Daniel Nelson

Obama-ology

Obama-ology

Image by Finborough Theatre


He certainly struggles to make an impact in the voter drive in Cleveland   - “We take this area, we take the country.”

He’s a, prickly, proud, educated, vegetarian (“Weird!”), Buddhist (“Weird!”), bead-wearing  New Yorker who doesn’t find it easy to get through to local people:

“These are my kind of people,” he tells a campaign supervisor defensively.

“But are you their kind?” comes the retort.

On one level, he’s not. He is frustrated with the US of bad-diet, TV-addicted shopaholics with low-expectations, some of whom, as he puts it dismissively, talk Ebonics, and he also has to contend with oh-so-polite white prejudice, illiterates, died-in the-wool Republicans, dogs and ever-present police racism – the “Driving While Black” incidents are not the only moments when the play, though set at the moment when hope for Obama was white hot, resonates with events today, such as Ferguson.

But even Obama “had to learn to talk to his own”, he is told. “It’s another way of reaching out.”

Gradually he learns how to respond, how not to react to police harassment, how to overcome the criticism of his campaign colleagues, how not to rage at the inane pretensions of the self-referential campaign late-comers who belatedly turn up in Cleveland to celebrate “post-racial America”.

Author Aurin Squire is presents us with a treasure trove of situations and characters, brought to life by a revolving cast of five,  in his witty, cutting, informative “how to” and “how not to” guide to US campaigning. It’s short - two one-hour halves - but he packs a mine of incident and knows how to handle the political through the personal, even if the brevity of the piece means Warren’s demons are skimmed over at the end, in a brief, tense meeting with his mother.

Squire’s got talent, and this is a production to see and savour. It’s also another proof of the vitality and depth of small theatre. While TV drama continues to be obsessed with northern European crime, here’s another example of a small London venue providing real nutrition and serving it with style.

You leave the theatre entertained and provoked, remembering – if ruefully – that moment in history when those who were there could say with conviction, “Change is possible … I saw the proof.”

·         Obama-ology is at the Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, SW10 9ED, until 16 December; £16/£18. Info: 7244 7439  / 0844 847 1652/ admin@finboroughtheatre.co.uk

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