. But it's no kind of story or nothing like this. I was very disappointed. I felt that my future is not really bright. From that moment on, Gregory has reinvented himself so many times. At 88, he's an accomplished painter, art teacher, and a master sculptor. You can see his piece, The Commuters, in Newark Penn Station. And he never gave up on mime, even if the audiences were smaller. My philosophy of life is your inner voice is most important than anything else. And you have to give to society as much as you can give. You give yourself to society. You're part of that. You're giving. Your giving is a foundation of your existence. And what do you give? Whatever I can. My artwork. Thank you, Gregory, for sharing your story with the Snap. If you want to see pictures of Gregory at work and videos of his Panamaans, check out our show notes and follow Snap judgment on social media. Special thanks, Professor Stephen Bittner from Sonoma State University and Chris Zakis. Sound design is scored for this piece by Renzel Gourio. The story is produced by Snap, resident mime, John Fasil, who has another story for us. Right, John? Yeah, thanks, Glenn. So while making this story, I got really obsessed with this idea of mime and like using your body to express creative ideas as a form of political resistance. And mime has always been a form of protest, like even going back to ancient times. There were six southern mimes in Rome, only in Rome. They were political, very strong. They made satires above the Senate. Here's Marcel Marceau talking at KQED in 1971. Wow. Well, they were very controversial. He repeats this idea that Gregory says in our story, which is that because mimes were silent, it was easier for them to get away with this. Right. And after I say, what did you say? I said nothing. So there's this story about Marcel Marceau that is really amazing and encapsulates all this perfectly. Before Marcel Marceau was the world's most famous mime, when he was just a teenager who was into clowning and silent films, the Nazis invaded France. This was May of 1940. And Marcel was Jewish. His real name is actually Marcel Mengele. His father was arrested and sent to Auschwitz where he died. He was murdered. Marcel went into hiding, and that's when he changed his last name to Marcel. And he also joined the French resistance. And as part of the resistance, he helped rescue kids whose parents had been deported. He would transport Jewish orphans by train to Switzerland. He did three train rides in 1943, and each of those carried between 25 and 30 kids, so saving between, you know, 75 and 90 children. That's Marcel Palet. He's a director and writer and choreographer on Broadway. And like me, he's spent a lot of time thinking about what happened on these train rides. I mean, they're so theatrical. So they were all dressed as Boy Scouts, and he was dressed as a Boy Scout leader. Christian Boy Scouts, of course. And like on these train rides, there would be German soldiers in the same car as the kids. And in order to keep them quiet and calm, so the tall tale goes, he would do little bits, little acts, little things that possibly became the foundation of his act. He had to communicate to them without words. He would use his body. He would make funny faces. And then he took that experience and built a career on it. That sounds a little crazy, but he did start performing as a mime, like literally the second the war ended. Yeah, I think it's all, it all seems very plausible that that it went down kind of the way that we dramatize it went down. So as I was finishing up Gregory's story and learning all this stuff about Marcel Marceau, I learned that Marshall had co-written and directed a play called Marcel on the Train, starting Ethan Slater from Wicked, that was running on Broadway. And the play dramatizes these train rides. It fills in what we don't know with imagination, and then bits that Marcel would later perform on stage. What sort of bits does he do in this way to keep the children calm? What did you imagine? We do a lot of shadow play. There is one moment where we have him using shadows from like a kind of a Jeep that's outside the train car and that's a car that's shining light in through the window. And then he uses that light amidst the darkness to create these shadow puppets to calm the kids down. The kids are hyperventilating. One of the biggest ones we use is an act called the mask maker. You kind of move your hand in front of your face and it changes the shape of your face. Like you're putting on different masks. Like you're angry, move your hand, you're angry, your brows are up. Corner of your mouth is turned down and then you like put your hand back and it's a smile, that kind of thing. Yeah, that's one of the first bits that we have him do and it ends up being thematically important as the show goes on. And the mask maker is one of his earliest acts and actually it is. So Marshall is describing here an actual piece that Marcel would perform. He's a sculptor and he's sitting with a neutral face and he's carving something into an invisible mask and he puts the mask