NY Public Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive Cataloger Charles Morrow on Political Satires

BroadwayWorld continues our exclusive content series, in collaboration with The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which delves into the library's unparalleled archives, and resources. Below, check out a piece by Charles Morrow, Cataloger for Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on: Political Satires in The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.

Whatever one's political beliefs or party affiliation, it's fair to say that the 2016 campaign season has been a highly unusual one, almost a parody of the process we've come to expect. Could any satirist have come up with a crazier scenario? As it happens, a number of political satires have been staged on Broadway over the years, and-believe it or not-some of the characters in these works rival and even surpass today's real world personalities. Thanks to the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT), researchers can view many of these shows on video. The shows vary in tone from farcical to serious to darkly comic, and date from a wide range of historical periods. Here are three plum selections from the collection for connoisseurs of the genre.

The musical comedy Of Thee I Sing, which premiered at the Music Box Theatre the day after Christmas 1931, serves up sharp satire with sprightly tunes and plenty of wisecracks. Certainly, its pedigree is impressive: George & Ira Gershwin crafted the music and lyrics, while the show's libretto was the work of George S. Kaufman & Morrie Ryskind, fresh from their collaboration with the Marx Brothers on Animal Crackers. That daffy, Marxian spirit pervades Of Thee I Sing, which concerns the unconventional presidential campaign of John P. Wintergreen. In order to shore up votes, Wintergreen's advisors persuade the bachelor candidate to select his would-be First Lady from a lineup of beauty contest finalists, then run for office on a "love platform," promising to hold the wedding ceremony immediately after the inauguration.

One might think this premise would be terribly dated in 2016, and yet, many of the show's situations and quips still provoke recognition as well as laughter. Of Thee I Sing's politicians pontificate and pander for votes in ways that continue to strike a familiar chord. As Congress convenes, legislators cheerfully celebrate their own fecklessness in song: "If you think you've got depression/Wait until we get in session/And you'll find out what depression really means!" Who says this material is dated?

In the TOFT screening room researchers can view Of Thee I Sing, in a spirited production taped at City Center in May of 2006. It was presented as part of the series Encores! Great American Musicals. On this occasion Victor Garber portrayed Wintergreen, supported by a notable supporting cast, including Jennifer Laura Thompson, Lewis J. Stadlen, and Jefferson Mays as Vice President Alexander Throttlebottom.

Gore Vidal's The Best Man, which premiered on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre in 1960, is a very different sort of political play. It is a non-musical drama in a realist vein, intensely serious in tone; there are no singing senators here. The satirical element, if it could be called that, can be found in the central characters, who represent thinly disguised, exaggerated versions of contemporary political figures.

The story concerns Governor William Russell, who is competing for the presidential nomination of his (unidentified) party against Senator Joseph Cantwell. Russell, an eloquent intellectual who quotes Bertrand Russell and uses words such as "ineluctably" in conversation, appears to be an idealized representation of Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, whom Vidal admired, while Cantwell is plainly based on Vice President Richard Nixon, whom Vidal loathed. Cantwell pursues power ruthlessly and recklessly, while Russell is a principled, conflicted, essentially decent man whose distaste for sordid political trench warfare threatens to cost him the ultimate prize. Both men vie for the endorsement of former President Arthur Hockstader, a wily old-time campaigner based in part on Harry S. Truman.

The play's central conflict hinges on the potential utilization of damaging information each man has on the other. Will either man use the potentially explosive material? Or will each merely dangle the threat of doing so as leverage, to get what he wants? Which of these flawed candidates is truly the "best man"?

TOFT's video of the 2012 Broadway revival of The Best Man, taped at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, features an illustrious cast: James Earl Jones as Hockstader, John Larroquette as Russell, Candice Bergen as his estranged wife, Eric McCormack as Cantwell, Jefferson Mays-again-as a man from Cantwell's past, Angela Lansbury as a catty spokesperson for the party's "Women's Division," and, perhaps most intriguingly of all, New York City's former First Lady Donna Hanover, ex-wife of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, as a journalist, a role she has also taken on in real life. Reviews for the production were somewhat mixed, as more than one critic suggested that events in the contemporary political realm had long since outraced the comparatively quaint world Vidal depicted. Even so, much of the dialog still rings true, as when Hockstader criticizes Cantwell with a variation on Lincoln's familiar line: "It's par for the course trying to fool the people, but it's downright dangerous when you start fooling yourself."

David Mamet's outrageous political comedy November, which debuted at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in January of 2008 (and was taped by TOFT that April), concerns the exceedingly unpopular President Charles Smith, who hopes to be re-elected but is universally expected to lose. Smith himself has concluded, however reluctantly, that his days in office are numbered, and therefore hopes to cash in on his position to the maximum extent possible, legally or otherwise. But surprising events trigger his better instincts, and by the finale it seems he may at last be worthy of his office.

Although Smith is a rascal-and, this being a Mamet play, a foul-mouthed one-Nathan Lane, who played the role on Broadway, somehow managed to make him oddly sympathetic. What may be most striking about this play, only eight years after its premiere, is how much the world has already changed. A key plot point concerns the president's chief speechwriter (played by Laurie Metcalf), a gay woman who wants President Smith to conduct the ceremony when she marries her partner. His repeated insistence that doing so would be illegal, and could cost him re-election, sounds obsolete now. On the other hand, a joke at the top of Act Two resonates very differently today, albeit for different reasons. Smith's chief advisor Archer Brown (Dylan Baker) points out that the president cannot build a fence to keep out illegal immigrants, because a workforce of illegal immigrants would be needed to build the fence itself. President Smith sadly replies: "It's always something."

The Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT) is a restricted archive. In order to view a title, theater professionals and students must be working on related professional or scholarly research. Videos must be viewed on-site, in the TOFT screening room at Lincoln Center. For more information, call (212) 870-1642.

Photo courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Collections

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