In Tail! Spin!, the Straight Lines Are the Funniest

Tail! Spin! describes itself as a political comedy, and though it features politicians and is often very funny, I’m not sure the phrase really applies. “Political comedy” suggests something that’s fundamentally about government and ultimately happy, neither of which is the case in Mario Correa’s cleverly constructed sound-bite mash-up of recent sex scandals. You might wonder whether fact-based political comedy can even exist now, when governance is little more than psychopathology and the whole thing is just plain sad. As it has ever been? Perhaps, but thanks to social media, elected officials’ extramarital affairs, solicitations, underage come-ons, and general lechery have become more public and peculiar than ever. Drama can’t really cover the territory, because these stories don’t happen in a coherent framework of time and space. Satire is almost impossible, because the events meant to be satirized are already so extreme — which is part of the reason Saturday Night Live has grown so lame. Correa’s solution may be the only viable one: the invention of a genre you might as well call documentary stand-up. He and the director, Dan Knechtges, take pains to point out that every word of Tail! Spin! was actually spoken (or texted, or tweeted, or posted on Facebook, or otherwise) by the characters who deliver them here. And that’s nearly all that’s spoken. After a brief introduction in which our four subjects chorally take the oath of office, we meet them individually in 15-minute chapters: Sen. Larry (“Wide Stance”) Craig, Rep. Anthony (“Dick Pic”) Weiner, Rep. Mark (“Congressional Page”) Foley, and Gov. Mark (“Appalachian Trail”) Sanford. One by one, on a red, white, and blue stage that looks like the setting for a televised debate, they come forward to relive their astonishingly stupid sex stories and their pathetic attempts at exculpation.