The Manchurian Candidate

The company that received 7 Ovation nominations and 8 LA Weekly nominations last season brings Richard Condon’s celebrated novel to life on stage! Picture this: An assassination plot against the president, a weak vice-president, the threat of nuclear war in the Persian Gulf, espionage, intrigue, incest, and the likelihood of a right wing takeover of the United States. Sound familiar?

Raymond Shaw is a young American hero, the first Congressional Medal of Honor winner since Vietnam. Decorated for saving his fellow troops in a peacekeeping mission in the Middle East, he has returned to the U.S. and a career as a journalist in Washington D.C. His wealthy, widowed mother has married the repugnant, racist Senator John Iselin; wedding her lust for power to his crude demagoguery. Through ruthless manipulation of the media, the power elite and the disenchanted masses, Mrs. Iselin maneuvers her husband closer and closer to the vice-presidential nomination. She even masterminds Raymond’s marriage to Jocie Jordan, the beautiful daughter of Senator Tom Jordan; the favored candidate for vice-president. Another survivor of that fated Middle East mission is Commanding Officer Ben Marco, who suffers from horrifying nightmares. In trying to release himself from these demons, Ben begins to piece together an insidious conspiracy. Ben vainly attempts to find someone to believe him as Raymond struggles to understand his own disturbing nightmares. Then, in a startling display of over-confidence, Raymond’s mother reveals to her son that he has been a part of this ongoing plot and has been used as an unwitting pawn in her scheme to put Johnny Iselin in the White House.  With a deep, incestuous kiss, his mother sends him to his fate as Ben finally discovers the ultimate goal of the plot: the assassination of The President who has just named Johnny Iselin as his running mate.   As these characters engage in the final battle for ultimate power, the play reaches a crescendo of breathtaking suspense.