Musical Comedy, Politics, and Free Donuts

When you enter the Actors' Temple Theatre for Who's Your Baghdaddy? Or How I Started the The Iraq War, you might wonder if you're in the right place. There is a table with free donuts and mimosas in the middle of the room, with chairs arranged in a circle around it. No, you didn't accidentally walk into a meeting. Well, not exactly. The musical by Marshall Pailet and A.D. Penedo takes place at a support group for people who started the Iraq War, so the treats help set the scene. Actors take their seats in the circle and Brandon Espinoza, who plays the support group leader and various other roles, starts the meeting. Don't worry, though, despite the intimate staging (Pailet also directs), you won't be asked to participate.

Photo credit: Jeremy Daniels

As each character tells his or her role, we see flashbacks, often elaborately told through song and dance (Misha Shields's choreography impressively utilizes the minimal space). There are a lot of pieces in the true story (with dramatic license taken, of course) of how the Iraq War started and Pailet and Penedo make it easy to follow. There's Richart Becker (Brennan Caldwell), a German detective responsible for Curveball (Nehal Joshi), an Iraqi defector who claims to have intel on biological weapons. He sends information to CIA analysts Berry (Larisa Oleynik) and Jerry (Olli Hasskivi), who verify it with weapons inspector Martin Bouchard (Bob D'Haene). Though they are all convinced that Curveball is telling the truth, CIA operative Tyler Nelson (Jason Collins) is skeptical.

Although the members of the cast, which also includes Claire Neumann in multiple roles, have varying skills in the vocal department (Joshi is the standout), they all work extremely hard. Though comedy should appear effortless, for the most part, their efforts pay off, as in Caldwell's big number, "Das Man," (German words in musical numbers always seem to be funny). For fans of The Secret World of Alex Mack or 10 Things I Hate About You, it's also fun to see Oleynik rap.

But it's not all frivolity and the writers deserve credit for tackling this subject matter in such an unexpected way. The musical is based on J.T. Allen's 2005 screenplay, which couldn't get made in Hollywood. Producer Charlie Fink writes in a program note, "Musical comedy may be one of the few vehicles through which we can see and accept our responsibility for what happened, and what we will do in the future to repair the world we have so terribly broken." It's also a form which can constantly evolve and surprise as long as producers are willing to take risks.