Theater Talkback: Politics and Show Tunes
By BEN BRANTLEYSara Krulwich/The New York Times Victor Garber and Jennifer Laura Thompson in the 2006 Encores! production of “Of Thee I Sing.”
Were politicians born to sing and dance? I don’t mean the old song-and-dance that this breed is regularly said to perform, but stuff-strutting, spotlighted numbers that involve high kicks and high notes.
There was a time when heads of state were considered entirely appropriate subjects for American musicals. The Founding Fathers jigged their way to a Tony Award 41 years ago in “1776,” and “Fiorello!,” the 1959 portrait of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York, won a Pulitzer Prize; so did “Of Thee I Sing,” the 1931 Gershwin-Kaufman-Ryskind satire about the road to the presidency.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times James Hindman, left, as Dwight D. Eisenhower and Cheryl Stern as Mamie Eisenhower in “Where’s Mamie?,” part of the musical “First Lady Suite.”
But after Alan Jay Lerner and Leonard Bernstein’s “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” — a panoramic view of White House inhabitants through the ages — opened and crashed (only seven performances) in 1976, musical-makers seemed to grow wary of such subjects. There would be exotic cult-making variations on the theme, like Michael John LaChiusa’s “First Lady Suite” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins.” But among those who would rule the world, only a certain Mrs. Perón of Argentina inspired a show that had New Yorkers lining up for tickets.
Recently, though, politicians and the song-and-dance show have snuck back into bed together, making a new kind of music with surprisingly electric results.
The Nigerian activist and presidential candidate (and self-proclaimed president of his own rock ’n’ roll republic) Fela Anikulapo-Kuti has been vividly reincarnated on Broadway in the Afrobeat musical “Fela!” Downtown at the Public Theater, Old Hickory is gyrating to the rhythms of emo-rock (and packing in a young audience) in “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.” And sweet little Mrs. Perón is said to be returning to Broadway in a revival of “Evita.”
All of which has started me thinking about other candidates (if I may use that word) in the same vein for mu


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