Review: Obama Musical 44 Is Big on Nostalgia but Light on Everything Else

I’ll never forget when President Barack Obama was played into the White House Correspondents’ Dinner by “You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone,” sung by Anna Kendrick. “You can’t say it,” he said, “but you know it’s true.” Yes, we did know, but at the time we didn’t know just quite how much.

Eli Bauman missed him enough to write a musical, 44, which is now running at the Daryl Roth Theatre. Since the show premiered in 2022, it has gone from LA to Chicago and back before landing here in New York, and audiences have been largely enthusiastic. It’s not hard to see why: 44 is a loving tribute to Obama with spoofs of loathed conservatives to tickle liberal funny bones.

Don’t get your hopes too high. This isn’t Hamilton or 1776, not that 44 is trying to be those. Bauman, the son of Bowzer from Sha Na Na, admits that after having worked on Obama’s campaigns, he decided to write a musical about his beloved hero, even though he had no idea how. But if a reality TV star with zero qualifications could become president, he reasoned, why shouldn’t he be able to write a musical?

Alas, lack of experience shows. Bauman’s score (conducted by Anthony “Brew” Brewster and performed by a four-member band) is R&B heavy and incorporates countless Black culture references, from Michael Jackson to Coming to America. The lyrics get modest chuckles, but the songs are largely forgettable, apart from the number that opens and closes the show, “M.F.O.,” featuring the strong vocals of Summer Nicole Greer as a Rosie the Riveter-inspired Voice of the People. It’ll stick with you for days.

Chad Doreck plays a doddering Joe Biden, the show’s befuddled guide through Obama’s first term in the White House (Julio Himede and Yellow Studio’s set design vaguely suggests the Oval Office). His kooky opener, “Just Ask Joe,” gets things off to a rocky start—you can almost hear foreheads in the audience wrinkling (Jonathan A. Burke’s scratching sound design doesn’t help). And there’s not much in the way of plot. As Obama, T.J. Wilkins sounds terrific in “Red States Blue States” and the head-rocking “How Black Is Too Back?” So does Jenna Pastuszek as a hilariously unhinged Hillary Clinton seething after her loss in “My Turn.” But the songs, dashed off one after another revue-style, had me wondering if there would be any plot at all.

Eventually Bauman’s book does weave in a thin story line that skips quickly through Obama’s first years. There are attempts at humor, but Bauman’s one-liners in Act 1 range from anemic to painful. Shanice does her best to bring Michelle Obama to life despite the weak dialogue, and boy, can she belt in her duets with Wilkins (Nathan W. Scheuer and Natali Arco’s lighting infuse their scenes with a sentimental mood). Too bad they seem more like siblings than a couple.

Bauman redeems things somewhat in the second act, which pops with solid jokes and one scene that had me rolling. Dino Shorté gives a breathlessly funny performance as late Tea Party activist Herman Cain, who spirals when he’s kicked out of a group called W.H.A.M. (White Hetero Affluent Men), run by a maniacal Ted Cruz (Michael Uribes), a bling-wearing Mitch McConnell (Larry Cedar), and an effete, parasol-carrying Lindsay Graham (Jeff Sumner).

On the other hand, I had high hopes for a good gag involving Sarah Palin (Chelsea Morgan Stock at the performance I attended). You’d think that seeing Palin twirl around on a stripper pole (choreography by Miss James Alsop) while singing “Drill Me” would be hilarious. Nope.

Bauman does touch on serious moments from the Obama years, such as the assassination of Osama bin Laden and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the latter of which completely shifts the tone. It’s a deeply felt moment, but this otherwise lighthearted musical never quite recovers from it, even when Bauman reveals a special circle in hell for Ted Cruz in “F.U.T.C.”

Eliminating other numbers, like “Brother Abe Lincoln,” sung by Evan Tyrone Martin wearing a stovepipe hat (costumes by Matthew Hemesath), would have mercifully trimmed down the nearly two-and-a-half-hour run time. Still, you’ll have the show’s final refrain, “He’s mother fucking Obama,” in your head as you leave the theater, and you’ll miss 44 all over again.