Michael Moore might now add to his resume that includes documentary film maker, fake Working Class Hero, and general public nuisance, the title of producer and star of his own Broadway flop. Such is the judgment of the New York Times and other theater reviewers of Moore’s one person show, “The Terms of My Surrender,” now playing, but not for much longer, at the Belasco Theater. The play is less of a one person entertainment than it is a two-hour political rant delivered by Moore for the edification of New York hipsters who would be expected to eat up the rhetoric.
One person shows have a great tradition
In a way, it is too bad that “The Terms of My Surrender” is so terrible, as the Times puts it “is a bit like being stuck at Thanksgiving dinner with a garrulous, self-regarding, time-sucking uncle.” The Times did not think much of Moore’s delivery either.
Famous people, from Mark Twain, to Harry Truman, to even Gertrude Stein have gotten the one person show treatment to significant effect. Here was the one opportunity for Moore to play himself, to rip the veil from a career that started with a series of pedantic “documentaries” that espoused a number of tiresome left-wing causes. He might have revealed if his working class stiff act was really a joke played on his various fans, that in fact, he is in it for the money.
He could even have revealed if he has ever struggled with his obvious weight problem.
Instead, at least according to some of the reviews, “The Terms of My Surrender” is an attempt to take down the real working class hero, the populist billionaire we call President Donald Trump. The problem is that Trump does it so much better than Moore, which is why he has far more working class fans than Moore could ever dream of.
Trump was born to wealth, but he behaves in such a way that many of his supporters likely think his father was a truck driver or a construction worker rather than a wealthy real estate developer like the son.
The one chance the show could make money
A long time ago, a talented man named Mel Brooks made a film called “The Producers,” a study of the theater and accounting, that depicted two guys played by Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder who find a way to make millions off of a Broadway flop.
They hit on a musical called “Springtime for Hitler,” on the theory that anything celebrating the Third Reich would turn off audiences. However, as anyone who has seen the film and the subsequent Broadway musical, the show becomes a hit as it is taken to be a satire.
The producers in the Brooks film could have saved themselves a lot of money if, instead, they had put on a one person show with the most tedious, talentless hack they could find. And that is how one could have made a lot of money from “The Terms of My Surrender.”
