THE FRONT PAGE FOLLIES

Zen question: If, as George Kaufman pointed out, satire is what closes on Saturday night, what is political satire?

                Well, if you happen to hang out at the Cornelia Street Café, the answer is simple — it's what's been happening downstairs every Monday night at 6:30.  Let me elucidate:

                Every Monday in July and August, two no-longer-quite-so-young men regaled full houses downstairs with songs of their own devising about, you should pardon the expression, the Bush Administration — well, not simply the Bush Administration, but such diverse and related topics as the Supreme Court, the collapse of Russia, the rise of a certain Governor from Texas, abortion rights, Boy Scout wrongs, such obscure objects of American desire as guns and dot. coms, and, last but by no means least, Donna Hanover’s husband. 

                The thirst for this kind of take on the state of the nation proved so intense that we voted them in by acclamation for another term. So, every Monday night, beginning again on September 24th at 6:30pm sharp, and continuing into eternity, you can hum along with Peter Ekstrom and Michael Quinn as they dissect with great verve and wit and scarcely a malicious bone in their collective body the entire political spectrum, as they see it, from the far right to the ultra right.

                We have even set up a special Box Office number for the Front Page Follies:

 

212-340-9468

 

Who knows, if they keep it up, they may outlast the Bush Administration.  It’s certainly the only argument we can come up with for (up with for?) a second term.  Ah, well, if we’re lucky Ekstrom and Quinn will set our convoluted sentence mongering to music.  And a passing melodious roundelay ’twill make too.