Description: Through a dozen monologue, the character that Bush Administration America struggles to present--both domestically and to the greater world--is examined.

First Produced: 2008
Date Added: 2/12/2012
Content Advisory: Adult language and strong content
Keywords: Action/Adventure  Comedy  Drama  Fantasy  Satire/Parody  Anti-war  Politics  Single Set  Solo Play  War  Mostly Male Characters  Large Cast Size 
1 Act, 90 Minutes
0 Females, 12 Males

From the Playwright:

My first acting jobs included some of the greats: Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. I was at the top of my form but I was working venues that brought no audience: my bedroom, my backyard, and my tree house. My first public performance was reciting “America the Beautiful” while dressed as Uncle Sam for a patriotic assembly in my grade school’s cafeteria when I was in the first grade in Millville, New Jersey. I remember a platform stage was set up on the far end of the large room and there were rows of chairs that seemed to go for miles. I was always a small child so almost every person in the room seemed bigger, older, or both.  I remember the sound of loud rustling as I started but by the time I got to the third line “For purple mountain majesty” it got really quiet. Everyone was suddenly listening. To me. I experienced that weird thing where your mouth is saying one thing but everything else was experiencing another. I knew it was important to get through the whole thing without stopping because people like my mom and my teacher were counting on me.

So my early performance experiences were tied to either being a hero or honoring the spirit of our country. I also learned there is a power and responsibility in performing.

My grandfather on my mom’s side was a Naval pilot during World War II and my dad flew choppers in Vietnam. I was never a soldier or a pilot. But I did occasionally wear my dad’s captain bars on smaller Army shirts bought for me at the Army Navy Store in Greensboro, North Carolina. I knew all the Army ranks by heart, both the enlisted and officers. When we would play military games during recess at school, I didn’t let myself get ranked above Captain because I wanted to be like my dad. M*A*S*H would come on TV as reruns in the afternoon and I began fashioning my sense of humor and mocking of authority after Hawkeye Pierce. He was a new kind of heroic role model. Smart, funny, and the best surgeon anywhere. Being patriotic didn’t mean that you must blindly follow authority. Rules devoid of reason or that demanded doing something unethical should be questioned and challenged. This meant that doing the right thing could get you in hot water. 

I began writing American Badass in November 2007, six years after 9/11. We were involved in two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no end in sight. Things were up in the air. At the time, no one knew who would get the nomination for either the Republicans or the Democrats in the 2008 Presidential election. I began reading accounts from soldiers who served and about independent contractors who worked for Blackwater USA. (They have changed their names to Xe and then Academi since then.) Things were ugly and only getting uglier. I created American Badass to figure out what I felt at the time after such a long stretch of numbness and confusion. Who was America to the rest of world? What does being patriotic mean now?

In reflection, I think I can finally boil it down to this. A sense of fairness and honesty in our transactions died last century. If you want a fair playing field, then you must create the rules to suite your needs. Then it is fair. Otherwise, you are living by rules that are no longer being used and putting your faith in people who are not behaving how you thought they would or should. In other words you can win if you keep people uninformed and constantly change the rules without notice.

Since I performed this piece in 2008, Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi have been killed. Troops are coming home but there’s nothing happening like VE Day at the end of World War II. The economy is a mess. I hope we will have a new period of growth and prosperity but I’m not holding my breath. Corporations are now able to put money in campaigns like they are people. Our education system is a nightmare. The fear that the United States is no longer the world’s greatest super-power is growing. I wonder how much longer we have before our two major political parties unravel. They are fighting to protect their brands but not doing much to fix big problems.

American Badass was a tough piece to do. Not only was it taking on big ideas but also competing against the nearly instantaneous commentary found on cable TV or the internet. Plus when you do something political you are sure to please and piss off different people in the audience at the same time. It is certain you will get complaints and arguments. I guess that’s a good thing but I’m still getting used to that. It was truly never the same show twice. I’d get laughs but they’d be in wildly different places. Sometimes, I’d get that quiet attention. When I earned those moments, I would feel I was doing my patriotic duty as a citizen and artist.

NOTE: American Badass is fully protected by copyright law and is subject to royalty. All inquiries concerning production, publication, reprinting or use of this play in any form should be addressed to Rochelle at rd@indietheaternow.com.

Original Production Information

American Badass (or 12 Characters in Search of a National Identity) was first presented by Virgodog Theatre and Fevvers Productions as part of the FRIGID New York Festival (Erez Ziv, Managing Director) on February 28, 2008, at the Kraine Theater, with the following cast and credits:

Written and performed by: Chris Harcum
Directed by: Bricken Sparacino
Lighting Design: Maryvel Bergen
Costumes: Chris Foster
Multimedia and Animation: Daniel McKleinfeld
Graphic Design: Carolyn Raship
Original Music/Sound Design: Debby Schwartz
Film Segment: Evan Stulberger

Review by Martin Denton

The subtitle of American Badass is "12 Characters in Search of a National Identity," and that encapsulates this terrific show quite nicely. In it, writer-performer Chris Harcum portrays these dozen different people (plus a few more in inter-sketch interludes), and he zeroes in on much of what constitutes the "American character," circa 2008. For its wit, its intelligence, its fearlessness, and the great skill with which it is executed, this is a standout show, not just at FRIGID New York, but of this still-new theatre year.

