I'm hesitant to tell you anything about the premiere of Phinneas Kiyomura's Nimrod at Theatre of NOTE because I want you to experience it as I did-- completely blindside tackled by it like a force out of left field. (I'm not erroneously mixing athletic metaphors. My experience of this piece is that I was prepared to play baseball and a linebacker tackled me out of nowhere and I had no protective gear on.) I'll start by relaying my interactions with the show:
It all begins as I was guiltily attending the opening night reception for a different show I already knew I was going to slam (they owed me at least a few spanakopita triangles for sitting through that "bound-for-Broadway" phlegm-fest) when a friend-of-a-friend (I've been in LA for a year so I have those here now) recommended I check out what was going on at this little theatre in Hollywood. Serendipitously, the next morning I got an email inviting me to review Kirsten Vangsness (I don't pay for Paramount+ but I was raised in a devout Criminal Minds household) in a comedy where she plays Donald Trump. I'll be honest, the coincidence seemed too much to ignore, but I was apprehensive. It's 2023. Haven't we heard, read, recounted, screenshotted, and cringed through every Donald Trump joke there could ever be? I've sat through plays which meditate on the events of the past five years with little more nuance or originality than a liberal family's group chat. Nevertheless, the universe was telling me to check out Nimrod and I rarely ignore such clear signs.
As the show began in the charming blackbox space, my worst fears came to fruition. An ensemble in bonafide Corky St. Clair coveralls shouted Tweets at us that epitomized the American right wing of late. The opening of the show equally evoked riots in Charlottesville and the January 6 insurrection as it did SNL's 'High School Theatre Show' and I buckled up for a groan-worthy evening of neo-liberal preachiness and perhaps a few jokes that have lingered on Kiyomura's mind since 2016. I won't spoil this show for you, but I will say this; once the premise is set and the narrative begins to unfold, there is no way to prepare you for the amount you will laugh during this show.
Wear your contacts. Director Alina Phelan is a master of visual comedy and everything you see has a punchline if you are willing to look for it. Vangsness' impersonation is a biting satire that far supersedes anything Lorne Michaels' could get away with putting on TV. Scathing and exaggerated impressions by the likes of Sierra Marcks, Shayne Eastin, Sarah Lilly, and Asha Noel Iyer somehow resonate at a cathartic level of comedy above and beyond the noteworthy work of the ensemble as a whole. Though at first overwhelmed by the number of actors who would be filling the intimate space, not a single one of them (even Phelan herself who was understudying a track last night) was expendable. I wish I could call out and expound upon so many moments of the show that I loved, but I respect the sacredness of the surprises in this performance and the fine-tuned delivery of these performers too much to do so.
Here's why it works (I think), because a verse play about Donald Trump's presidency shouldn't work in 2023 (I think). Kiyomura has spared us any prepackaged moral musings and has instead gone fully speculative. "What if behind everything crazy we saw happening there was even crazier stuff going on behind the scenes?" He adeptly intones Shakespeare in the space without delivering inside jokes or parodying the style, and he takes the job of satire as seriously as a McDonald's-induced heart attack. There are moments of beauty within the text, and Vangsness along with Hiwa Chow Elms and Edward Moravcsik especially demonstrate the Shakespearean chops to pull them off. As funny as she is as a thinly-veiled Melania parody, Hiwa Chow Elms carries the show's heart on her back. Within a preposterous universe and ludicrous circumstances, she plays Lani with a heart-wrenching honesty that forces the audience to invest in the relationships played out before us. Though at times delivered at a volume one or two decibels too ambitious for the space we are in, her portrayal is a powerhouse that could rival any number of portrayals of Shakespeare's weightiest heroines.
At times, the play invokes seriousness in ways that derails the potential for comedy. Amidst nonsensical silliness, at one point a gun is drawn by a fanatic chanting "build the wall". These few spurts of reality in a heightened universe are jarring and it noticeably takes the audience a moment to acclimate to the world of the show again. Perhaps these moments serve as a reminder that, although a lot happened that makes us laugh about this presidency, the underside of the absurdity has lasting consequences that disadvantaged many, but the text seems to have enough profundity without needing to recreate specific acts of hatred.
Bravo to Emory Royston! (I won't spoil it, but you know what you did.)
Invite your friends to see Nimrod with you before it closes. Don't tell them anything about it. Just say you have it on good authority that it's a damn good play performed by damn good actors.
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