Three energetic actors skewer the past with parodies and puns
By Russ Tarby
Contributing Writer
Comedy is designed to draw laughs from audiences, but great comedies do even more. The satire gives voice to otherwise uncomfortable Truths.
That’s what happens in “The Complete History of America (Abridged),” the Baldwinsville Theatre Guild production playing through May 21, at the First Presbyterian Education Center.
Toward the end of Act 2, actor Josh Taylor reveals who started the Cold War.
“It was the generals,” he says, but he doesn’t mean Pentagon brass — “General Electric, General Motors and General Dynamics.” Those corporate giants not only fought the Cold War for decades, he declares, they also killed the Kennedys, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
It’s a generally simple pun, but it points to the reality of life and death in the 20th century, a reality that continues to plague America in the 21st century. Multi-national corporations have been granted the rights of “personhood” as they continue to run roughshod over our economy, our politics and our foreign policy. How funny is that?
Anyhow, director Sharee Lemos-Pierce has assembled a game three-man cast who exhibit boundless energy as they humorously summarize hundreds of years of history. The balding Taylor is joined by the mustachioed Joe Pierce and the bearded Matthew Gordon as they breeze through dialogue penned by Adam Long, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor (a.k.a. The Reduced Shakespeare Company).
To explain the Bill of Rights, the trio take on the persona of modern-day stoners who wonder if it might be helpful to also have a Bill of Wrongs.
The Boston Tea Party? Trouble was brewing. The Civil War? “There was nothing civil about it.” Women’s suffrage? Apparently the ladies won the right to suffer.
While the playwrights revel in such wordplay, the groaner puns are offset by plenty of parodies as when the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song is applied to Amerigo Vespucci, WWII recalls the Andrews Sister’s “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and Taylor scores again as radio’s cowboy buckaroo Dodge Rambler. His show is sponsored by Thunder Bread and Lucky Stroke cigarettes.
Perhaps the most potent parody comes when Pierce dons a trench coat to play Spade Diamond, a film noir detective probing the secrets of the Cold War. Gordon crowns himself with a curly red wig to portray Lucille Ball, who’s worried that the government wants to deport Ricky back to Cuba. When the scene shifts to the Vietnam War, our heroes resort to “Sam I Am,” certainly a convenient rhyme.
The set, designed by Navroz Dabu and constructed by Joe Pierce, features a colorful Mount Rushmore backdrop. Jefferson has a clown’s red nose, Lincoln wears a dunce cap, Teddy Roosevelt sports shades and Washington has an arrow through his head.
“The Complete History of America (Abridged)” produced by Heather Jensen continues at the First Presbyterian Education Center, 64 Oswego St., at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 13 and 14, and May 20 and 21; and at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 15. Tickets cost $15, and $12 for seniors at the May 15 matinee only; dessert and coffee included; 877-8465; baldwinsvilletheatreguild.org.
