OMG, it’s a real Page turner!!!
Written by: Peter Strzok, Lisa Page
Cast: Dean Cain, Kristy Swanson, Bruce Nozick, Christopher T. Wood
Swift shot: When I first heard about this idea I was thinking, man is this going to be the very definition of dull – but then I started watching it, and I couldn’t stop. While this is a very right-leaning piece, I think it is an interesting look into the dichotomy of America leading up to and after the most vitriolic election since before the Civil War. It should also serve as a cringe-worthy reminder to the FBI that the methods they use against We the People can bite them in the ass too – 😉
I have been a major fan of Kristy Swanson’s since she was the original Buffy. And back when I lived in the barracks, I used to watch Lois & Clark for its quirky adaption of the Superman characters. I will confess I watched it a lot more because of Teri Hatcher than Dean Cain, but as I have gotten to know more about him, he’s clearly one of my favorite people in Hollywood right now.
If you have ever been forced to take an Oral Interpretation class in college, or like me, took it because you thought it would be an easy A only to get a freakin’ B in it, you know the dramatic exercise of reading passionless prose and making it your own. That was the challenge for Swanson and Cain, to take the private texts from two FBI agents who fancied themselves as the last great hope of democracy, and use only the stage to sell it.
So, how did they do? Well, I won’t keep you in suspense, they got an A.
But I have to say where I thought the show could have used some work was context. I am fairly versed in all that transpired during this tumultuous time in our country, but I was lost several times without an understanding of things that could have easily been provided to help the audience connect more.
Like, for instance, every time they mentioned an article, show a giant projection of at least the headline of that article behind the performers. It would have helped out considerably.
The movement on the stage was blocked in a way that allowed the audience to appreciate the distance between the actors physically and emotionally at times.
My favorite parts were when they would leave each other on read. For my non-millennial friends, that means you send a text and the other person never responds to it. Their reactions to the different texts were great, and Cain relishes in his little squirmy smirk as the snake, Peter Strzok.
I still don’t know much about Lisa Page, but Swanson gave her an interesting personality as a woman trying to navigate a career, an extra-marital affair, and trying to take down Trump. Again, all she was allowed to work with was a binder and herself. There were zero props. All the emotion you get is from the performances, which were just splendid.
Thankfully this wasn’t all just them reading texts back and forth the whole time, they included testimony and congressional cross-examination by the Right and the Left, played by Bruce Nozick and Christopher T. Wood respectively.
There are times when even I had to laugh at how ridiculous some of the questions from “my side” came across. But, this is political theater, and to be sure, Congress and our Republic has become exactly that, a stage, a circus, a show, with puppets and clowns and liars and thieves, who better to expose it than actors?
This was brilliant satire.
But what makes this satire so deliciously devious is that it is totally real. These characters are real people that sent these narcissistic texts like they were superheroes. And they provided the method of their own destruction, their very words are now coming back to haunt them on the stage . . . for all the world to see.
And the best part of this script, again which is an earnest autobiography, is that Lisa Page’s biggest concern about being on the Mueller Special Counsel is that she has to show up on time and do actual work. There isn’t a better metaphor for government that exists anywhere else.
You would think she would be thrilled to be given the means to enact revenge on Trump for having the audacity to win in 2016, but no, instead she bitches about how everyone would now find out she was a fraud.
Well, now the whole world knows, dear.
If you are looking for a fun little glance at these two political outcasts, who thought their insurance policy (i.e. a coup d’etat) could remove Donald John Trump from the White House, and you want to see two fantastic actors deliver it to you in an easily grasped format, you should definitely check out FBI Lovebirds on YouTube (before they take it down).
