The Strangerer

Albert Williams, Chicago Reader

Critic’s Choice - "Guy Massey’s brilliant performance as George W. Bush anchors Theater Oobleck’s new political satire, which imagines the Decider as a present-day equivalent of Mersault, the antihero of Albert Camus’1942 novel, The Stranger. In this absurdist comedy by Mickle Maher--who costars as John Kerry--set during a 2004 candidate’s debate, Bush tries several times to murder unflappable moderator Jim Lehrer (Colm O’Reilly) on the air, giving his reasons in a narrative as scrupulously detailed as Mersault’s. Massey has Bush’s mannerisms down cold: the odd pauses and arbitrary emphases when he speaks, the heh-heh laugh that sounds simultaneously ingratiating, contemptuous, and paranoid, the wide-eyed, eager-to-please smile that morphs into a mean, squinty grimace. But more than an on-target impersonation, Massey delivers a richly detailed portrait of a man whose profound isolation reflects society’s emotionally charged political, religious, and cultural schisms"