Electile Dysfunction
Written & Directed by Martin French
Reviewed by Keith Waits
Entire contents are copyright © 2012, Keith Waits. All rights
reserved.
With each Presidential election campaign I experience, the rancor
and polarization of the discourse grows greater and more absurd in its make-up.
A process designed to unite us in common purpose has developed into an
opportunity to divide and conquer. It is a sad situation for sure, most
especially for satirists. This new production from The Alley Theatre
illustrates the predicament.
The title indicates a taste for sexual innuendo and double
entendre, and there is certainly enough of both in good supply, but the greater
challenge is finding less obvious targets to skewer from within a campaign that
already occupies a surreal place so far from good sense and practical solutions
as to be unrecognizable to any U.S. citizen who values either. So it is perhaps
a wise choice for Martin French to focus on the process itself instead of the
particulars of the current day-to-day political campaign, delivering sharp
observation within an audience-interactive structure that never forces the
audience into any semblance of loyalty to anyone named Romney or Obama.
Attendees are taken through nine settings in which they are
introduced to the two candidates, both named with some wit: Whig Wanderer David
F. Mirkin, who raises vague ineffectualness to a high art; and Anita Peruke,
who is equally bland and inoffensive, in spite of the fact that she is a
lesbian with a white-trash mistress. The juxtaposition of sexual hot buttons
and a smooth and expedient style in this character is one of the show’s smarter
choices, highlighting the unquenchable hunger for making controversy palatable
that has come to characterize recent American politics.
Just as a focus on the manipulation of the media has made The Daily Show the most effective
political satire on a national level, Mr. French’s script is most on target
when spotlighting the fraudulent nature of broadcast coverage of the campaign.
His debate moderator, Hampton Stonejaw, successfully combines Jim Lehrer’s
venerable stoicism with the smarmy, pasted-on charm of a hundred
interchangeable CNN/ MSNBC/ FOX automatons.
Yet while the text contains some funny dialogue, it is
functionally an outline for moments that require audience participation for its
fullest effect. You will be asked to choose a candidate before entering the
show, and in the end your votes will determine the winner. Along the way you
will be shuffled through three separate performance spaces, getting a full tour
of recent Alley Theatre renovations in the process.
Todd Zeigler and Felicia Stewart make for unctuous and nearly
impenetrable candidates, although it struck me that the preview performance
offered Ms. Stewart better opportunities to score with the audience, and that
that these are largely thankless roles overshadowed somewhat by the supporting
cast. Kimby Peterson was a trashy delight as Anita Peruke’s mistress, Shooter
Demerde; Rachel Caudel was hilariously pious and self-righteous as her wife; and
Christopher Folan is almost pitch-perfect as Hampton Stonejaw. “Almost” is the
operative word, however, since the preview audience of a handful could hardly
provide the energy to feed off of. Mr. Folan’s smart work needs a more
forceful, harder edge, and the performance as a whole requires an audience ready
to engage with the eager cast.
In these last, exhausting days of the prolonged political season,
some laughs at the expense of our partisan obsessions might be the perfect
antidote. This entirely original production is the first of three politically minded
plays that will populate local stages in the next two weeks, and promises to be
the loosest and most unpredictable.
Electile Dysfunction
Friday and Saturday,
October 26-November 10
All shows 8:00 p.m.
All seats $10
All shows 8:00 p.m.
All seats $10
The Alley Theater
1210 Franklin Street
Louisville, KY 40206
502-589-3866
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