As McCain contemplates a wonderful afterlife, he instead finds that “heaven” is inside within Trump's brain where, a "Greek Chorus" of iconic figures, including Hillary Clinton, Roy Cohn, Eva Peron, Teddy Roosevelt, Robert Jordan, and Lindsey Graham, rebel against the President's relentless demands for affirmation.
With that untreated thorn in its side, The Ghost of John McCain tries to build, instead, a (I guess) joyous bipartisan coalition of political meme figures. As the upcoming election nears, there are drop-ins from Bernie sitting in that chair and Kamala sipping coconut juice — though this is all still happening inside Trump’s head, an Inside Out or Herman’s Head if the characters were all from New Yorker cartoons. The notion must be that there’s something rebellious in imagining Trump’s own obsessions all turning on him, but I found the singular focus on Trump himself tiresome. The musical has nowhere to go except to loop back, continually, to the same jokes about the same man’s mental state. That’s less a rebellion and more like tenancy, and the artistic and imaginative rent this show pays to the concept of Trump is way too high.
Ghost of John McCain ultimately comes off as a nicely performed, conceptually overcooked 90-minute SNL cold open set to an amiably cartoonish show tune score.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Premiere Off-Broadway |
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