Harcum begins by disarming us, portraying some supposed acquaintance of his who is reacting to the idea of a one-man show called American Badass. This armchair performance artist proceeds to explain what would be good and what would be lousy in a show like this, and it's hilarious but it's also way too true for comfort as he talks about how the show needs to be somewhat, but not too, relevant because you don't want to bore the audience or risk offending them.

Luckily, Harcum disregards his own first character's advice and treads boldly into terrain that seldom gets play on stage or screen these days. One of the vignettes is about a retired George W. Bush in the near future, playing golf and reminiscing about that fateful day when the Twin Towers were hit by airplanes and he was trying to decide what he ought to do in that Florida classroom. Another is about an American mercenary who works for Blackwater, back from Iraq and trying to pick up a woman in a bar by impressing her with tales of his bravado in combat ("I'm Superman," he tells her, bragging that bullets never seemed able to penetrate him). A third depicts a one-time military interrogator who is trying to repent his acts of torture via the services of a dominatrix.

Some of the pieces are much more lighthearted, such as the one about a "competitive eater" in training for the Coney Island hot-dog-eating contest. And in the first segment, Harcum demonstrates some really dazzling talent as he explores the notion of a one-man stage combat show—this bit is not just spectacularly impressive physical theatre, but extremely funny as well.

But American Badass is purposeful theatre, and the last piece—in which a character who may well be Harcum himself announces to a small but swelling crowd on the sidewalk that now that he's old enough to be President of the U.S., he feels like he needs to figure out what needs to be done to fix our obviously ailing Union—brings this socially conscious artist's concerns right to the fore. The show is always provocative but never polemical, reminding us that political/protest theatre still has the power to arouse us.

Harcum, a fine actor and writer, is well-supported by director Bricken Sparacino and a design team that provides him with appropriate quick-change costumes and a projected backdrop of drawings, graphics, and video to keep the piece flowing interestingly. (There's also a short film by Evan Stulberger in which Harcum talks about his real-life day job as a teaching artist in a Bronx public school; sort of a gentle rebuttal to Nilaja Sun's No Child, it seemed to me.)

It's not easy making an audience laugh and think at the same time, but Harcum accomplishes exactly that throughout American Badass. It's a combination that I highly recommend.

reviewed at the 2008 FRIGID New York Festival

Excerpt from American Badass

KARL, an upper middle-aged neocon, addresses conservative scholars off the record.

Before I start, I want to thank my hosts for their graciousness. It’s always a pleasure visiting Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University and especially getting to talk here at Jesse Helms School of Government. It’s like getting a home-cooked meal. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them.” You’re all college students. Who said that? Yes, the great William Shakespeare. Bonus points who can tell me where that’s from. That’s Malvolio in Twelfth Night Act Two Scene Five.

And some people wait for history to happen to them. I don’t buy into that. I say go out and grab the pig by the tail. I’m going to let you in on a little something. Actually, a whole bunch of little somethings but this is all strictly off the record. I never said it. You never heard it. That’s how things work in what I do. You scratch my back and I won’t cut you. You see this? This is the smile I use when I say things like that. Do you have one? Let me see it. Good. How about you? This is a sharp bunch. I bet you Jesse and Jerry are smiling down on us right now.

Okay. I’m sure the fine people at this university assign lots of good books to read. History and theory. That’s good. That’s important but it’s not as important as one thing. Winning. I’ve been called a lot of things in my time. Most of which can’t be put in print. I’ve also been called Kingmaker, Brain, Architect … Turd Blossom. Now that was a term of affection, don’t get too upset about that. Some people want to know how I do what I do. Others want to know why. As I look around this room of bright conservative scholars, I know I don’t need to address why. Why is for the weak-minded on the other side. The media doesn’t go running up to an Olympic athlete who wins the gold after suffering through lots of pain and ask, “Why?” If you ask me that three-letter question, you’re not worthy of me as a colleague or opponent.

No, I look around here at your eager faces and know you want to get down to the How. (Pause.) By any means necessary. You know who said that?

Nope, it was Jean Paul Sartre. Act Five of his play Dirty Hands. “It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary.” The rest of that quote might be garbage but those last four words are important. Then Mr. X took it and you saw how that turned out.

Negative campaigning. Good or bad? That’s right, good. One, it brings more people out to vote. Oh, and let me say, you don’t have to believe anything I’m saying. I have the factual and statistical evidence. You can go behind me and do the research if you want. But I know odds are you won’t. Two, negative campaigning is unethical and ineffective. (Shakes his head “no.”) Three, it’s only recently we’ve started going negative and it’s beginning to get ugly. (Shakes his head “no.”) What we do now is softballs compared to way back when. Read the Declaration of Independence. They basically wipe their behinds with the Brits, taxation without representation, and on and on.