Phillyist Reviews... This Is the Week that Is

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: Phillyist's own Don Montrey is a funny, funny guy. I'm saying it now because Don also happened to be the head writer on 1812 Productions' This Is the Week That Is: The Election Special which itself is largely a funny, funny show.

The show—the third, and apparently final, in 1812's This Is... series, includes daily updates on the state of the world in these final days before the election. It's so topical, in fact, that news that had broken only two hours before curtain time somehow managed to find its way into the show.

Highlights in the show included a sketch in which the presidential election was re-imagined as a beauty pageant (Jennifer Childs plays an uncanny, if short, Sarah Palin, and Steven Wright has Barack Obama's vocal nuances nailed—plus his magic act rocked), and a medley of campaign songs that, the cast assures us, are all real. (Did anyone else know about the Fred Thompson campaign's take on "Lean on Me"?) Jennifer Childs proved that she really is a triple-threat (we've already seen her act and dance), belting out a First Lady lament; Anthony Lawton and Tony Braithwaite got things off to a good start when they debated, as Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, the constitutionality of "gay" marriage; and Dave Jadico was his usual entertaining self.

Perhaps the show's only flaw is its length. Clocking in at two hours and fifteen minutes when I saw it (the length may fluctuate, as the show changes nightly), the last half of the second act began to drag, and the "Weekend Update"-like "This Is the Week That Is" segment felt overlong. There's definitely too much ground to cover to make the show one act, but it could have stood a bit of tightening just to keep it under two hours.

This Is the Week that Is runs through this weekend at the historic Plays and Players Theatre in Rittenhouse, closing just before the election around which it revolves. I can only hope that 1812 has changed its mind about this being the final incarnation of the series, because with a new administration set to take over in January, there will be plenty left to parody, no matter who ultimately wins the race next week.

Tony Lawton, Tony Braithwaite, Dave Jadico, Jennifer Childs, and Steven Wright appear in 1812 Productions' This Is the Week That Is at the Plays and Players Theatre through this weekend. Photo by Mark Garvin.