No Country For Two Old Men at Brave New Workshop

What do you do when one of the candidates drops out of the Presidential election a few weeks before the political sketch comedy show you’ve written is about to open? You salvage what you can and rewrite the rest. What do you do with the new guy you hired to play Joe Biden and how do you handle the fact that you really don’t have a great fit in the cast for Vice President Harris? You lean into those facts and spin comedy gold from them. The new show at Brave New Workshop in downtown Minneapolis, No Country For Two Old Men, which opened this week gets it’s best bits from acknowledging how these turn of events affected their show. Joining regular cast members Lauren Anderson, Denzel Belin, Isabella Dunsieth, Doug Neithercott, is Twin Cities Theater Blogger “One to Watch” Jeffrey Nolan, who yes that’s right, was hired to play Biden. Neithercott, the other white man in the show, makes a very good Donald Trump and Nolan is hilarious as Biden. The show is able to capitalize on Nolan’s Biden a little bit, and then gets good mileage out of Nolan’s anxiety over having been hired specifically for a role that really isn’t needed anymore. Don’t worry they use him to good effect throughout the show. The shows dilema now is that they need a Harris, but they don’t have a mixed race Black and Asian woman in the cast. How they solve this involves using two cast members simultaneously to check as many of the boxes as they can is inspired.

I saw a preview of the show which meant they were still fine tuning it and making changes, lucky for me I got to see some things that will be cut, though I don’t know what those are. But it makes it even more pointless for me to try and tell you about the show. First, who wants the sketches and jokes ruined? No one! Secondly, what if I tell you about something that gets changed and you spend all night waiting for that one moment. In fact, what if the bits I have mentioned already get cut? I doubt they will as they are some of the best bits in the show. Now to be honest this was a little flatter than previous shows but I’m chalking that up to two things, one it was a preview and I know they will be tightening things up by the time you all see it. Two they had to rewrite almost the entire show after it was written. That said it’s still more consistently funny than anything Saturday Night Live has done in years. The cast is as always just fantastic and Nolan is a great addition. I’m torn between hoping he joins them for their next show and hoping he doesn’t so that I’ll get to see him doing a variety of plays over the next theater season.

I know there are some who just can’t take anymore politics right now. For some we are at a place where things are almost too scary to be funny. I do get that, and if that’s how you feel I understand skipping this one. For those of you like me, who feel like if you don’t laugh about it you’ll probably start crying, I recommend letting the cast of No Country For Two Old Men help you get those tears of laughter flowing to release some of the pressure. The show runs through November 2nd for more information and to purchase tickets go to https://bravenewworkshop.org/

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