Schoolchildren today probably aren't made to memorize the list of Presidents, from George Washington to current occupant, as was the case in times gone by. For those who can still reel off those names at the slightest prompting, the Chicago-based Neo-Futurists compilation called 43 Plays For 43 Presidents, now at Actors Theater of Louisville, is an offbeat refresher course that lurches from absurd vaudeville clowning to somber interludes packed with pathos.
Two-minute sketches are devoted to every chief executive as the agile cast of five -- Cassie Beck, Nick Cordileone, Abigail Bailey Maupin, Gregory Maupin, and Aaron Munoz -- jog chronologically through presidential history.
Whoever dons the symbolic blue coat takes the part of a particular president and enacts his brief shining and/or tarnished moments on the circular presidential seal painted on the floor. Portraits and dates are flashed on a back wall that sports a Mount Rushmore replica. The other actors flesh out dramatic or mocking scenes from his term.
The scattershot approach becomes tiresome, yet memorable moments are threaded through the piece: Thomas Jefferson suffering through a "roast" by a one-upping Benjamin Franklin, William Henry Harrison popping red balloons that stand in for his systematic slaughtering of Indians, the crushing litany of family and Civil War deaths experienced by Lincoln, the burning of the White House (a miniature model is set on fire) by the British, a washboard/harmonica band crooning a song about Andrew Jackson's cruelty, and an ugly puppet representing Warren G. Harding as a small town poker-playing, drunken, blatantly ignorant politician described as the worst president in history.
With the Presidents following Herbert Hoover, the show segues into more familiar territory. The cast pillories Richard Nixon with a "We Love Dick" ditty. Munoz, the ensemble's standout, is a brilliant "fall guy" who throws around his considerable avoirdupois in the guise of Gerald Ford. George W. Bush, stubbornly set in his ways, cannot be budged despite all the pillows hurled at him.
Not all is cronyism, corruption, and hypocrisy in this political look-back, though there's a lot of that through the years. The show, directed by Sean Daniels, finds much to admire in Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Jimmy Carter.
As a finale the audience gets to choose, through applause and cheers, who should be the 44th President. At the press opening, the choice was clearly Obama, though McCain supporters also raised quite a din. The actor playing Obama then proceeded to skip rope as the others sang "you're not black, you're not white, skinny little boy you'd better learn to fight."
