And How About That Erma Bombeck…

The Capitol Steps
1/15/07
Redondo Beach Peforming Arts Center

For the most part, political comedy is the kind that you mentally categorize as humor, but not the kind that actually makes you laugh. There are exceptions. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Mark Twain. That might be it.

But think of the comedians that try to do the political thing, or the political writers who attempt comedy. The cringe-worthy results have leeched onto the national consciousness without our capability to do anything about them. Art Buchwald. Dave Barry. P. J. O’Rourke. All formerly hilarious writers who not only rested on their laurels, but built condos on them. O’Rourke’s recent book is about Adam Smith. He’s like Robin Williams now; done with the funny stuff and determined to be taken seriously.

Others? Maybe Whoopie Goldberg? Who to my mind, has achieved the paradoxical accomplishment of becoming a famous comedian without actually ever having been funny? Mark Russell? Ann Coulter?

Which takes us to The Capitol Steps, who continued their 25-year odyssey through the politcal wasteland on Monday night at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center.

Sold out house. My wife and I were, by 15 years, the youngest there. And I’ve got a teenage daughter and a lot of gray.

My reservations were largely justified. Opening number, a take on Mel Brooks’ “Springtime for Hitler” from The Producers, except here, it was “Springtime for Liberals.” Ah-ha ha ha. Ah-Hah. Ahem … And “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” except it was “Everything’s Run by Pelosi.”

Oh. My sides. Really. Stop it.

My guess is that it’s tough to do political humor when you’re performing for an audience of mixed political persuasion. You have to be honest, but non-threatening enough to keep everyone laughing. Result, making lots of hay with the easy targets. Bush is stupid, Gore is dull, the Kennedys drink, airport security is bad, and Rush Limbaugh takes Viagra. For goodness sake, there were THREE Chappaquddick jokes. There’s nothing like topical humor, and this was nothing like topical humor. I was expecting a Teapot Dome gag. Maybe a moratorium ought to be placed on joking about political events, say, 40 years after they happen? Is that fair? 40 years? OK?

A monologue near the end of the show ransomed a lot of it….one of the performers (who deliberately remained anonymous) performed a speech in which the first letters of word parings were switched. Thus, a “smart feller” became….it sounds much worse than it was.

But for the most part, the easy targets and the poor lyric-writing (most seems done on the fly, scans badly, doesn’t build) proved drab, uninspiring, limp. Then again, the house loved it. Ate it up. Huge laughs all evening. We were on the young side, though, so maybe in 20 years we’ll go back and see them again, and laugh more. Maybe I’ll finally find some humor in the Chappaquiddick jokes.