"...send a Fox News crew...under the sea."
History lessons aren’t always easy to learn, but when you’re face to face (or as it might be said in the Capitol Steps Lirty Dies monologue - face to face) with the ugly truths of contemporary history presented in a little quirky song, you learn quickly how our biggest mistakes can be our finest cabaret fodder. You learn that an election isn’t just a universal choice as much as it is a pathway to double entendre. You find out that a disgraced politician has a life to lead on the west coast doing day work in a mini-spa and making penetrating in-roads with romantic cleaning women. You discover that, once and for all, our leaders never die, they just go on book-signing tours where they sometimes (God Forbid!) read from their oeuvre.
You learn much more than all this at a performance of Capitol Steps, appearing again this summer, nightly except for Tuesdays, at Cranwell Resort in Lenox, MA. From 8:05 until 9:35 each evening you laugh until you agree to change political parties. I laughed so hard and so often that I forgot to write anything down and had to buy the album just to write this review. These are funny people in educationally amusing material, changing costumes, looks, voices, makeup and even - it seemed to me - eye colors in the twinkle of one of those eyes. If you’ve seen this act before you may recognize a few of their older pieces, although it seems to me that even those undergo alterations to bring them into the most current point of view. In fact, a few of them are so universal they appear to be new and current even without a changed word or phrase.
The cast I saw on Sunday night will probably not be the cast you see when you go, but I’ve never seen or heard a performance from this group that wasn’t top-notch so there’s little to worry about. I will name names in this review, but you enjoy whomever you get to see.
Corey Harris not only is a devastating President Obama he makes the most of his other roles as well. In Hotel Arizona he plays a racially stereotyped individual with a historic right to his space. It is a funny sight-gag that clues in one of the best lyrics of the night.
Kevin Corbett is just a funny man with a way with words. His perfect take on Bill Clinton is matched by his perfect take-off on Donald Trump. His delivery is solid and sly at the same time and his wife, Jenny Corbett is his match in every way. Whether playing Judge Sotomayor, Christine O’Donnell or any number of oddly amusing women including a marine recruit in the number "Ballad of the Queen Berets."
Jack Rowles is the heart-throb of the company playing an hysterically funny everybody else in the world of politics. His performance of "Memoirs" the book-tour advert for former President George W. Bush’s collection of stories from the oval office is hilarious. Unlike the real G.W., you just don’t want him to leave the platform.
One of the funniest sketches in the show has Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg on line for the only ladies room in the area of the supreme court. Bari Biern plays Ginsberg and she is unbelievably brilliant in the robes and the role. She and Jenny Corbett make the work as memorable as Biern’s take on Sarah Palin makes that woman so very inevitable. Better than Tina Fey, Biern’s Palin is a remarkable tour-de-force.
Getting tickets for this show can be like registering to vote - it must be done no matter what it takes. You don’t want to miss an opportunity to let your laugh be heard, to make it count.
|
