Looming over the stage and frequently rolling her eyes at the nonsense being spouted by three frisky actors as they purport to lead us throughThe Complete History of America (Abridged) is a giant head of Miss Liberty herself. In this initial offering by Actors Theater of Louisville for its 1999-2000 season, the Statue of Liberty doesn't break into a chorus of "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor..." It's the cast -- Burton Curtis, Jeffrey Treadwell, and Bryan Taylor -- who regale us with a choppy version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," in which lyrics eerily lag behind the melody. It's oddly appealing, as is their later, political- correctness version of "America the Beautiful" that substitutes "differently-harvested region" for "fruited plain." Jumping around over events of the last 500 years, mixing periods and people for comic effect, and relentlessly wooing the audience with their shtick, the actors demonstrate their versatility and unflagging energy but overdo the cute factor.
For this reviewer, the play's forced zaniness is more on the level of a revue cooked up by college kids than something in the Monty Python league. Too sophomoric, in other words, and sorely lacking in subtlety and wit.
Granted, there are funny moments as we reel from an overblown skit about Native Americans (Grandmother was a full-blooded Crow, announces one man, who is then mocked by a cawing sound) to others about the Salem Witch Trials, the Boston Tea Party, the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy, O.J. Simpson's white Ford Bronco, the Lewis and Clark (as a vaudeville team) expedition, and Ronny as dummy sitting on ventriloquist Nancy's lap. In a bow to reality, the script takes quick note of colonialism, slavery and other historic horrors instigated by the country's leaders. The clever finale is a happy-ending rewrite of American history. Rewinding events, the cast bring the dead back to life, give the country back to its native population, and restore the land to its pristine state.
