Curtain calls

Don't you hate it when the playwright waits until Act III to bring on a load of new characters?  It feels like she's trying to write her way out of some plot impasse and it never works, especially when they have silly names.

Like Heidi Stirrup, a creature of Stephen Miller who was recently installed at the Barr Department to collect information on election "fraud" and other ongoing cases.  She was also offering jobs to other Trumpites without authorization, part of a plot to salt the place with anti-Biden elements.  If this reminds you of "political commissars" reporting back to the KGB in the USSR, come and sit by me.  Stirrup has now been asked to leave, presumably on the horse she rode in on, and I am deeply ashamed of that sentence.

Like Gabriel Sterling.  I thought I knew every state's voting system implementation manager as well as I once knew the 1986 Mets, but Sterling became a media star overnight for his Jimmy-Stewart-as-Mr.-Smith speech denouncing Trump's campaign of intimidation and incitement to violence.  Rebecca Solnit in the Guardian was not entranced, though:  "They [Republicans like Sterling] never had the moral high ground.  The death threats and intimidation...are wrong.  However, they're not the first people to get them but in some sense the last..."  Inevitably she ends by quoting Martin Niemoller:  "First they came for the socialists..."  Or in this case the Mexicans, the Muslims, the asylum seekers, the journalists, the health care professionals, the Asians, the anti-fascist protesters, the racial justice advocates, the Democratic governors, the environmentalists...and now you, Mr. Sterling.  Not much fun, is it?

Like Mellissa Carone, who was born to be the star witness in the world's most hopeless case, brought to you by the world's most hapless lawyer.  Giuliani came to this slapstick farce fresh from his starring role in the Borat movie, held a press conference in front of a landscaping company with a name similar to a posh hotel, held another press conference with brown liquid leaking from his head, was sent away empty by numerous judges, and then he found Mellissa.  Who claims she witnessed every kind of election fraud except getting Dan McGinty to vote all over town.  Who turns out to have just served probation for "computer crime" (unspecified) in return for having an obscenity charge dropped.  But Giuliani got the audience back when he apparently punctuated her "testimony" with a fart.  Who's the star now?

You may remember Scott O'Grady from an earlier play, Eatin' Bugs In Bosnia, about a fighter pilot shot down in 1995 who had to be rescued by the Marines.  Since then, O'Grady has become a fully loaded crackpot, embracing QAnon, raving about a "coup" and calling for martial law.  It makes perfect sense that Trump just made him assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.   Scott enjoys walks in the woods, line dancing and accusing people of treason (Barack Obama, John Kerry, Alexander Vindman, James Mattis), but what got him the role appointment was a photo-shopped tweet of Joe Biden with Xi Jinping captioned "Trump won & Biden & his Comrades will now attempt a coup."  He has an M.A. in theology.

Finally a show I understand:  There is actually a Kit Kat Club in Berlin, but they make you take a covid test before you can join in the sex on the dance floor.  Happy to see you, bleibe, reste, blow into this, bitte.