Friday AUGUST 17
9:15 PM THEATER TWO
Bull Dog in the WhiteHouse
Todd Verow
Feature Video 80:00 2006 Chicago Premiere
The horny, plotting and evil Bush Administration stars in a modern
adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos's classic story of power and deceit,
Dangerous Liaisons, comfortably splitting the difference between
political commentary and gay porn. Bulldog in the Whitehouse is faithful to the
traditional decadence of 18th century French aristocrats slutting around,
but Verow adds insult to injury, deeming that these new players are all
gays, and ensnared in incestuous webs of diabolical seductions and random
hook-ups. Bulldog is a super-saturated narrative fueled by the fascinating
charm and vulgarity of a community theater troupe on poppers.
Karl Rove is the grand dame Marquise, who puppets a washed up hustler,
Bulldog (our transposed Valmont) to obstruct an impending alliance
between his ex, the twinky Religious Leader (noted performer Michael Burke),
and the doe-eyed, dopey George W. Bush.
Verow casts himself as the tenacious Bulldog, a seldom-clothed power
broker plowing a path of clammy bedsheets en route to acquiring the coveted
"hard pass" from a virginal White House Press Secretary. If granted, such
clearance would give the Bulldog no holds-barred access to getting in
bed with the President. Along his way, machinations of desperate love and
false promises bring ruin to all those involved, and we encounter the sole
lady of the house: Laura Bush, who plays W's domineering mommy. She lords over him
the control of his midnight rendezvous like Lady Macbeth, but is
devoted to the ideals of Republicanism with the sterling fidelity of a faghag.
One might misunderstand some of Bulldog's sex couplings that did not
occur in the French novel as errors in consistency. No, no; it is only
because the characters in the original Dangerous Liaisons were not gay and the Bush
Administration that they did not fuck every last person. Here you can
expect cocks, spit and ass to be swapped willy-nilly, all to the detriment of
democracy and ultimately for the entertainment of a gurgling
Jabba-the-Rove.
"Cheerfully obscene... the semi-coherent narrative tracks as a
burlesque revue of Bush II scandals." The Village Voice