Displaying items by tag: Mark Ulrich

Smear tactics are nothing new in politics; Octavian became Emperor of Rome by distributing coins printed with negative slogans against Mark Anthony. The printing press provided a more easily reproduceable vehicle for misinformation, with the written material later reinforced by manipulated (long before Photoshop!) photographs. And now, of course, we have social media, click bait, troll farms, and ever-darker forms of fake news.

But we can pinpoint the birth of fake news with an extraordinary upsurge in political invective at the 1934 California gubernatorial race.

Playwright Will Allen examines this race in CAMPAIGNS, INC, playing at the TimeLine Theatre through September 18. CAMPAIGNS, INC was originally slated for release in 2020, to inject some much-needed humor into that anxious year and its contentious presidential election. But the play’s impact is even weightier now, after two more years of unscrupulous politics.

CAMPAIGNS, INC is based on a true story about carnival promoter Leone Baxter (Tyler Meredith) and journalist Clem Whitaker (Yurly Sardarov).  I would love to admire Leone Baxter – 1934 didn’t have many women in the political arena until she pioneered the field of political consulting by co-founding Campaigns Inc. Her tactics, however, proved less than admirable. Campaigns Inc unquestionably spawned the phenomenon of fake news and propelled opposition research to new depths of depravity.

CAMPAIGNS, INC portrays Baxter and Whitaker’s debut campaign, representing Frank Merriam (Terry Hamilton) in his bid for Governor of California against Upton Sinclair (Anish Jethmalani). Staunch Republican Merriam and Socialist Sinclair vie for support from an array of celebrities, from Sinclair’s friend Charlie Chaplin (Dave Honigman) and Lieutenant Governor George Hatfield (Mark Ulrich), to Franklin Roosevelt (David Parkes). Parkes also joins the electioneering as Louis B. Mayer, Douglas Fairbanks, Kyle Palmer, and a photographer. As ultra-conservative Merriam buys Roosevelt’s endorsement by affirming the New Deal, Eleanor Roosevelt (Jacqueline Grandt, also as Mary Pickford, a reporter and a waitress) defies her husband by publicly approving Sinclair. The entire election becomes a comprehensive calamity of deceit, demonization, and decidedly dirty politics.

Director Nick Bowling cleverly employs a multi-media presentation for CAMPAIGNS, INC. Scenes from Shirley Temple’s “Stand Up and Cheer!” and Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night” flicker on the screen as we take our seats. The stage is positioned between two facing banks of audience seats; the sets are assembled during blackouts, wheeling in Sinclair’s office at one end or Merriam’s at the other, with FDR’s Hyde Park residence and the offices of Campaigns Inc popping up in center stage. The live acting is interspersed with 1930’s film clips projected on a mobile screen.

This hurley-burley design resonates perfectly with the play’s general atmosphere of hectic absurdity as CAMPAIGNS, INC examines the power of deceit in the U.S. electoral system via humor. In truth, comedy is probably the best way to consider these insights, lest we succumb to despair. And the show truly is hilarious!

CAMPAIGNS, INC (the play) watches Campaigns Inc (the firm) exploit the newest media techniques for their nefarious purposes. Billboards and massive direct-mail marketing present quotes from Sinclair’s novels (“One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption,” from The Jungle), deliberately obscuring his true values and principles. Leone Baxter later admitted the quotes were irrelevant, but she just wanted to keep Sinclair from winning.  Note: the goal was to defeat Sinclair, not to elect Merriam. Disparaging the other guy is so much easier than trying to identify a candidate’s virtues!

Is any of this sounding familiar?

MGM’s Louis B. Mayer, threatened by increasing unionization of Hollywood, churned out scripted commentaries discrediting Sinclair.  These contrived clips were aired before feature films, so audiences naturally thought they were genuine newsreels. And the best part is that the fake news was funded by garnishing MGM employee’s paychecks.

WH Hearst’s LA Times printed daily front-page articles smearing Sinclair. As political editor Kyle Palmer told a visiting NY Times reporter, “We don’t go in for that crap you have in New York – being obliged to print both sides.”  

