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Sometimes the more ridiculous a thing is, the less susceptible it is to ridicule. Take the War on Terror, for example. Late night jokesters get away with the occasional wisecrack. But, in general, the terror warriors are so grim and threatening, so solemn and censorious, that it is very difficult to point out that in many ways their efforts are preposterously nonsensical.
Without ridiculing suffering or dismissing anguish, the Foundry Theatre of New York makes fun of the commercialization of fear and the exploitation of insecurity. Their show "Major Bang or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dirty Bomb," now at On the Boards, is very funny.
It is essentially a comic revue. Loosely connected sketches touch on radioactivity, homeland security, teen travails, authoritarianism, male horniness, paranoia, science and female horniness.
Best of all there are magic tricks. Personal favorite: a pen goes up actor Steve Cuiffo's nose and comes out his mouth. Not that Cuiffo's card tricks aren't impressive. But they are amazing rather than funny. And funniness is what makes this show a welcome antidote to the bullying humorlessness and bloviating reproaches that set the tone for much of contemporary American public life.
Cuiffo plays a worker in a food irradiation plant. He also plays the worker's teenage son, a science genius. He also plays the son's loony scoutmaster (Major Bang). He also plays the late comic Lenny Bruce, irrepressible jester of the repressive 1950s.
Cuiffo's straight man is a woman, Maggie Hoffman. She plays a New York subway rider who summons the courage to confront an "unattended bag." She also plays the irradiation worker's boss. And for a while there she plays a guide who takes visitors through the food-preservation plant.
Political theater, especially farcical and satirical political theater, often seems far away and long ago -- Horvath's Vienna of the 1920s, Brecht's Berlin in the 1930s, Dario Fo's Rome of the 1960s.
Foundry Theatre revives a noble genre. "Major Bang" is part vaudeville and part multi-media performance. How's this for hot nostalgia: Hoffman and Cuiffo do this thing with semaphore flags. At first it's an exercise out of an antique Boy Scout handbook. Gradually it evolves into a sort of Flamenco mating ritual and from there it is an easy leap to what might be MTV lust if MTV lust were capable of being funny.
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