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DNC spoof lacking in originality

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 2, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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REVIEW

It's not so much that we've gone beyond satire. It's just become really, really difficult.

World events are too absurd to simply fictionalize them because the fiction seldom equals the reality, and standing and snarking doesn't work unless you're really funny.

Listen Productions' DNC Mediamockracy lacks the stiletto wit to bring a sharp edge to its multimedia interpretation of the Democratic National Convention. It can't escape unfavorable comparisons to The Daily Show, with two lead characters who are media figures.

Co-writers Bill Hahn and Karen Slack went out with director Mitch Dickman during the convention, filming video that is interspersed with live onstage scenes. On video and onstage, Hahn and Slack play extremely partisan TV hosts.

His cross between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, named Richard Guy, is awe-inspiring in its exactitude. Her conservative pundit, Piper Cummington, is a shrill-voiced soccer mom who suffers by comparison. Guy may be arrogant, but he is portrayed as charismatic and sharp-witted; Cummington, on the other hand, is whiny and given to blatant on-air lies.

The idea of critiquing the media would be more intriguing if both sides were equally armed.

Choppily edited footage of protests doesn't tell us much, and it's unclear whether the footage itself is part of the story or if it's about the "networks" broadcasting it. There are moments like the early, cruel days of The Daily Show that attempt "gotchas" with convention participants, holding them up for ridicule, but to what end?

Between scenes, actress GerRee Hinshaw brings the lights up and addresses the audience, trying to engage them in discourse. But neither the play nor the conversation have offered much new fodder. A slide points out that media outlets (mostly TV) are owned by a precious few corporations, something first noted more than 30 years ago in Network.

The play's sharpest eye is cast when Cummington has a cursing diva moment caught by the cameras, a la Bill O'Reilly, and is humiliated for it. At first, this seems like just another photocopy of recent events, but the play smartly makes the point that her explosion is a distraction from actual news and the endless procession of apologies an insult to everyone involved.

Hahn gets the final moment, as his character reaches his own epiphany. It has a few minutes of power but again closely echoes Network and, like many scenes, stretches beyond comedy or dramatic impact.

DNC Mediamockracy

* Grade: C

* When and where: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 25, Buntport Theater, 717 Lipan St.

* Cost: $20, two-for-one Thursdays

* Information: 720-290-1104

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