Ghost of John McCain

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If, to paraphrase Mark Twain, a liar’s greatest enemy is laughter, then the new musical comedy Ghost of John McCain is certainly no friend of Donald Trump. It’s also not a hagiography of the late Arizona senator and famed prisoner of war who, after dying in 2018, is condemned for his own political shortcomings to another captivity, this time in Donald Trump’s warped subconsciousness. When the show sticks to this satirically low-brow conceit, it rollicks along humorously, thanks in no small part to a nimble cast unafraid of being supremely silly. But Ghost of John McCain also has an off-putting penchant for strained seriousness, as if losing faith in the power Twain proclaimed.   

As conceived by Grant Woods and Jason Rose, Trump’s prodigiously self-serving thoughts are a nightmarish Oz, where the current Republican presidential nominee is the malignantly insecure wizard, John McCain (Jason Tam) slowly realizes he’s a dead Dorothy who can never return home, and everything is of questionable quality. This last on-brand point means that Ghost of John McCain mimics the 1939 MGM classic solely in allusive spirit, since Trump’s lousy musical tastes tend toward the profitably vapid output of fellow rich white guy Andrew Lloyd Webber. It’s an avowed fondness that explains why Eva Perón (Zonya Love), Grizabella (Ben Fankhauser), and the Phantom of the Opera (Luke Kolbe Mannikus) are residing rent free in Trump’s noggin, with perhaps Trump seeing aspects of himself in each of these mawkishly forlorn characters. If that’s the case, then Ghost of John McCain really should have contained a number called “Don’t Cry for Me, Mar-a-Lago.”

Blessedly, composer and lyricist Drew Fornarola’s snappy score isn’t at all reminiscent of Webber’s grandiose posturing (of course, Trump is a fanboy), mostly poking fun at the megalomania between Trump’s ears with straightforward cartoonish tartness. An overcrowded piece of real estate, the space is inhabited not only by Perón, an anthropomorphized cat, and a masked sex pest, but also living and deceased political figures who together shape a quarrelsome Greek chorus, with each member either protecting or tormenting Trump’s fragile psyche. The friendliest chorister, Trump’s undearly-departed mentor Roy Cohn (Fankhauser), exerts a particularly profound influence over his ex-apprentice.

Much of the clever and introspective happenings in Trump’s flabby noodle obviously stretch credulity, a narrative problem that Fornarola and book writer Scott Elmegreen overcome by being frequently funny and occasionally insightful. On the one tiny hand, it’s plausible Trump would mentally combine several women into a composite character, Daughter-Wife (Lindsay Nicole Chambers), but, on the other equally tiny hand, he wouldn’t give this leggy, blonde fabrication the agency to melodically mock his “butthole mouth,” “bankruptcies,” or “showers of gold.” And, when a certain senior South Carolina senator (Fankhauser) fabulously appears to sing and dance about his “handcuffed” loyalty to Trump, it makes sense that Trump would fully comprehend the exploitative nature of their relationship. Still, it’s unclear why Trump would be familiar with the risqué attire someone might wear to a circuit party.

Ghost of John McCain is on its most solid psychological ground when depicting Trump (Mannikus) as perpetually pubescent, suffering from myriad long-held inadequacies that make him fearful of genuinely accomplished contemporaries like McCain, Joe Biden (Fankhauser), and, the ultimate uninvited guest in Trump’s dilapidated hotel of a mind, Hillary Clinton (Chambers). Rather than learn from their examples, Trump sinks further into his own brain (Aaron Michael Ray), which takes huge and purplish form to propose, in lieu of a debate about political ethics, a winner-take-all dance contest to settle matters. In the show’s most delightful scene, choreographer Sunny Min-Sook Hitt puts Mannikus and Tam through the paces, with the versatile duo furiously hoofing a medley of styles on their way towards a bottle-dance showdown.

We’ve clearly jumped from Trump’s brain to much more sophisticated grey matter for this rousing reference to Fiddler on the Roof, entertainingly, and therefore forgivably, obliterating the show’s already suspect logic. But, nobody earns a pardon after Lawrence E. Moten III’s set metaphorically shifts from the cheap glamor of a Trump property to the Hanoi Hilton, with a depressed McCain tied to a chair and singing lyrics that include “think of home/relax your shoulders” and “this has a purpose/there is a meaning/all dark nights pass by.” Given its generally light-hearted tone, the production cannot carry the weight of McCain’s emotions, whose manipulative usage is decidedly Trumpian.

With ill-conceived purpose, Ghost of John McCain also cursorily bounds into the cranium of a disillusioned Trump supporter, the hackily named Karen (Love). Her saccharine solo, “Invisible,” is a personal pity party in which she justifies previously voting for Trump by quavering “when you feel overlooked/you’d be amazed/what you can overlook.” If that’s an excuse, Fornarola can’t sell it, despite benefitting from Love’s enormous vocal talents. Perhaps that’s because the head Fornarola entered was simply his own.

Ghost of John McCain (through November 10, 2024)

SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 212-691-1555 or visit http://www.sohoplayhouse.com

Running time: one hour and 30 minutes with no intermission