on and his face becomes very angry and then he takes it off and his face is neutral. And then he grabs from his mind collection another mask and he puts it on and his face is very silly and then he takes it off and his face is very neutral. He's trying different masks on and not only is his face changing but his whole body is changing, his whole aura is changing. Eventually he gets to this place where he has just a classic sad mask and a classic happy mask and he's going back and forth really, really rapidly. Happy, sad, happy, sad, happy, sad. He's deciding which one he's going to pick. Finally he picks the happy mask and he starts kind of peacocking around the stage. He's so, you know, his face is not moving at all. It's just a, it's a mask, it's a happiness and he's like so happy to be happy. And then he goes to take the mask off and he can't because it's, it's stuck. So he's trying, he's more desperate and he's more desperate and more desperate and his face never changes but you see his body language go from exuberance to panic to despair to depression. And he's, he's weeping but in this happy face. Finally he's so exhausted he takes a mimed nail and a hammer and he hammers the nail through the mask into his, you know, brain and dying. He peels off the mask and reveals his death mask which is one of profound exhaustion. Oh my god. That arc is so intrinsically Marceau. He finds a bit and then he iterates the bit and it's hilarious and then he uses that bit. He subverts it to find some sort of sad little existential truth. If you've shown that to me today I'd be like, well that's the story of Instagram. That's the story of performative positivity. You know, like we try so hard to be happy. Be careful you might get stuck in it and it's hard not to imagine him grappling with the role of delight and positivity and smiling in the face of the ultimate horror that one can experience. It's like what is the role of my positivity in this world where everyone is scared? It's hard not to think that that experience shaped the artist that he became. Wow. That's deep. Sam producer, John Faseel talking to Marshall Paylett, director of Marceau on the train. Thanks John. Now, right after the break, first kiss, snap judgment. Welcome back to snap judgment, silence speaks. My name is John Washington and for our next story in high school, Misha Latva, she was used to keeping her head down and her test scores up. But then she surprises everyone by landing a lead in the school play and the role comes with a chance to do something she'd never done before to kiss an actual boy. And that first kiss, wow. Misha Latva performing live at StoryFest. My dad moved us to America in pursuit of his version of the American dream. And in 11th grade, I try out for the school play. Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. And to my amazement, I am cast as Helena, the girl who chases everyone, but is not really ever chased back. Now, the boy playing Lysander is this kid named Randy. Now, Randy is a smoke in the bathroom, black leather jacket wearing real life bad boy. Which is interesting to me because I am a JC Penney clearance rack wearing calculus tutor. Now, I've read the play and I know that there is one part where it is possible that Lysander, because he has magic love potion in his eyes, will wake up, fall in love with Helena, and there could be physical contact. For me, first contact. I'm pretty excited, but there are like three obstacles I have to get through before I can have this adventure. The first two are my mom and my dad, and this is because they are good immigrant parents, and they say no to anything that can get me bad American influences. But I need their permission to be in the play, so I start with my mom. I'm like, mommy, please let me be in the play. And she immediately just says no. What do you think people will say when you are doing Shakespeare? You think they'll say, oh, very good. There's a girl who knows Shakespeare. No. They will say there is a brown girl trying to be white. You are who you are. Take some pride in that. So that did not go how I wanted it to go. So I'm a little better prepared when I go to talk to my dad. And I start off with daddy. Daddy, I think there are parts in the play that you would really like. Like there's this part in the beginning yet where a father brings his disobedient daughter to the king because she's not listening to him. And no, no, daddy, wait, just let me read what the king says to the disobedient daughter. To you, your father should be as a god. One that composed your beauties and one to whom you are but a form in wax. Daddy say yes because I got in already. He looks at me. You are a very bad ball of wax. But I get to be in the play. So I go to rehearsals. I start learning my lines. I'm pretty excited. But I haven't gotten through obstacle number three. It's the hardest one. It's me. The thing is, the thing is, despite all my excitement about the Lysander love potion scene, I'm actually pretty nervous. And that's because between my weird lunches and my very strict parents and this awkward thing that happened