J.F. Kerry Takes a Licking in ‘He’s No J.F.K.’

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The New York Sun

Wielding a light saber and donning a Darth Vader getup, Hillary Clinton plotted yesterday afternoon to expose the “dismal facts” about Senator Kerry in an attempt to set herself up as the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.


Actually, the real Senator Clinton was busy defending Mr. Kerry against conservative forces on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.”


The saber-wielding Mrs. Clinton is a character in the new satirical anti-Kerry play “J.F.K.: He’s no J.F.K.,” which opens this week in a 98-seat theater nestled into the western edge of the Theater District. It tells a loosely historical story of Mr. Kerry starting when he was a Yale undergraduate (one who apparently had prematurely graying hair) and ending after the November election.


In the beginning, Mr. Kerry is a pimple-popping 20-something who says he gets the runs from ketchup and who carries around a half-dollar coin stamped with the head of his idol, President Kennedy.


Proclaiming that he has a similar profile to the former president – as well as the same initials – Mr. Kerry decides it’s his “destiny” to someday be president.


After a failed attempt to pick up a pair of college girls, Mr. Kerry ships off to Vietnam, where he realizes he wants to come home.


“I made a doozy of a mistake,” Mr. Kerry, played by Kevin Murphy, writes in his diary. “The brochure lied. This isn’t like summer camp. Well, maybe a really bad summer camp.”


He hatches a plan to earn three Purple Hearts as quickly as possible so that he can go home and launch his political career.


“But how can I do that without getting hurt?” he ponders. “I mean, I bruise as easily as a soft honey dew melon.”


After a few jokes, Mr. Kerry comes home, testifies before the Senate while wearing a hippie outfit, and immediately launches his bid for the White House.


The 90-minute production packs a few laughs, including the cowboy boot-wearing George W. Bush character, played by Jack Fitz, who leaves “W” cards everywhere in his wake, and Teresa Heinz Kerry, played by Myles Goldin, who repeats the infamous “shove it” line more than once. Funny, but verging on offensive, is an “image consultant” scene in which a flamboyant Governor McGreevey of New Jersey tells Mr. Kerry and Senator Edwards to touch each other in campaign appearances. Before the McGreevey sex scandal broke, Mr. Fitz said, the gay image consultant was going to be Carson from “Queer Eye For the Straight Guy.”


The production could prove to be entertaining for some of the Republicans in town for this week’s convention.


A spokeswoman for Dot Productions, the new (politically) independent production company that created the play, Amanda Scarpone, said that’s what the company is banking on.


“It’s a great time to throw out something political,” she said. “We wanted to give a breather to people, something to sit back and laugh at.”


She said all of the delegates have received invitations, and information packets on the performance have been sent to their hotels.


Tickets cost $74.50 during convention week and then drop to $50 once the delegates go home.


The play, which is at the Kirk Theater at 410 W. 42nd St., runs through September 19.


The New York Sun

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