Before the start of this R&B musical comedy about Barack Obama’s first term as president, Eli Bauman, its creator and director, bustled out on stage to urge us to ignore what’s “out there” and just “have fun in here.”
What was happening out there at that moment — since I was seeing “44 The Musical” on Election Day – turned out to be a Democratic sweep, which was not something I wanted to ignore.  But by “out there,” Bauman, who knocked on doors for the first Obama campaign in 2008, evidently means the general dread and disappointment of life under Trump. That feeling is apparently what motivated him to start working on this musical after Trump’s first election in 2016, as he suggests in a note in the program. It took this long for “44” to get to New York.

  The result is a show that feels mounted ten years too late. It has a catchy score splendidly sung by a talented cast, but do we really want to be reminded about Herman Cain and Sarah Palin?  And while there are some satirical moments that land,  there is more often an uneasy mix of tones, and much that is of questionable taste.

The musical begins with a first verse, for example, sung by the “Voice of the People” (portrayed by Summer Nicole Greer): 

I have an American Dream
‘bout a man tall dark and fine
He’s a hot fudge Sundae with vanilla ice cream
A cool lanky brotha – half man, half divine…
And his name is Obama
Barack-a-lacka Obama
He’ll charm the pants off your mama
He’s Muthafukin’ Obama

That last phrase, Muthafukin’ Obama, is repeated dozens of times in the musical; I assume it’s meant as a compliment. 

Immediately after the first song, we meet our host and narrator for the show, Joe Biden (Chad Doreck), who smiles too widely  and carefully, v-e-r-y carefully, walks down a short staircase, the first of a series of such jokes at Biden’s expense.  Doreck is adept at physical comedy; it’s the shtick that falls flat.

T.J. Wilkins as Obama more or less takes over from there, the musical going chronologically through Obama’s political career, starting with his blue states/red states keynote speech before the 2004 Democratic National Convention that thrust him into national prominence. In the 2008 presidential primaries, he  defeats Hillary Clinton (Jenna Pastuszek), who is blunt and bitter:
“Oh I see… We’re just gonna crown the Young Messiah and screw over the Old Vagina.”

His campaign gets into trouble with the revelations about the militancy of his pastor, which leads to “How Black Is Too Black?” It’s one of the standout songs among the two dozen in the show for T.J. Wilkins’ delivery, not for the lyrics, which focus on celebrities’ skin color – accompanied by slides; for example, of two Jackson brothers side by side while he sings “blacker than Michael, less black than Tito”  – rather than about “too black” political opinions or attitudes.

Shanice as Michelle Obama gets another memorable number, “When they go low, we go high.”

We meet his Republican opposition, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz and the other members of W.H.A.M. (White, Hetero Affluent Men), a long-standing cabal, who admit some honorary members, the aforementioned Herman Cain and Sarah Palin. Summer Collins as Palin sings:

This mama grizzly’s coming for ya – i’m gonna getya
Try and trip me up with facts – i ain’t gonna letya
They ask me “sarah, did mccain even vetya?”
A heartbeat from president – you muthafuckin’ betcha

and then does a stripper’s pole dance

The members of W.H.A.M. obstruct his efforts to pass what became known as Obamacare. You might not remember that, as part of their obstructionist filibuster, Ted Cruz read the entire Green Eggs and Ham on the floor of the Senate; here Michael Uribes as Ted Cruz turns the Dr. Seuss reading into a rap.

There is an entire number in which the refrain is “Fuck you Ted Cruz,” sung in turn by almost everybody else in the cast.

What made me most uncomfortable, though, was when Obama sings to Michelle about killing Osama Bin Laden, in a seductive-sounding number:

I’m in the situation room
We got a situation brewin’
I’m lookin’ like a black James Bond
When they show me
Surveillance from Abbottabad

with Hillary, Nancy Pelosi and the Voice of the People as Motown-like backup singers (ahh, ooo, Pakistan)

This is followed, in whiplash fashion, with his singing a serious lullaby to his (unseen) children after the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, and then his efforts to convince the WHAM contingent to support gun regulation – to which they respond with “thoughts and prayers.”

This makes Obama despondent and full of doubt,until Michelle confronts him in song, urging him to “get it together” – so that he is able to return triumphantly to being “Muthafukin’ Obama,” a reverent figure in an otherwise irreverent musical, meant as solace through nostalgia, ending up instead an odd anachronism.

44 The Musical
Daryl Roth Theater through December 7
Running time: 2 hours and 15 minutes, including an intermission
Tickets: $53 to $202
Music, lyrics, book and direction by Eli Bauman
Music direction by Anthony “Brew” Brewster, choreography by Miss James Alsop
Scenic design by Julio Himede; costume design by Matthew Hemesath; lighting design by Nathan W.Scheuer & Natali Arco; and sound design by Jonathan A. Burke.
Cast:  T.J. Wilkins as Barack Obama, Shanice as ‘Michelle Obama, Chad Doreck as Joe Biden, Larry Cedar as Mitch McConnell, Summer Collins as Sarah Palin, Summer Nicole Greer as Voice of the People, Jenna Pastuszek as Hillary Clinton, Dino Shorté as Herman Cain, Jeff Sumner as Lindsey Graham, Michael Uribes as Ted Cruz, understudies:Audri Bartholomew,, Dwelvan David, Summer Nicole Greer, Chelsea Morgan Stock, Ryan Williams