Who's Afraid? George and Martha Get Naked

Karen Finley has grand pretensions for her latest brew of
vitriol and slapstick, George and Martha. The title alludes
to the warring couple of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid
of Virginia Woolf, the dialogue attempts the repartée of
August Strindberg, and its investigation of Oedipal and Electra
complexes sound like a rather earnest reading of The Collected
Works of Sigmund Freud. In the hands of a less experienced
chef, these ingredients would result in an unpalatable
entrée, congealed and overspiced. But Finley, whose previous
concoctions have included everything from chocolate syrup to her
own breast milk, blends just enough madcap humor with her
pretension to create an exhilaratingly outrageous night at the
theater.

The title characters are George W. Bush and Martha Stewart, two
public figures who have little in common besides the ability to
attract blind hatred from large segments of the public. In
Finley’s world, however, George and Martha are lovers,
engaged in a destructive, codependent affair which reaches its
climax during the Republican convention. The seedy motel room in
which that climax unfolds is furnished by designer Gary Hayes with
retro castoffs from the Urban Outfitters housewares department and
covered with a veneer of skanky West End-like grime.

Into this miasma walk George (Neal Medlyn) and Martha (Finley),
covered only by body paint: Martha in a black and white-striped
“cocktail dress,” George in a red, white, and blue
leotard. The other elements of their costume do nothing to preserve
the actors’ modesty: Finley wears a large frosted-blonde wig,
Medlyn a white leather belt with a belt buckle reading
“BOYTOY.”

For Finley, who wrote, directed, and stars in George and Martha,
character is indistinguishable from caricature. In fact, George and
Martha often seems to be a parody of the parodies of Bush by
MoveOn.org acolytes and of Stewart by late-night comedians. George
drinks heavily, snorts cocaine, and straight-facedly mouths the
wildest anti-Bush conspiracy theories. Saudi involvement in his
abortive oil ventures? Check. Hushed-up abortion of an illegitimate
child? Check. Jeb Bush’s intervention in the Florida
election? Check.

Finley’s Martha is a grating, fastidious
nag—“George! Couldn’t you do better than plastic
champagne flutes?” she moans—who plays into the worst
stereotypes of successful businesswomen. “Martha,
you’re more of a man than I am,” George complains, and
aside from the female anatomy Martha displays so explicitly,
disturbingly little is done to disprove that misogynist
statement.

Certainly, incisive political and social commentary is in short
supply here; the audience member who looks for cocktail party
talking points will be disappointed. And Finley occasionally falls
short on the execution. She stumbles over even what are clearly
ad-libbed lines, and her monologues are unfocused and sometimes
dull. Medlyn’s performance is smoother: his soft Texas twang
is consistent, and he portrays the cartoonish frat boy with
disarming sincerity. But viewed as an exercise in camp rather than
as a weapon in the arsenal of the “No Blood for Oil”
crowd, George and Martha is a near-masterpiece.

Finley’s bizarrely hilarious vignettes include the two
lovers cooing “My baby,” “No, my baby,”
“Be my baby,” “baby, baby, baby” while
writhing on a dry-cleaner’s bag; Martha fastening feathers on
George with toothpaste; Martha looking around the motel room and
then uttering the opening line of Albee’s Martha, “What
a dump,” and adding a decidedly 21st century kicker: “I
told you not to use hotels.com.” And can you guess how a
fugitive Osama bin Laden enters George’s body? Hint: not
through his mouth.

Campiest of all is the psychobabble George and Martha use to
explain their lives, their jobs, and their relationships. Martha
declares that those who hate her hate do so because she has refused
to “wear the weapon of the feminine psyche.” Both
complain of demanding, perfectionist fathers, George yelling at
George H.W. over the phone, “Isn’t it amazing that such
a smart man like you could have such a stupid son like me.”
But this too is more parody than straight-faced analysis; Finley
mocks every celebrity who chalks up his or her personal failings to
the failings of their parents.

It’s a heady brew, but one well worth consuming.