In the weeks after 9/11, when Operation Infinite Justice (later re-branded Enduring Freedom) readied vengeance for peasants in Afghanistan, there were several writers who immediately stood out by simply noting the truth amidst an avalanche of jingoism. One that springs readily to mind is Arundhati Roy, who wrote in an article on September 29, 2001: “Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death while they're waiting to be killed.”
On the other end of the aesthetic spectrum is (then) Brooklyn resident David Rees, who seemed to emerge fully-formed out of the ether with his hilarious web comic Get Your War On. Using generic clip-art of office workers trading Swiftian banter, Rees captured the zeitgeist with a satire as savage as his subject matter. At the time, Get Your War On offered not just a desperately-needed comedic catharsis, but also a rallying cry that grief over 9/11’s victims and contempt for Washington warmongers were not mutually exclusive.
Here’s a taste:
Now Rude Mechanicals, the Austin theater company who wowed New York in 2001 with their inspired adaptation of Lipstick Traces, has applied their signature ingenuity to Get Your War On. Transforming a comic strip consisting of static talking heads into an entertaining live performance is no easy task – which makes this company’s virtuoso adaptation all the more impressive.
Using five retro overhead projectors, rolling chairs, a filing cabinet and doughnuts, the cast is able lift the comic strip off the page (or screen, as it were) into a fast-paced and ingeniously choreographed laugh-a-second romp. Call it the Theater of Evisceration, with the architects of post-9/11 foreign policy serving as long-overdue specimens for the viewing gallery’s delight.
The five sharp cast members (Ron Berry, Jason Liebrecht, Lana Lesley, Kirk Lynn and Sarah E. Richardson) race along under the deft direction of Shawn Sides to fuse Rees’s politically-heightened water cooler repartee with the deliciously banal atmosphere of a Human Resources presentation. (The show evokes an office environment where current events have replaced last night’s Lost as the number one topic of procrastination.) Beginning with Rees’s first set of scenarios, dating back to October 2001, the production whisks us away on a rollicking tour through the past five surreal years of life under post-9/11 Bush.
To their credit, Rude Mechs have dodged the theatrical landmine of strident advocacy that turns other political plays into tedious choir-preaching. (It does deserves mention, however, that Rees has donated 100% of his profits from the Get Your War On books to land mine removal in Afghanistan.) Freed of any effort to change the world with a play, cast and audience are able to revel in the healthy release of nearly incessant laughter. (There’s just one word to express the audience response on the night I saw the play: howling.)
To describe this imaginative production in too great detail would be to give away some its brilliant surprises (and there are many). Suffice it to say that one needn’t be splenetically outraged by U.S. foreign policy to enjoy Get Your War On (though it might not be the ideal choice for Republicans or the vulgarity adverse.) Anyone with a basic craving for fresh theater is sure to get their laugh on.
Get Your War On is at 59E59 Theaters through January 28th as part of the Under the Radar Festival. Tickets cost $25.
Photo by Jacques-Jean Tiziou.
