Maybe you hadn’t noticed, but there’s a major election coming up.
And as usual, the theater community is tuned in.
1812 Productions, the city’s comedy theater company, is performing their annual news spoof, “This Is The Week That Is: The Election Special,” starting Thursday, Oct. 3 and ending Nov. 3, just before Election Day.
And Arden Theatre Company is extending its hilarious production of “POTUS, Or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive” through Oct. 13. The title perfectly summarizes the plot involving the president’s wife, mistress, sister, chief-of-staff, press officer, secretary, and a journalist. As for the POTUS (President of the United States), he only gets a leg in edgewise (literally) in Selena Fillinger’s all-female farce.
Linking the two productions is Philadelphia comedy theater diva Jennifer Childs. Co-founder of 1812 Productions, Childs, the company’s producing artistic director, is laugh deviser-in-chief for 1812’s news sendup, which she describes as “the Carol Burnett Show meets the Daily Show.” Childs also directs “POTUS.”
Both shows revolve around politics. “POTUS talks about it in a very general way — the antics could belong to any administration,” she said. “`This Is The Week That Is’ is about what’s going on right now with these particular people.”
Because “This Is The Week That Is” plays off the news, the content can change daily.
“An opening number has four verses, and those verses are rewritten weekly — sometimes nightly — to address the issues,” Childs said. If news breaks mid-afternoon, she’ll slide at least one relevant joke into that night’s production. “By the next night, we will have had time to flesh things out a little bit more.”
1812 began offering “This Is The Week That Is” 19 years ago.
“When we started it, it was before the internet was prevalent. We had newspapers we were looking at,” Childs said. “But now everything is so fast — it comes up on your phone. It’s instantaneous, so we have to address it.”
Political satire can be tricky.
“There’s a saying in political humor that you can make fun of the smoke, but not the fire,” she explained. “It’s not funny that a tragedy happens — ever. So, what is the smoke we can make fun of? What can we find to satirize when the news is difficult?”
For example, the calamitous Jan. 6, 2021 Washington riots left no room for satire — that was the fire, Childs explained. Yet, they were too big to be ignored when “This Is The Week That Is” opened a few months later.
“The smoke was how different media outlets covered it — CNN, far right, far left, all the way across the spectrum,” she said. “We were able to make fun of the smoke and not the fire.”
This year, Childs promises a Pennsylvania version of The Dating Game, with candidates doing their darndest to woo our swinging swing state voters. And yes, expect cat ladies, thanks to GOP vice presidential pick J.D. Vance, who “has made so many comments that are ripe for satire,” she said.
This election poses unique challenges.
Childs drew a picture of an imaginary brainstorming session: “What if the candidate was a convicted felon? What if he said people were eating pets? People eating pets; it’s so extreme. How do you satirize something that is a satire of itself.”
Also, “a lot of the things that have been said about other candidates and other humans has been really hateful and harsh and ugly,” she said. “One of the questions we ask ourselves is how can we satirize that without giving a platform for that kind of hateful speech.”
What’s acceptable in comedy changes over time, Childs explained.
Decades ago, “you couldn’t say hell, but you could do very broad and insulting impressions of Black people and other ethnic groups,” she said. “And now, fast forward, you hear hell, damn, and all kinds of words that are even worse than that, but insulting impressions of ethnic groups are not funny and are not done anymore.
“As we as a culture evolve, our humor evolves with us,” she said.
Childs wonders if sexual stereotypes on and off the stage will also evolve.
In POTUS, the female characters ask each other, “Why aren’t you president? or “Why isn’t she president?”
“The subject is maddening,” she said. Why, she asks, is there so much commentary on female candidates’ pant suits, or the way they laugh?
“We wouldn’t be talking about this if they were men,” she said.
“I don’t know what is going to happen in this election,” Childs said, “but I hope that, if not now, then in the future, we can accept a woman as president with all her flaws, complications, and funny laughs just as we have with men.”
FYI
“POTUS, Or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive,” through Oct. 13. Arden Theatre Co., 40 N. 2d St, Phila., 215-922-1122.
“This Is The Week That Is,” Oct. 3-Nov. 3.1812 Productions, Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, Phila. 215-592-9560.
