Redrum – at Fort Fringe
Remaining performance:
Sunday, July 25 at 5 p.m.
They say: Steeped in tea party hysteria? Try sipping facts. THE TEA PARTY PROJECT exposes the truth behind the tricorn hats – the funny, the bizarre, and the downright horrifying.
Aaron’s take: I’ll say right off the bat that most of the audience on Thursday evening really enjoyed this show. If, in fact, “show” is the right word for it. It is, in some ways, much more of a dramatic lecture, or even a political rally, than a true work of theater. Most in attendance seemed prepared for this, and ready to eat it up. I was not.
I also have to confess that when I’m not Fringing and Purging — which, let’s admit it, is about 99.9% of my life — I spend my days working at a newspaper that covers the Tea Party movement ad nauseam. I am not, then, predisposed to regard a pedantic rundown of the hypocrisy and racism of Tea Partiers as entertainment. But some people are! Maybe you’re one of them! After all, while I shifted in my seat, nearly everyone around me groaned in appreciative disgust as the show’s narrators barked “Fact!” and rattled off statistics about Tea Partiers’ predilection for gun violence and ignorance of our president’s true nationality and religion. And they were grateful when, upon exit, they were handed pamphlets urging them to “TAKE ACTION.”
The Tea Party Project’s performers are clearly very talented and passionate about their cause. But that cause is not theater.
See It If: Your DVR is devoted exclusively to The Ed Show.
Skip It If: You are yourself a Tea Partier. Trust me, this ain’t the show for you.