at a party recently, I know that boys don't really want to be around me. And so what happened at this party was it was a swim party for brother-sister twins. And well, swim party, half naked wet people. I didn't even ask for permission. I just borrowed a swimsuit. It still had tags on. I didn't fit my friend. It was normal, not from the clearance rack. And I put it on under my street clothes and I just sneak out. And I'm pretty excited to be at this party. I know that I'm wearing something relatively normal looking once I get into my swimsuit. And I'm right. I'm right. I walk in and as I pass people, I just start collecting compliments. People are like, Nimesha, nice swimsuit or looking good or my favorite. Someone really did this. And I like, hot stuff. It gets better. The boy whose party it is, he comes and sits next to me. He leans in and he whispers in my ear. Nimesha, why are you still wearing your bra and underpants with your swimsuit? My vision tunnels and I die. So people are still talking about me at school. People are still talking about me in drama. But the day for the Lysander love potion scene keeps getting closer until of course one day, it's the day. I get to rehearsal and the director tells us what he wants us to do. So Helena is going to find Lysander on the ground. She will wake him up. He has magic love potion on him. So when he wakes up, he's going to fall in love with Helena. He's going to fall in love with me. The director wants him to take my wrist and kiss it. I'm supposed to stop him because he's obviously playing a cool joke. Everyone's mean to him in the play. But there it is. That moment of first contact, I always knew would be there. But now my panic explodes. I know who I am. I'm a calculus tutor who smells a little bit like curry. I'm the girl who wore her underwear to a swim party. It just occurs to me, oh my god. Randy doesn't want to do this. I am about to be rejected in front of the cast sitting in the audience. I just can't take it. I need an out. I look at Randy. Okay, Randy. It's okay. You don't have to touch me. Okay, you can just air kiss on my wrist. You don't have to make contact with me. It's okay. And Randy says, okay. Um, I'll follow your lead. It's show time. Helena comes to the forest. She sees Lysander on the ground. Lysander on the ground, dead or asleep. I see no blood, no wound. Lysander could serve. He live awake. Lysander awakes. He takes my wrist. I look at him. He looks at me. He kisses my wrist. There is a hot spot. Where he made contact. I look at him again. He looks at me again. I don't stop him. He kisses my forearm. I still don't stop him. He gets to my bicep. Yes, indeed. He puts a kiss right there. I throw my head back. I offer the young, new bile flesh of my neck. And that is when the director yells, stop. This is a family show. I'm kind of mortified. I don't believe I just let that happen. What if someone tells my mom or my dad, I'm going to be dead tomorrow. But I'm also kind of excited. I'm pretty much living the American dream. Woo! I look at Randy and you know what? He looks pretty happy. And I suddenly know exactly what to say to the director. Oh, right. Sorry. Yes, I know how that was supposed to go. Yes, I know how to run the scene. But don't you think we should run it again? Thank you. Thank you. A huge, huge thank you to Namisha Latva. She's a playwright and college essay coach. You can find her at thesaadvantage.com and on Instagram at Namisha Latva. She performed the story live at Story Fest. And if you haven't yet heard of Story Fest, you should totally check it out. It's a national show that finds amazing local writers, journalists and artists to perform their work live on stage. You can see where Story Fest is going next and get tickets at storyfest.org. Now, if you missed even a moment, know that an entire world of snap storytelling awaits. KQD in San Francisco is Snap Judgment's orbiting hall of justice and big news. At long last, Snap Plus is now available. Subscribe for bonus Snap episodes, special Snap meetups and more behind the scenes Snap. Snap Plus at snapjudgment.org. On Team Snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors and engineers, and members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Local 51. Robots and people cosplaying as robots, please note that no, Snap Studios content could be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. Snap is brought to you by the team who would mostly not dress up as a mime, except for the producer, Mr. Mark Wistage. There he is, mimeing it up right now, banging his head against an invisible wall. Uh-oh, now he's climbing the stairs. Very nice. There's Nancy Lopez, Pat Macinney-Miller, Anna Sussman, Winslow-Goriel, John Fasil, Shayna Shealy, Taylor DeCotte, Flo Wiley, Beau Walsh, Marissa Dodge, and this is not the news. No way it's just the news. In fact, you'd suppose it'd be completely impossible to do a talky talk hour of audio-radio storytelling about a mime. Well, that's what you'd think, right? And you would still, even then, not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is. PRX.