Better and worse and better and worse

I've realized as I've gotten older that one of the reasons I enjoy history is that I find it comforting. Recently, reading about the turbulence of the late 1960s and early 1970s has been reassuring to me. I'm not saying that our Current Circumstances are better than they were then--they're definitely not--but the fact that the country managed to recover to some semblance of normalcy has helped keep me sane. (I try to ignore that it also brought us Ronald Reagan.)

I know very little about Hunter S. Thompson. I never read nor saw Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; all I could tell you, basically, is that he was a writer, a counterculture figure who used a lot of drugs, and that I recognized his signature look. So I wasn't particularly looking forward to The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical at Signature Theatre.

The play follows Hunter (Eric William Morris) as he grows up, becomes a writer, marries Sandy (Tatiana Wechsler), pioneers Gonzo journalism, gets famous, feuds with Richard Nixon (George Abud), and eventually has his life catch up with him. 

The cast of The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical. 
(c) Daniel Rader

My takeaway is that I loved the show but have no desire to read this man's writing. He himself comes across as an asshole. But the story is told so well, the music is great, the staging is compelling, and the acting is fantastic. (My standout is George Salazar, who plays Oscar [the guy he traveled with in Fear and Loathing] among other characters. His "Song of the Brown Buffalo" is fabulous and my eyes were always drawn to him.) (My backup standout is Abud as Nixon. He looks nothing like Nixon but still manages to convey Nixon in a way that's not just a Nixon imitation.) Hunter S. Thompson the person does not seem like someone I could handle; as a character, he's fascinating.

But what hooked me is Thompson's convictions about the country and the direction of the country. So much of the play hits home in 2025--the desire for a better country, where people have the support they need and can love who they want and can just be who they want to be. Knowing that these people tried in the 60s and didn't succeed...what could this world look like?

Joe Iconis, who did the music and lyrics, said in an interview in the production's program, "I made it my mission to get to the heart of the issues that have plagued our nation for the last ten, twenty, thirty, one-hundred years. The more I pulled my focus out, the more I realized that no matter the specifics of the latest atrocity, we'd been there before." 

The song that will stick with me is "Wavesong," the Act One closer:

They say the universe arcs toward justice

I call bullshit on that

No, the universe moves in cycles

It will surge then curtail

You submerge or you sail

Tide is high and then it's not

Angels fly high and then they're shot

It gets better and worse and better and worse and better

It gets better and worse and better and worse

Face the storm and be brave

And sail toward the next wave

(Lyrics by Joe Iconis)

I also loved how the show handled writing. Hunter was hooked on great writing as a child; he retyped The Great Gatsby so he would know how it felt to write those sentences. We see his activism and his passion and his drug usage, but the show is also about legacy, and for Hunter S. Thompson, his legacy is his writing and how that writing continues to affect people today, 20 years after his death.