Some time last week, the New York Times’ Frank Rich scored tickets to see the highly lauded revival of “South Pacific” that’s currently playing on Broadway. Being the Times’ former theatre critic before he turned his all-knowing eye to politics, this must have been quite the trick. Everyone loves the show, and Rich did too. But if you think Rich skipped out of the theatre humming “Some Enchanted Evening,” you simply don’t know Frank Rich.
While it’s always nice to see Rich and his ilk declare solidarity with the troops even as they cheer their every setback and ignore or more often deny their progress, I still take strong issue with the assertion that “you can’t watch” the “South Pacific” revival without working yourself into a righteous rage over George W. Bush. I’m so confident that Rich’s assertion is incorrect, I’ll even be willing to put it to the test if someone gives me tickets. (Orchestra seats please, but not too close.) Indeed, I’d even wager that the show is a hit because theatre-goers enjoy themselves while watching it, and not because the show drives them into an angry lather over current events. You have to wonder what will become of Frank Rich when George W. Bush departs from the stage in eight short months. Have the events of the past seven years so scarred Rich that he’ll spend the rest of his career making strained analogies between entertainment vehicles and this particular president, even after Bush has devoted himself to clearing brush in Crawford full time? This latest column proves how Frank Rich truly has become the mental patient from an old joke: A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office, and the psychiatrist begins showing the guy Rorschach images and asking the patient what he sees. To each image of blots and scribbles, the guy responds, “Two people making love.” After this happens a dozen or so times, the doctor pronounces, “I’ve diagnosed your problem. You’re obsessed with sex.” The guy responds, “Me? You’re the one who kept showing me all those dirty pictures!” Think how well the joke still works if you substitute “Frank Rich” for “the guy” and “George W. Bush” for “two people making love.” The punch line could be, “You’re the one who keeps showing me all those pictures of the worst president ever! The blunderer! The way he pranced on an aircraft carrier…” The only problem is the punch line would probably go on for hours.
