By: Mickle Maher
At: Theater Oobleck at Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division
Phone: 773-347-1041; $10
Runs through: March 25
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
Literary buffs did a double take when President George Bush's 2006 reading list included Albert Camus' existentialist The Stranger. First of all, The Stranger has French origins ( remember anti-French 'Freedom Fries?' ) , plus many felt the book's intellectual underpinnings would be lost on Bush.
This literary paradox caught the fancy of playwright/actor Mickle Maher. He's responded with an allegorical and damningly critical play, The Strangerer, for Theater Oobleck.
That extra 'er' added to the Camus title is no doubt a parody of Bush's constant Southern-inflected malapropisms and mispronunciations. And, boy, is The Strangerer rife with them.
Maher sets The Strangerer at the first 2004 Presidential debate, where PBS newsman Jim Lehrer ( Colm O'Reilly ) moderated questions to Bush ( Guy Massey ) and Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry ( Maher ) .
Within this setting, Maher has an allegorical field day using Camus' concepts to take Bush to task over the Iraqi War. Instead of answering questions, Bush spends the majority of the play bungling each attempt to kill Lehrer and get the audience ( read: The American public ) on his side.
It's all an attempt for Bush to get out of the shadow of his parents ( oddly described as a harping Barbara Bush in a coffin ) and to recreate the kind of catharsis he experienced while watching an Edward Albee play with Kerry the night before. It can all seem like jabbering nonsense if you're not willing to see the not-so-veiled metaphor for Bush's blundering in getting support for and waging the unpopular Iraq War.
Maher also doesn't let Kerry off the hook, since he's depicted as a sleeping zombie who blithely stands by as Bush goes about his machinations. The same contempt is directed at the audience for sleeping through Bush's actions.
( Pay attention to all the sleeping jokes, since Maher highlights how Americans tend to sleep through the theater of American and world politics ) .
Since Theater Oobleck never uses a director, The Strangerer sits squarely on its trio of performers. Each one gets plenty of laughs for his deadpan imitations, from Massey's smirking twitches as Bush and Maher's wooden Kerry to O'Reilly's stunned shock as the oft-targeted Lehrer.
The problem with The Strangerer is how annoying it can be to hear Massey ( as Bush ) blather on and on without making a coherent point. ( It's especially bad if the real Bush already grates your nerves. ) The play could use some trimming of its circular meandering. ( Even with the snide jokes about theater audiences falling asleep, I spied quite a few nodding off. )
So if you can tolerate an evening of a struggling Bush imitator as a comedy, The Strangerer is for you. If ever there was a play that indicts both the President and the American public for failure, it's this one.
