Washington, D.C., as Art Form
If the characters in Washington seem all-too-familiar to you, maybe it's because you've seen them before. Here's an excerpted e-mail exchange among some friends & me:
A: You're back just in time to see Obama bitch-slapped yet again by Boehner over this stupid appearance before Congress. Fuck them, Obama should just tell the networks he wants to address the nation. They have no interest in what he says anyway. Does he never get tired of playing Pedrolino to Boehner's Il Capitano? It's like Commedia dell'Arte where he (Obama) comes, the naif of the world, bouncing by hoping to have a wonderful day and is hit in the face with a bat by the cowardly, stridently militant Capitano. Again, and again, and again. Day in, day out. This might be comedy to the Italians but it's tragedy to Americans. But I suppose it depends on what kind of American you are. If you are the kind who hopes and believes in the ideal of the American experiment, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, separation of powers and separation of church and state, and a balanced concept of the role and limitation of governments, you might find it tragic. If you're the other kind, a Teabagging Republican, you're convulsed. As Mel Brooks once said, defining comedy "If I cut my finger, that's a tragedy. If you fall into an open manhole and die, THAT's comedy."
Marie: Ha! Commedia dell'Arte is a great metaphor for the whole damned Washington show. And how about Candide? Of course, Candide finally gave up on optimism, or did so at least partially. I guess it's Barack Pangloss Obama.
A: Funny you should mention Candide, I'm reading it currently. It has quite a few eerie connections with current events. For instance, at one point, Candide and his troop, including the above mentioned, eternally and stupidly optimistic Pangloss, enter Lisbon, where the undergo natural disasters of an earthquake, a tsunami, and a fire. Sound familiar? Of course the local theologians proclaim, a la Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, that it's all God's plan and he's clearly pissed at someone, whom they determine to be Candide. He and Pangloss are readied to be sacrificed so morality can return to Lisbon ... and so it goes. He goes on about political 'philosophers' who maintain their course no matter what the facts or world conditions dictate.
It all sounds quite modern.
But Washington is too Commedia dell'Arte for all that. Voltaire, even at his broadest, is still too subtle for such as Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor, who would probably want him hanged for treason. Or something.
(Dr. Pangloss's lecture on "The Best of All Possible Worlds" from Leonard Bernstein's "Candide":)
B: I just re-read Candide myself recently. The part about the Lisbon earthquake and auto de fe was quite timely and compelling. Voltaire was a comedic version of Orwell. Best of all possible worlds, my ass.