Capitol Steps was a night of extreme fun and laughter, as the wonderful actors imitated the leading political figures of the day. The figures poked fun at include: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin, and many more. All of these people were done by only five actors, who were also all very talented singers, because many of the numbers were at least in part songs.
Some of my favorite impersonations were those of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush. The Obama impersonation had all of the right pauses, exaggerated just enough to make it funny, and his voice tone was pretty spot on too. The Hillary impersonation had Hillary’s voice nailed down so well, if I would have closed my eyes I could easily have been fooled. The George Bush impersonation was all around spot on. I was too young to really have paid attention to the news when he was president, but the impersonation hit and exaggerated upon what I did remember of him in very comedic way.
My favorite number of the evening was entitled Lirty Dies: Picking Our Breast and Bightest, in which one of the cast members recited a monologue in which letters (usually, but not always the first letter of a word) were swapped around between words. Not every word was messed with, and usually only one letter was swapped, making it so you could still for the most part figure out what the original word was, making it more funny.
Several of their numbers were spoofs on pop culture where they took the melody of a song and made it political. One such song was titled All About The Base, in which “Hillary” and a couple other people sang about the political base, and how important it is. Another such spoof was on the musical Grease. They took one the songs from it and had “Alexis Tsipras,” “François Hollande,” and “Angela Merkle” singing about the Greek debt crisis. I’m not so tuned in to pop culture, but someone who was would have appreciated these spoofs even more.
Overall Capitol Steps was a great performance, and if they are performing near you, I highly recommend seeing them. With the election upon us, and this intense election campaign, it was good comedic relief with all sides receiving a good comedic roast.
– River Scheuerell