Review: Ghost of John McCain, a Musical About the Maverick Senator Haunting Donald Trump’s Brain

A pie shop run by serial killers…Mormon missionaries in Africa…America’s first treasury secretary: Great musicals spring from the unlikeliest concepts. And perhaps that is what political consultants Jason Rose and Max Fose were thinking when they decided to produce Ghost of John McCain, the off-the-walls and intermittently humorous musical satire now making its world premiere at SoHo Playhouse.

The show (which is also produced by Lynn Londen) was conceived by Rose and Grant Woods and features a book by Scott Elmegreen, who is clearly flying by the seat of his pants in an attempt to both satisfy the sophomoric tastes of his bosses and plunk out a halfway coherent plot. It depicts the late Arizona Senator in the great beyond — neither heaven nor hell, but the ethereal weigh station that is the brain of Donald J. Trump.

His first clue should have been the gilt embellishments and faux-porphyry tiles of the afterworld, here depicted as a Trump hotel (instantly evocative and versatile scenic design by Lawrence E. Moten III). McCain (Jason Tam) checks in and immediately encounters his fellow guests: Roy Cohn (Ben Fankhauser), Lindsey Graham (also Fankhauser), Hillary Clinton (Lindsay Nicole Chambers), Taylor Swift (also Chambers), Evita (Zonya Love), and an Arizona Trump voter named Karen (also Love, sporting the iconic updo as fashioned by Ashley Rae Callahan). They all represent thoughts occupying Trump’s brain, some more welcome than others.

Like Sauron, their overlord manifests in multiple forms, including as a teenager (Luke Kolbe Mannikus) and Trump’s brain (Aaron Michael Ray). But wait, isn’t the setting Trump’s brain? Elmegreen never quite gets around to explaining this MAGA trinitarianism. And it’s clear that the creatives are more interested in shouting-out and sending-up the bold names in our politics than making any sort of dramaturgical sense. Ghost of John McCain is like a collaboration between Jean-Paul Sartre and the South Park guys — but not nearly as funny as that pairing might suggest.

Drew Fornarola’s songs range from pleasantly serviceable to instantly forgettable. “This is Fox Fox Fox Fox News / And we’re Fox Fox drugs crime Fox,” the chorus sings in “Fox News Dance Party.” The throwaway lyrics are set to a tune that feels like an early draft for “Sex Is in the Heel” from Kinky Boots. And that’s one of the better numbers.

The six-person cast sells the songs for all they’re worth (not much) while executing heroic quick-changes (Mieka van der Ploeg’s outrageous costumes luckily include several tearaway garments). None of them are particularly gifted mimics, with Fankhauser’s portrayals of Senator Graham and President Biden being the most convincing. Tam (perhaps wisely) doesn’t even try to affect McCain’s speech and mannerisms as his character attempts to build a never-Trump coalition from within his own brain — or whatever. His objective is never particularly clear or fleshed-out.

Director Catie Davis at least delivers a fast-paced staging that comes in at exactly 90 minutes. Sunny Min-Sook Hitt’s choreography embraces the musical-theater clichés for which this score cries out. Colleen Doherty’s colorful lighting suggests a nightclub in hell. And sound designers Daniela Hart and Uptownworks provide shockingly good sound balance for the SoHo Playhouse, so we can hear every groan-inducing lyric.

It’s obvious within the first five minutes that Ghost of John McCain is the work of political stunt queens who probably wish they could apply their talent for trollery to some other endeavor. (Was the Lincoln Project not hiring?) In fairness, they gave us ample warning when they penned an open letter to Meghan McCain urging her to see this musical, which depicts her father in the worst kind of purgatory, gazing down at a fatberg that he despondently refers to as his “shitty legacy.” Can you believe she didn’t take them up on the offer?

But you still have plenty of chances to catch this clunker, which is set to run through Election Day. Depending on the outcome of that vote, New York audiences might not be in the mood to laugh.