The View From Abroad

By Richard Zoglin; Richard Lacayo; Richard Corliss Tuesday, July 29, 2003
    • COURTESEY THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART,NYC

    Old Power: In Gilles Barbier's Nursing Home, 2002, America is an impotent hero

    America has long been a source of inspiration for artists around the globe. But at the moment, when U.S. power is unmatched, the view of America from abroad seems suddenly darker and more caustic. A show at New York City's Whitney Museum, a series of short films about 9/11 by international filmmakers and a clutch of stage works overseas all throw a harsh spotlight on the world's sole superpower. TIME's critics report:

    THEATER:Transsexuals, guys in diapers -- and a President who sucks his thumb

    Fat ladies and opera go together, but rarely has so much weight been thrown around onstage as in Jerry Springer--The Opera . The musical version of the sleazoid TV talk show is filled with big people with big hair wailing about their big problems. A portly fellow with a luminous tenor confesses that he is cheating on his wife with a transsexual. A bridegroom-to-be strips off his clothes to reveal a diaper fetish. A sluttish young woman battles with her mother over her aspiration to become a pole dancer. Running commentary is provided by a studio audience in the heavenly tones of a Bach choir; the crudest of insults are spewed in the sweetest of sopranos. "I wish you died at birth!" a mother sings to her daughter. "I wish you died at birth!" the daughter warbles back. "At least," the host offers helpfully, "you agree on one thing."


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    Of all the new musicals that have burst onto the London stage in preparation for taking over the world, Jerry Springer--The Opera may be the oddest. The show, with faux-operatic music and raunchy lyrics by Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee, has been a sellout hit at the National Theatre since April and will transfer to the West End in October. Negotiations are under way for a Broadway production, which could arrive as early as next spring. A movie deal is already cooking. Co-producer Jon Thoday predicts that within three years there "should be 15 productions playing around the world at any one time." And people used to complain about Cats .

    The cats at least brought a little glamour to their garbage pile. The America on display in the Jerry Springer opera is a place where white-trash yahoos willingly air their tawdriest laundry in public for a few minutes of TV fame. The show is just one example of a wave of new stage works overseas that put the U.S. in a distinctly unflattering light. In Paris a "savagely satirical impromptu" called George W. Bush or God's Sad Cowboy has been drawing crowds since reopening in late Mayafter closing for two weeks when its writer-director, Attilio Maggiulli, was beaten up by a couple of pro-Bush thugs. (Talk about satirical impromptus.) It portrays the U.S. President as a spoiled 6-year-old who sucks his thumb and plays toy soldiers with his pal Tony Blair. By the end of the play, Bush is trying to annex the entire Middle East as the 51st state. "Not bad," he boasts, "for the biggest idiot in America."

    Across the Channel, where our allies are supposed to be, the satire of Bush is only a shade less vicious. The title character of The Madness of George Dubya , a comedy in its sixth month on the West End, is another childish dimwit, who wears red cowboy pajamas and mangles the names of his enemies ("Saddama bin Laden"). Creator Justin Butcher says the play grew out of his outrage at the way Britain was "sleepwalking into war at the behest of the Administration in Washington." Unfortunately, the topical jokes soon give way to a long, obsessively detailed parody of Dr. Strangelove , with a mad general ordering a nuclear strike against the Arab world. Only Peter Sellers groupies need stick around to the end.

    Jaundiced views of the U.S. are a proven crowd pleaser in London. Michael Moore, the insurrectionist documentarian, got booed off the Oscar stage for criticizing Bush's foreign policy, but in London late last year, his one-man stage show — with bits like a nightly "Stump the Yank" quiz — was a smash hit. Even the American plays that are increasingly shoving aside Shakespeare and Stoppard on the West End (often with big-name U.S. stars in the cast) seem to be reveling in the worst of the U.S. In the current hit revival of David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago , Matthew Perry and Hank Azaria leave all their charm at passport control as they add an extra layer of bile to Mamet's caustic portrait of the battle of the sexes in the Midwestern heartland.

    So it's not surprising that London's hottest musical is a send-up of America's looniest talk show. Of course, its creators clearly love their trash TV, even as they skewer it. The opera skillfully parodies the TV show's demented-circus atmosphere, and star Michael Brandon does a bang-on impression of Springer's smarmy solicitousness ("Chuckie, I sense you're not too happy about Shawntelle's pole-dancing dreams"). Even the backstage scenes ring true, with Springer trotting out knee-jerk defenses to his critics: "I don't do conflict resolution." At times the musical even makes you care for these sad, dysfunctional guests, who can justify their messed-up lives only by acting them out for the TV camera. "Dip me in chocolate/Throw me to the lesbians," they sing. "This is my Jerry Springer moment."

    If the show turns out to be less momentous for U.S. audiences, it may be because its one very cleverly worked-out joke grows old pretty fast. After you get past the shock of hearing arias filled with X-rated insults and recitatif with lines like "A weird thing happened/When I went to take a leak ...," the show doesn't have much of anywhere to go. To be sure, Jerry goes to hell in Act II, where he is host of a show featuring Satan and Jesus — but our hearts are still with those angst-filled transsexuals and diaper fetishists back on earth. Bash our tabloid-TV shows all you want, but a little conflict resolution might be nice.

    --By Richard Zoglin. With reporting by James Graff/Paris and Aisha Labi/London

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