Historical Hijinks
By Colleen Koestner
April 14, 2008 9:24 p.m.
Chris La Monte has a few tricks up his sleeve to lure students to a play about American history.
“There are lions. There are real lions in the show. We imported them from Africa,” second-year English student La Monte said of the upcoming independent production of “The Complete History of America (Abridged).” The show attempts to cover 50,000 years of American history in a span of 97 minutes.
La Monte is not serious about the lions, but short of handling exotic animals, no feat seems too large in trying to win over the show’s audience.
“The entire premise of the show is that we are trying desperately to teach the audience about American history, but by trying, we have to go to extravagant lengths by tossing on a cowboy jacket and using our fingers as six-shooters,” La Monte explained.
La Monte joins second-year sociology student Daniel Luedtke and first-year math student Richard Ferris in putting on the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s play in Northwest Campus Auditorium opening Thursday and running for three nights.
The script baits audience members into learning with a mix of irreverent humor and historical facts ““ a combination that Luedtke terms “intellectual vaudeville.”
“If you can’t make fun of the deaths of thousands of Americans during several wars and Prohibition, and all these wonderful, wonderful laws, and, of course, Jefferson and Madison clearly rolling doobies while writing the Bill of Rights, then why would people want to learn about history in the first place?” he asked.
The show highlights important moments in American history, pointing out the absurdities even of dark events such as Watergate and the Iraq War.
Cameo figures range from George Washington, to the Andrews Sisters, to a highly metaphorical puppet of Ronald Reagan.
The performers have spent three months organizing the production on their own.
Without set or costume designers or even a director, the three students have had to oversee the technical aspects of the show, in addition to performing.
Ferris, La Monte and Luedtke dealt with the challenge of low-budget set design by foregoing sets altogether for props found in Ferris’ home and from shops on the streets of Santa Monica.
“When people see (the props), they have to see the scenario we’re representing,” Luedtke said.
“So in the beginning, when we do Amerigo Vespucci, we have to make it look like this Italian village or like a mapmaker’s studio in Italy just using a few props.”
In spite of the limitations of running the show independently, the actors agree that the resulting collaboration is necessary for success.
“The thing is, when you do a show like this, the three guys need to be the directors because the show is based on chemistry ““ you don’t have chemistry, the show doesn’t get its point across,” Luedtke said.
Together, the actors aim to keep the material light while managing to deliver the necessary facts.
“This is not inaccurate history we’re portraying here. Everything is followed up by an explanation, sort of the historical background behind everything. We just continue by portraying it in a comical fashion,” said Luedtke, who often plays female roles in the show.
But in spite of “girl penis jokes” and references to midgets, Ferris believes that the “Complete History of America” won’t be stirring up any controversy.
“There are small jokes here and there, but there’s not anything that’s very offensive, or anything like that. This is a very PC performance, but there are little bits and pieces that might turn a head or two,” he said.
La Monte even believes it will be an all-around educational experience.
“Everyone will learn something from the show. It’s just the manner that you learn it in makes it fun,” La Monte said.
And in order to educate the audience, Ferris, Luedtke and La Monte are willing to put their pride on the line.
“What we do is we strap on fake breasts, we carry Super Soakers, and we do the “˜Boogie Woogie (Bugle Boy of Company B)’ and jig out of there,” Luedtke said.
“We have no shame. Actually, to prepare for this, we just walked out in public naked for three months.”
