People's Improv Theatre's 'Trump vs. Hillary'

New York comedian/performers David Carl, Jay Malsky, and Tom Brennan (of the Peoples Improv Theater) brought their mock-debate show to Philadelphia, Malsky impersonating Clinton, Carl performing Trump, and Electoral Dysfunction’s Tom Brennan playing a sly moderator. On Tuesday night, Brennan welcomed “the intimate few” who were not protesting or watching Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention: about 12 audience members in all.

Everyone's in character

Carl has perfected the kind of face your grandmother might have warned you not to make lest it stick that way, his eyes and nose collapsing into the pouting ledge of his lower lip, all glazed in an orange tinge and topped with a luxuriantly frowsy blond wig. Clinton’s physicality won’t ever be captured so ostentatiously, but Malsky delivers spot-on calculated chuckles and choreographed fist-clenching. (Carl just needs to wear a suit and tie, but Malsky’s Clinton misses the sartorial mark in a fitted blazer, accessorizing with a long, silky scarf instead of large lapels and a chunky necklace.)

But after a few days of traveling through DNC crowds between my place in South Philly (where I can often hear the helicopters circling) and Center City, it felt like the most I’ve seen of Hillary since the hordes hit town. I saw a man in a giant onesie sewn from cloth printed with Bernie Sanders’s face; I saw some dudes who still want justice for Harambe; I saw a coffin on wheels; I saw Philly Jesus at a mental health rally; I saw a giant joint borne down Broad by protesters; and Bernie buttons and stickers everywhere I looked, including on the backs of shirts, lest we forget about Bernie if the protester turned around.

But in a few days of moving around the city, I’ve seen only a couple of Clinton t-shirts (that actually support Clinton). It’s a curious mood for the city hosting the finalization of a historic candidacy against a historically alarming “American person” (as Trump vs. Hillary describes him, next to Clinton’s former titles of Senator and Secretary of State). In fact, watching this show was the biggest on-the-ground reminder I’ve had all week that the 2016 Presidential election will, in fact, pit Clinton against Trump — comedy as an odd little reality check among the swathes of Sanders loyalists in Philly.

Can we laugh yet?

Part scripted “debate,” part Q-and-A improv, and part song and dance, the performance doesn’t quite hang together, but it’s entertaining. However, one has to wonder, especially at such a sparsely attended comedy show (admittedly, there were other places to be) — can we find the laughs in this Presidential election? With white supremacists swirling in earnest around Trump’s candidacy, should we?

For me, participating in the Trump impersonator’s gag got uncomfortable quickly: Karaoke style, Carl’s Trump urges the audience into his own lyrics for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, many of which consist of how “great” he is. (“Great, great, great, great.”) It’s funny. But soon the lyrics switch to calling Clinton "Hitler."

Not something I can sing along to, satire or not, particularly when one major candidate is the open favorite of real-life American neo-Nazis.

There seems to be plenty of confusion in town: when a drooping Bernie-sign holder stepped into an elevator with me at the Walnut-Locust SEPTA station, I asked her how she was doing. “I have some complicated feelings,” she said sadly. The day before, I watched someone brandish a giant Tea Party flag from inside a "#BernieOrBust" march.

For me, whether or not I’m able to laugh at this election season is another question with a lot of mixed feelings.

After the Trump vs. Hillary trio’s Philly shows end on July 28, you can catch this evolving performance for four more dates, on August 2, September 20, October 2, and October 18 at PIT’s Striker in New York City.