I Am Montana (Mortar Theatre Company)

This review reprinted with permission from The Drudge Report:

Conservative culture warrior and play-maker, Samuel D. Hunter, has crafted an eye-popping exposé of the impending liberal threat in America’s heartland. Long before James O’Keefe bravely pulled left-wing America’s pants down and spanked its flabby behind with his justice-spoon (don’t forget to donate to his ‘relieve my credit card debt’ campaign at http://www.theprojectveritas.org), Samuel D. Hunter was uncovering the true effects of dumb-o-crat policies and revealing the march towards perversion taking place in the values stronghold of our nation.

The result of his years of muckraking is the committed satire, I Am Montana, now receiving its Chicago premiere with Mortar Theatre Company. Sure, on its surface I Am Montana may appear to be the whimsical sort of socialist fairy tale the left-wing media will fall all over themselves to shove down your throat. And in a way, their ignorant enthusiasm will be beneficial for the piece; a butt in a seat is a butt in a seat. But while your standard Pelosi-loving audience member is sipping away on his latte, bragging about his sushi dinner, and inflating the deficit with his bleeding-heart “social justice,” you will be discovering the truth—a little word our liberal-minded buddies seem to have difficulty with. Remember, my friends: It’s not about what you watch but how you watch it.

Let’s look at the facts: A young man, Eben Shamir (the excellent Derek Garza), with a great customer service job at the up-and-coming multi-national corporation, Valumart, is asked to give a speech at the company’s annual conference and appear in their new television commercial; pretty good stuff. The conference/commercial opportunity is in the great state of Iowa and as Eben calls the great state of Montana his home, he hops in his GMC Jimmy and heads east (the ground transportation angle is an great “screw you” to the TSA). Eben is accompanied by his coworker and best friend, Tommy (a heart-breaking Sentell Harper), and the hilarious “drug addict” cum gun advocate Dirk (the hilarious Josh Nordmark). So you’ve got three boot strap-pulling go-getters well on their way to celebrity and fiscal solvency when what do you think happens? The liberal menace sticks its filthy finger into their American pie.

In his powerful new book, I Think, Therefore I Am…NOT a Liberal, renowned culture-knower and Professor of Histrionics Calvin A. Doosher identifies the seven symptoms of the liberal mind. I won’t go into them all right here as it really is a fascinating read, but I think number six, “Forced Sympathization and the Secret Liberal Brainwash,” is especially prescient to this piece.

With a very clever dramatic stroke, play-maker Hunter has made the choice to haunt our three protagonists (not proletariat, mind you) with the encroaching threat of Obama’s American plan: Terrorism, homo sin-uality, and anti-Coporatism that will chase every remaining job away from this fair land while encouraging us to sodomize each other and blow everything up for no reason.

We meet these three boys in the prime of their lives and watch haplessly as the forced liberal agenda—first appearing to them in visions, then perverting and ultimately twisting their fragile minds and bodies—tears them apart. It would be just like ol’ Barry over there in the White House to force you to sympathize with a terrorist (the fantastic Nicholas Roy Ceasar, doubling as the delightful Valumart spokesperson, Valupig) and Hunter has spared no vitriol towards the administration on this count. I won’t reveal the details, but Eben has a lot to combat as he stares into the dark hole of evil temptation.

You see Eben’s America should be an America of opportunity; an America of Freedom. In America, Eben has the right to choose where he wants to work, how he wants to get to a work related conference, and with whom he wants to spend his time while he’s getting there. And, God bless it, he’s even got the right to take care of a plant if he wants. It’s all a man can do in this crazy world. Now I ask you: Who the heck is going to tell you that you can’t take care of a plant if you want? Who is going to look you in the eye and say, “We’re gonna force you to get another job”? Who has the right to shove terrorist-humanizing so far down your throat you can’t even breathe anymore? Nobody. Help us up! We’re running out of air!

Samuel D. Hunter and director, Rachel Edwards Harvith have cleverly planted these clues for us to uncover. The threat is clear. The solution is simple.

Now, some in the “media” will try to claim that corporations are slowly destroying our men and women by forcing them to shill for nation-sized conglomerates who are accountable to no one and whose manipulation of the American government has lined their pockets with our sweat-soaked dollars while they move their manufacturing jobs and bank accounts to countries whose tax codes and working conditions are such that a Cambodian child will work eighteen hours a day at sixty cents an hour to put a poly/cotton blended t-shirt on the racks of those same stores who will quash any attempt their employees make to better their lives which would destroy even the strongest spirit after enough time and all so they can balloon their profits to fuck everyone out of everything they make and avoid paying a single cent of tax just when the country needs it most. They will claim that, but they will be wrong. Look at the facts.

I Am Montana: A

-John Taflan