Her kicks are fast as lightning!
Everybody will be kung-fu fighting in a new comedy show that finally does what Trump could not — put rogue emailer Hillary Rodham Clinton behind bars. “Bandit: The Story of Hillary in Prison,” playing one-night-only at Williamsburg’s Brick Theater on Feb. 7, shows the former presidential candidate learning martial arts in order to survive in a brutal upstate prison. The jail’s rough conditions, as well as Clinton’s loss in the election, bring out her inner fighter, said the show’s creator.
“She’s a little bit hardened,” said Nick Naney, a Bushwick playwright and comedian. “She’s someone who’s filled with disappointment and regret.”
The satirical show opens with a brief backstory: After Donald Trump wins the election, a judge sends Clinton to prison for using a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. The play then cuts to the fictional Douglas State Penitentiary, where Clinton struggles to fend off the prison’s premier bully, Phaidra, and her Poison Kiss gang.
Clinton, a scrappy fighter, forms a coalition and becomes a formidable martial artist, Naney said.
“I would say the audience will be impressed with her kung-fu skills,” he noted.
The play is a comedy, but it takes a serious look at Clinton’s post-election state of mind, said Naney.
“To lose that election, even though it wasn’t exactly valid, it must’ve been a huge blow,” Naney said. “We go deep into her psyche. She has this resolve in her.”
Naney, a Clinton voter and current Bernie Sanders supporter, decided to write the play because of his “obsession” with kung-fu movies — particularly “Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky,” a 1991 film in which a kung-fu master goes to prison, he said.
He began working on “Bandit” earlier this year, and said he would have made her character less sympathetic if he wrote the play today.
“I wrote this before what she said about Bernie came out,” Naney explained, referencing Clinton’s recent claim that “nobody likes Bernie.”
The over-the-top action ultimately portrays Hillary Clinton favorably, but Bill Clinton comes off less well. In the play, the former president ignores his wife’s desperate pleas from prison.
“He’s kind of a sleazebag,” Naney said.
“Bandit: The Story of Hillary in Prison” at the Brick Theater [579 Metropolitan Ave. between Lorimer Street and Union Avenue in Williamsburg, (718) 907-6189, www.bricktheater.com]. Feb. 7 at 8 pm and 10 pm. $15.
