This is a company town, in the business of governing the country, with its share of young idealists. That idealism usually fades with age, but not before some of those idealists get a chance to stage plays about their ideals at the Fringe Festival.
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McPherson Madness presents a genuine snapshot of life inside the tent city that occupied K Street a couple of years ago. There are a few jokes that get a few extra laughs from the audience members who clearly spent time on the front lines of K Street with members of the crew and cast. Insiders will recognize the call-and-response “mic checks,” hand signals, and chants.
Outsiders should see it as a window into the world of living in the Occupy movement. Writer and producer Kelly Canavan very much succeeds in her mission to “create an unromanticized record of what it was like to Occupy by someone who did it.” It’s an entertaining retelling, very much based on Canavan’s story of becoming engrossed in Occupy even if it meant leaving her young son at home.
Canavan creates the character Dreama, a Wendy to the lost (and sometimes drunk and horny) boys of the camp, as her autobiographical protagonist. Played well by not one but a pair of actresses—dressed the same and often on stage together—Dreama and her fellow organizers consider how much they care about the movement versus the social aspect of occupying, the difficulty coping with new residents and visitors that the old ones feel are ruining everything, and the emotions of deciding how important it really is to put life and family on hold to sleep outside for something you believe in. It’s a loving, self-deprecating, and honest assessment of the movement and individual motivations of some of its members.
The enjoyable 75 minutes puts you on K Street without having to deal with the anarchists, cold, theft, lack of bathrooms and places to charge your phone, risk of arrests, and rats.
Remaining performances:
Friday, July 19, 7 p.m.
Sunday, July 21, 2:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 27, 6:30 p.m.
Studio Theater-Stage 4, 1501 14th Street NW
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Idealist Aerith Gainsborough is so fed up with the political system in Someone to Watch Over Me that she does the unthinkable—doesn’t bother to vote for president in the 2016 election. She wants to change the system to make government effective again, so she creates a website which encourages Americans to complain to (or praise) their members of Congress. This goes viral. Most complain. And all of the sudden she finds herself as an A-list celebrity and unwitting political juggernaut. I guess she’s “watching over” the American people who want their legislators to be more responsive? The ill-fitting title is the first of several components that don’t work very well here.
The social media fantasy that is central to the plot may have seemed fresh in 2004 as Meetup and MoveOn.org took root, or even 2008 as those platforms gave way to Facebook and other tools. It would be stale for a play set in 2012, let alone the next election.
The notion that calls from constituents to their members of Congress would rock the political system is naive. As I understand from friends of mine that work on Capitol Hill, a few million extra pieces of mail is not going to bring Washington to its knees. Things are wrapped up with a bit too neat of a bow in the end.
Someone to Watch Over Me is the maiden voyage and manifesto, so to speak, of the newly created Federal Theatre Project, not to be confused with the New Deal program with which it shares a name. Citing the lack of a theater troupe in Washington dedicated to American governance themes, they formed in 2012 to remove the mystery from the political process and foster civic engagement, especially among young and underserved populations. Writer and director Kevin Finkelstein and company will have to deliver a stronger, more developed message if they really hope to inspire the next generation of voters and change-makers.
Remaining Performances:
Sunday, July 21, 3:30 p.m.
Friday, July 26, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 27, 7:45 p.m.
Goethe Institute-Gallery, 812 7th St NW
