Shows: Mainstage

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"GET YOUR WAR ON"
By Jessica Lussenhop
Philadelphia Weekly
September 16, 2006

LAUGHING THROUGH THE TEARS

Get Your War On is in the motherfucking house, and it is glorious.

The play was adapted from David Rees' popular political comic strip in which cubicle drones rant about all our favorite topics from the Bush years, including the War on Terror, Enron, Freedom Fries, and Iraq.

Although I'm a fan of the strip, I was initially skeptical of how it would translate as a live performance. Part of what makes GYWO funny is the contrast between the flat, generic style in which the characters are drawn and the expletive-ridden laments that they spew at each other ("Henry Kissinger? Jesus Christ, are we fucking MOVING BACKWARDS IN TIME???"). Happily, the Austin-based Rude Mechanicals are up to the challenge. The staging is excellent (overhead projectors, swivel chairs, Terry Schiavo's feeding tube, and more!); the acting is even better. As they chat about these absurd and horrific times we live in, the five performers infuse Rees' words with fresh energy. I laughed my ass off, but maybe only to keep from crying and tearing chunks of my hair out.

Of course, Get Your War On is not for everyone. In her weekend Inquirer review, Toby Zinman can't resist rolling her eyes at the philistines who chortled like hyenas at the play's "meaningless, non-stop profanity" and the "smug superficiality" of its political commentary. (Right, because a play about articulate, earnest people having a nuanced political discussion would have been much funnier). Then she wonders if perhaps the real object of satire was actually the "cheap cynicism" of the characters themselves (and, ostensibly, the audience). "Or not," she adds, too wrapped up in her own smugness and cynicism to give it any more thought. Brava.