Steps march into town with new, timely material
With Congress in the control of one party and the White House controlled by another, it’s time to ask the obvious question: Are Democrats as funny as Republicans?
Not quite, it would seem from the Capitol Steps show Sunday night at the INB Performing Arts Center. But they’re getting there.
The Washington, D.C., comedy troupe did have some new routines featuring ascendant Democrats, including a send-up of the next House Speaker singing “Everything’s Coming Up Pelosi” to the tune of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” and joining three other prominent Ds singing “Springtime for Liberals” – a la “Springtime for Hitler.”
That’s the Capitol Steps shtick, for those unfamiliar with the show: Take a show tune or pop standard, rewrite to a current political, national or international news theme, add costumes and aim for laughs.
The balance, it would seem, is turning the song well but fast enough to stay current, then determining which songs have shelf life.
Some ideas have legs, so it’s quite possible that a Saddam Hussein character will be around for a rendition of “Still Crazy After All These Years” for quite some time, and probably has been since the first Gulf War.
Others don’t, and it may be time to get rid of the musical discussion of Pluto being downgraded from its planet status, even if that’s a relatively recent news event and even if a big chunk of the Steps’ audience Sunday probably had fond memories of Frankie Avalon singing the original “Venus.” (Back then, a Uranus joke was probably worth more laughs than it was in the Steps’ routine.)
Perhaps because Spokane has been a frequent stop for the Steps in recent years, their most-appreciated material Sunday was the new stuff.
The five-member troupe, with an impressive range of singing voices, got some of its best laughs for contemporary bits like Al Gore singing “There’s a Hole in the Middle of Ozone” and a joke-telling contest between John Kerry and George W. Bush moderated by Greta Van Susteren.
Kerry deconstructed “Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road” while Bush pledged support for chickens everywhere. Not surprisingly, neither the joke-botching senator nor the word-mangling president won.
The Steps tried to update “Pack the Knife” – the travails of air travel under the Transportation Security Administration, set to “Mack the Knife”– with references to recent restrictions on liquids, but it’s the same basic routine. It has turned up in previous appearances and is showing its miles.
The routine that has Republicans talking over the Public Broadcasting Service – to create “GOPbs” – has its moments, but it’s a bit heavy-handed with references to Katherine Harris (Tracey Stephens has a great voice that was much better used as Pelosi and as Kim Jung Il in “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?”) and replacing “Masterpiece Theatre” with “Master Race Theater.”
Republicans may have found jokes about Sen. Ted Kennedy’s drinking funnier than digs at Vice President Cheney’s hunting accident. Democrats may have had the opposite view.
Based on the applause at the beginning of the show when the cast asked who in the audience was which, there were significantly more Democrats. The Cheney bits got more laughs.
The mangled monologue of spoonerisms which the Steps call “Lirty Dies,” rather than “Dirty Lies,” was updated with references to Hurricane Katrina as well as the Mark Foley page scandal and other “pupid stoliticians.”
Some previous Spokane shows overworked the device with two monologues, but this time Mike Loomis’ single one was the right amount.
The best feature of the night may have been its timing. With a tough election season over, it’s good to have a night to laugh at politicians before they get to prove that the joke’s really on us.