The Complete History of America (abridged)

[sportyart]

The Complete History of America (abridged)



From the folks who brought you The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged) comes The Complete History of America (abridged)

50,000 years of American history in under 7000 seconds! From Washington to Watergate, from the Bering Straits to Baghdad, from the New World to a New World Order, the three Theatre Tulsa guerillas of culture, T.J. Bowlin, Nate Gavin and Jarrod Kopp, will take you on a two hour roller coaster ride through the glorious quagmire that is American History. (warning: contains sophomoric humor, language and waterguns).

Mention Theatre Club or TACTA at the box office and get 2 for 1 tickets for Friday, June 20, or Sunday, June 22.

Show Times
July 20-21, 26-28 at 8 p.m.; July 22 at 2 p.m.

Venue
Liddy Doenges Theatre

Presenter
Theatre Tulsa

Tickets
Available Online at myticketoffice.com or by calling 587-8402 or the PAC ticket office at 596-7111

All seats are general admission
Student, senior, teacher and military discounts are available

For an in-depth and thoughtful look at the rehearsal process and the inner
workings of a production on the scale of Compleat History visit
www.myspace.com/abridgedmen

Directed by Sally Adams (with Sally Barnes stage managing, Sue Woodruff as assistant stage manager, lighting design by Scott Heberling, sound by Lone Wolf Audio and produced by Larry R. Curtis and Theatre Tulsa). This is Theatre Tulsa entry into Sumeerstage 2007.

Theatre Tulsa is a proud member of the Tulsa Area Community Theatre Alliance, the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, and the Oklahoma Community Theatre Association.

This production made possible by grants from the Oklahoma Arts Council, Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust, and the all the proud sponsors of Theatre Tulsa.

For more information you can go visit our website at www.theatretulsa.org

[sportyart]

Tusla World
By KAREN SHADE World Scene Writer
7/23/2007

It's funny how three white boys rapping in front of a star-spangled backdrop can show you that America has serious problems.

Whether T.J. Bowlin, Nate Gavin and Jarrod Kopp can or can't rap is up to you, but this trio of boisterous misfits and director Sally Adams earned their deserved standing ovation by the end of Theatre Tulsa's "The Complete History of America (Abridged)" on Saturday night.

"Complete History," playing at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, is something like watching a three-legged sack race down the U.S. history timeline. Imagine Bowlin, Gavin and Kopp each hopping along on one foot in big burlap bag. They hang on to one another to keep their balance, yanking hair, bobbling forward and back, shouting insults and usually falling on their faces to our amusement. But let it be noted: These clowns share the last chuckle with their audience, laughing at the contradictions and hypocrisies of life past and present in the free world.

Case in point: The play starts off derisively citing how American history began in Spain in 1490-something in the shop of Italian-born Amerigo Vespucci, making maps. The guys, however, quickly backtrack thousands and thousands

of years to the Bering Strait and indigenous populations. Bowlin cuts in with a creation story he says he learned from his full-blood Crow Indian great-grandmother while wearing a head band with a feather sticking in it and sitting cross-legged in neo-hippie form.

From there, the guys hop over to the Salem Church of Tolerance, visit our "cherry-tree chopper" first president with his minutemen at Valley Forge, look in on the drafting of the Bill of Rights (and Wrongs) and present a can't-miss slide show of the grave chapter known as the American Civil War.

The second act resumes with the break of World War I, the Great Depression and World War II before going into an extended skit in film-noir style taking the audience from the Cold War through to the present. In it, a detective by the name of Sam Diamond tracks Conspiracy Guy through the latter half of the 20th century -- the '50s blacklist, the civil rights movement, assassinations (John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy), scandal (Watergate, Monica Lewinsky), war.

Obviously, "Complete History" isn't complete, even in abridged form, but watching these guys bounce words off each other is both exhausting and entertaining. More than parodying great scenes from history, "Complete History" inserts its wry comments on censorship (sex and violence), industry (war profiteering), politics (presidential pardons) and society (iPhone, "American Idol").

The line between Bowlin, Gavin and Kopp as characters outlined by the Reduced Shakespeare Company behind "Complete History" and the three actors sharing a potent chemistry to play these parts is blurry. One would hate to think of what this Theatre Tulsa's production would be if it had been cast differently. They play these parts as if they've done it before.

They have. Two years ago, Adams cast the three together in Theatre Tulsa's "The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)," also from the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Like then, Adams does a marvelous job keeping their antics in check and consistent throughout the play. You never get a moment to reflect at length on the play while it's in motion.

But you certainly feel the punches when they come. If the intent of "Complete History" is to implicate all who would call the U.S.A. home and claim a right to exist here, the motivation is not to induce guilt. Rather, it is to have those people remember the past and do right by it.

With a timeline marked by murder, slavery, labor unrest, witch hunts, land grabbing, human rights struggles and economic hardship, "Complete History" disarms with pratfalls, water guns, innuendo, self-deprecation and tremendous energy void of hesitation.

Even the fool has his day, and for three sometimes-wise fools, another weekend to make history seriously fun all over again.

"The Complete History of America (Abridged)" continues at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday at the Liddy Doenges Theatre of the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, Second Street and Cincinnati Avenue. Tickets are $14-$17.50, available at the PAC box office, by phone at 596-7111 and online at www.MyTicketOffice.com.

[sportyart]

Urban Tulsa Weekly
By: Holly Wall
07/25/07

Laughter, Capitalism and the American Way
On a lighter note, Theatre Tulsa brings a little historical comedy (or comedic history) to SummerStage with The Complete History of America (Abridged), written by Adam Long, Reed Martin and Austin Tichener and performed by T.J. Bowlin, Nate Gavin and Jarrod Kopp, the guys who brought you The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) last summer.
This show is hilarious. The guys take you through their version of American history from 1492 to present day, skipping over periods of time that "aren't funny." (The show is only two hours, after all.) It makes fun of America and some of the idiosyncrasies that make other countries shake their heads and go, "What?!?!" but do so with the utmost affection. And sexual innuendos. Lots and lots of sexual innuendos.
History is usually told by the winners, the three tell us. This time, it's their turn. The show is super fast-paced, the jokes bouncing off you like plastic bullets.
"American history is about remembering," T.J. said. "It's about learning from our mistakes--or at least learning to blame them on someone else."
Other jabs were made at our current president, as well as former leaders of our country, and everyone else you could think to mention in history or popular culture. No one is safe, and they pretty much insulted everyone equally. But always in a fun, light-hearted manner.
This was one of those shows where you could probably see it a couple of times and hear something different each time. The guys improvise liberally, and the quickness at which the jokes fly mean you'll probably miss a few due to the ongoing laughter.
The guys tell the history of America in song, with toys, props and flashcards, poems, rap, radio show, film noir and more. There is also a fair share of bad jokes, at which the audience half-groaned, half-laughed. They even made the Lincoln assassination funny.
They are, however, mostly poking fun at American tragedy, disgrace, folly and flaw, and that can get a little depressing, you know? So, at the end (and on a note of American optimism) the three retrace their steps back through history, beginning with present day and barreling backwards, reversing every wrong and leaving the audience with a happy ending.
But in the end, you realize it's OK to laugh at ourselves. After all, the Europeans have been laughing at us for years. No sense in letting them have all the fun, is there?
Basically, if you don't like this show (and these guys will tell you), "then you hate America and the terrorists have already won."
The Complete History of America (Abridged) continues this Thursday through Saturday, July 26-28, at 8pm in the Liddy Doenges Theater of the Tulsa PAC. Tickets are $17.50.