An End to Madness?

Nick Curran e-mailed to alert us to an attempt to take down the never-ending theatrical juggernaut that is the Kennedy Center’s Shear Madness. That so-called “out-of-touch” play will be replaced by a work better reflecting the real Washington, D.C., according to an open letter to Stephen Schwarzman and the KenCen Board of Trustees posted to the Web from “the Irish Felons.”

This ground-breaking new play would be Hot Tubbin’ I: Bringin’ It.

On the group’s Web site, the play’s creators admit to an uphill battle, but express confidence that once the board reviews the manuscript, “the cast and crew of Shear Madness will be notified of their dismissal immediately so that the baton may be passed to the future of Washington theater, Hot Tubbin’ I: Bringin’ It.

The group’s confidence may also be measured by the Roman numeral in the title. The follow-up is already planned: HT 2: His Majesty’s Hot Tub, “which will continue examining the dilemmas of political life through the prism of the U.S.-Saudi Arabian relationship and the awesomeness of the Doobie Brothers.”

Unlike Madness, the authors say, the appeal of Hot Tubbin’ lies in how the work “vividly portrays Washington and the agonies of modern political life.” Further, audiences “will closely identify with a muscle-bound kung-fu expert/cowboy/hot-tub engineer who looks like Lou Diamond Phillips.”

In dismissing Shear Madness, the site asks, “Where is the Washington I know? Where are the mountains of cocaine, the monster trucks, and the ferocious cowboy vs. gorilla-congressman kung-fu battles? Where the heck is the groundless conjecture about the super-secret network of pervert-coddling homosexuals that apparently is nested within the upper echelons of the Republican Party?”

Furthermore, the Felons state, Hot Tubbin’ I is “firmly rooted in the cherished traditions of American Theater,” adding, “in addition to paying considerable tribute to Eugene O’Neill, Hot Tubbin’ I has several characters who are gays.”

Interested parties may read the manuscript in four acts here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 5:02 pm and is filed under Arts, Kennedy Center, Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.