CAMPAIGNS, INC is brilliantly written (Will Allan), masterfully directed (Nick Bowling), and splendidly acted by the entire cast.  In such an elaborate production, I think the crew deserves special notice. Scenic, lighting, and projections designers Sydney Lynne, Jared Gooding, and Anthony Churchill skillfully weave the multimedia mélange together. Sally Dolembo, U.S.A., Katie Cordts and Megan E. Pirtle design convincing period costumes, wigs, and hair. Sound designers Forrest Gregor and Andrew Hansen, dialect director Sammi Grant and dramaturg Maren Robinson replicate the ‘30’s with crackling radio broadcasts and vintage jokes. The entire collage is brought together by stage manager Miranda Anderson, artistic director PJ Powers, and executive director Mica Cole. And I want a shoutout for properties designer Rowan Doe: I loved the period radios and typewriters … and where did you find that magnificent wheelchair for FDR?!

CAMPAIGNS, INC is perfect for 2022, letting us scrutinize our preposterous times while providing comic relief from the lunacy as well.

*Extended through September 25

In the highly engaging, thought-provoking world premiere, “Assassination Theatre: Chicago’s Role in the Crime of the Century” by investigative reporter and author Hillel Levin, the audience is thrust into a very well-presented exploration into the murder of President John F. Kennedy. Offered as somewhat of an acted out documentary complimented by a series of haunting projected images, Levin takes a look at credible proof compiled over the years, whether physical, circumstantial or witness accounts, and makes a convincing argument that the key players involved were members of the Chicago mob.

Says Levin on how he stumbled upon, and then pursued, the story, “The origins of this show go back to 2007, when I wrote a story for Playboy magazine about the burglars who broke into the home of Tony Accardo, Chicago’s long-time mob leader. After the article was published, I was approached by Zach Sheldon, one of the FBI agents featured in the story, who asked, ‘Why don’t you do a real story about the mob?’ When I asked what that was, he replied, ‘How they killed JFK.” This prompted Levin to spend the next seven years in extensive research before concluding what Sheldon and other FBI agents determined. As Levin explains, “The assassination was kind of a theater, staged to put the blame on only one actor in what was, in fact, a much larger production.”

Michael Joseph Mitchell is very convincing as Hillel Levin, wrought with passion and conviction as more and more evidence is revealed. As the investigation unfolds Levin and Zechariah Shelton (performed splendidly by Mark Ulrich) bounce theories off each other, speculating, and furthermore perhaps ultimately proving, the mobs involvement. Ryan Kitley and Martin Yurek do a tremendous job in playing a multitude of characters as they are introduced and revisited in the story. As the story progresses, a flow chart is created of who’s who in the mob and how they connected with alleged gunman Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. In this truly gripping docu-play, mind blowing evidence is brought forward, holes in the famous Warren report are exposed, motive is revealed as well as the means to pull off the crime of the century.

Levin kind of lets the government off the hook as far as any direct involvement they may have had in the actual assassination itself, which might be an unpopular theory to many conspiracy buffs. However, he does implicate the government in covering up the true facts of the crime in order to preserve the peace of the public and to prevent the possibility of war with the Soviet Union. Even after Levin’s very convincing evidence is presented, one might still wonder if such an assassination could have been pulled off without the inside intel of, say, the CIA. Nonetheless, Levin’s beautifully presented theatrical investigation peaks interest from beginning to end without the slightest lull whatsoever.

The argument made for a high-level conspiracy is substantial and far more believable than buying into the lone gunman theory that the media has provided via the government. Of course, Levin is not the first to point this out, nor will he be the last. We’ve seen similarities in other assassinations in that of Robert Kennedy’s, Martin Luther King’s, John Lennon’s, etc., etc. It is admirable that Levin takes such a stance. His investigative presentation is effective and hard-hitting and, at the very least, certain to leave audience members asking questions afterwards, perhaps urging them to research JFK’s assassination for themselves and other potential cover ups rather than opting for complacency and blind belief.   

Soundly directed by Kevin Christopher Fox, “Assassination Theater: Chicago’s Role in the Crime of the Century”, currently playing at the Museum of Broadcast Communications (360 N. State St.) through November 7th, is highly recommended. It is a well-acted, intelligent, quick moving, greatly comprehensible theatre presentation loaded with twits and shocking revelations that is sure to stir one’s interest. For tickets and/or more show information, visit www.assassinationtheater.com.