A Musical Starring Luigi, Diddy, & SBF is Selling Out Theatres in San Francisco
Hey, do you hear that? It’s the sound of an empire crumbling from the inside. Or is it the melodious strains of Luigi: The Musical, now on at the Independent? The closing dates have been extended, and each night this show plays to a sold out, standing room only audience. Is it good? Not so much. Does it matter? Again, no. That’s not the point of this satirical tale that takes on three founding pillars of American society today: TikTok folk heroes, capitalist corruption, and Me Too villains.
We shook our heads, craved hash browns, then laughed at the absurdity, and given the choice, we’d all probably go again. Why? Because to some of us, this show, with its overblown plot, hits a bit too close to the daily headlines, and sometimes laughing is better than crying.
The story begins within the walls of Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center where Luigi Mangione, Diddy, and shifty crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried were held at the same time. The set shows the inside of the three prisoners’ cell which they conveniently share. A long suffering guard watches over them. A barely off-book Johnny Stein plays Luigi Mangione, the accused murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He looks up with recognizable eyebrows and sings a song about smiles at hostel workers and hash browns.
André Margatini as SBF and Janeé Lucas as Diddy treat us to a tap dance which doubles as a love song… to one another. Yeah, that happens. Margatini steals the scene every time. The song “Bay Area Baby” has the audience cheering as he unapologetically details his crimes. Meanwhile, Janeé Lucas, who struts around with “Diddy” bedazzled on the back of her prison uniform, does the very best with the one note yet humorous lines she’s been dealt. Diddy’s sexual preferences and escapades are returned to with a predictable rhythm throughout.
Together, we question Luigi becoming a folk hero in the face of a country whose healthcare needs are often unmet. Would he be so popular if his eyebrows weren’t so adorable? The abs softer? Writers Nova Bradford, Arielle Johnson, André Margatini, and Caleb Zeringue cleverly take this on without shame.
Hilarious in its irreverence and uncomfortable in the truth-telling under the jokes, Luigi has rightfully drawn the attention of media outlets across the country. Is it too soon to have a musical about a murder that took place last year? That was the unasked question hanging over us. Usually, musicals take on the crimes of those long dead. However, I did note that this production awakened a different age group of typical theater goers.
In fact, a very wide age range filled the theater to capacity, a rare sight in San Francisco. Maybe Luigi doesn’t quite meet the mark for a musical, but it does what satire does best: it forces us to look at the systems in place that are not quite serving the public.
In Ancient Ireland, poets had the power to depose kings…if the kings were not generous. The song John Brown’s Body, which celebrated the abolitionists’ fight against slavery, became a marching tune for the Union Army. Lewis Carroll’s political satire Alice in Wonderland still holds our attention years later. Even The Wizard of Oz is a thinly veiled allegory about financial policy and the 19th-century argument about the gold standard. Poking fun at the absurdity of politics is nothing new. With these systems in place, the fact that Luigi: The Musical, birthed from the fringes of theater, has grabbed the attention of a nation is a loud, messy, occasionally tuneful reminder that satire is still one of our sharpest tools.
For Tickets visit their webpage.
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