A Bawdy Lampoon Saving the First Lady From Despair
By ANITA GATES

Published: October 20, 2004

That is not George W. Bush in the White House. It is a former shepherd who worked as a Saddam Hussein double until he had extensive cosmetic surgery to make him look like President Bush. The real Bush (a genius and Kierkegaard scholar who was forced to have a lobotomy because the Republicans didn't want an intellectual president) is imprisoned in a bunker under a Wal-Mart. Laura Bush, trapped into living with the shepherd, has been blinking, "Help me," in Morse code during public appearances, and finally someone - a repressed librarian from Kansas with lesbian tendencies - has noticed and come to her aid.

That's the premise of "Laura's Bush." (The title, one character says, refers to shrubbery the first lady hides behind in making her escape.) Sadly, the script, by Jane Martin, and the execution, directed by Jack Daniel Stanley, aren't of the most sophisticated professional quality. The show might have worked as pure outrageousness 30 years ago; Jane Aquilina, as a dominatrix, is dressed much like Dr. Frank-N-Furter in "The Rocky Horror Show." Happily, Laura LeBleu is appealing and demands the audience's love as the fictional Mrs. Bush.

Hilda Guttormsen is sweet as the librarian, who spends most of this one-act farce in a green bra and matching panties. And there's some appeal in the ludicrousness of it all. A character (Kristin Price) who may be Condoleezza Rice says at one point: "Oh, I love lesbians. I firmly believe you should have the same rights as humans."

"Laura's Bush" continues through Sunday at 432 West 42nd Street.