![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Sausage-FoF-800x600-1.jpg\")
Two years ago, an eight-member ensemble within the company began devising a new work based on a simple idea: a political comedy on Capitol Hill. What their nimble imaginations and mad performing chops have come up with \u2014 a Commedia-inflected lampoon of the legislative process called How the Sausage Gets Made<\/em> (now playing at the Capital Hill Arts Workshop through August 9) \u2014 is a DC-specific fusion of salience and silliness with guffaws galore.<\/p>\n When you arrive in the small CHAW black box, you first see scenic designer Johnny Weissgerber\u2019s fantastic set: ceiling-high Ionic columns topple like dominoes into the distance as the pediment they held up seems about to come crashing down. It\u2019s as eloquent an emblem of our faltering government as ever there was.<\/p>\n A troupe of six players writhes in an indistinct mound, dressed uniformly in gray overalls. They gradually differentiate and reveal themselves, and for a time, we see the actors\u2019 whole faces. I liked this period of personalization before they all donned masks (designed by Tara Cariaso) and only their lower jaws remained visible.<\/p>\n Two interrelated story lines take off. In one, a newbie Congressman, Nathan Newbright (played with earnest naivety by Kathryn Zoerb), arrives on the Hill believing he can quickly get a bill passed that would establish free public libraries \u2014 a no-brainer, one would think. But obstacles begin to pile up, including blowback from a Chorus of Media and legislators\u2019 ever-deployable delay tactics, like a go-nowhere pilot project. (A dramaturg and political consultant pseudonymously named \u201cPryor Moral\u201d has lent the loony proceedings a modicum of factual foundation.) Amid the cartoonery and clowning that the Fools are so adept at are giggles worth of sight gags, nifty one-liners (the books to be in the library would be \u201clike podcasts for your eyes\u201d), and spirited song-and-dance bits (music composition by Jesse Terrill). Sample lyric (sung to Nathan Newbright):<\/p>\n \u201cCITIZENS UNITED VERSUS FEC\u201d The other main story arc is a clever transposition of political partisanship into a divide between meat eaters and vegans. To give you some idea of the show-stealing potential here, there\u2019s a hilarious scene featuring the cast manipulating puppets made of slabs of meat. Everyone in the cast of crazily named characters not only co-wrote the script but is a standout in comic contortions, sharp timing, and silly walks (Rebecca Ballinger as Nataliya Marie and Dottie Butts, Robert Pike as Bruiser Uppercut, Andrew Quilpa as Tanthony Bank and Burt \u201cBig Books,\u201d\u2028Jesse Terrill as Atticus Brief, and\u2028Arika Thames as Frances Kina). Director Francesca Chilcote has honed their performance into a masterful mix of actor antics and tight cuing (sound design by Kenny Neal, light design William K. D\u2019Eugenio, with a shoutout to Samantha Nodarse Owen, who, as stage manager, called the show). The array of circusy-suit costumes by Cidney Forkpah was superfun to watch (the ostentatious neck ties, in particular). The show\u2019s amusing sendup of politicos begins in the dressing room.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something to relish about seeing this spoof of DC politics, right here in DC, right now when there\u2019s so much unfunny. Although How the Sausage Gets Made<\/em> feels a bit longer than it needs to be, the show\u2019s superb Comedia makes it perfect for theater buffs, and its parody of lawmaking makes it perfect for anyone in government or adjacent to it (which is all of us).<\/p>\n As sausage-making goes, the show\u2019s a real wiener.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Sausage-FoF-800x800-1.jpg\")
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\nGAVE US ALL A BRAND NEW CLUE-OO:
\nYOU THINK YOURSELF A PERSON
\nBUT CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE TOO!
\nIN FACT, YOUNG MAN,
\nTHEY\u2019RE MORE PEOPLE THAN YOU!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n