US: In the musical Frogs, now previewed in New York, the actor Nathan Lane plays an ancient Greek who travels to Hades to bring back a dead playwright who can give "comfort, wit and wisdom" to a troubled world, writes Conor O'Clery in New York
"We are still at war," he explains to his slave, "a war we may not be able to win, a war we shouldn't even be in." The audience in the Lincoln Centre on Saturday evening broke into applause at the obvious reference to current events. They laughed and clapped again when Lane said that "even the simplest words" seem to fail the nation's leaders. Everywhere it seems, in the theatre and the cinema, Bush-bashing is suddenly in vogue. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 opened on Friday to packed houses across the US. Showing on 868 screens, it brought in over $8 million dollars on the first evening, the highest for any current movie and a record for a documentary.
At the Loewes cinema in New York's East Village, the audience applauded loud and long at the end of the documentary, which shows President George Bush as a simpleton whose gang stole the 2000 election and manipulated the truth to justify "a war we shouldn't even be in". It was the same across the country, with reports of long queues and enthusiastic audiences for Moore's partisan portrayal of the president.
Some filmgoers who had supported Mr Bush in 2004 emerged to tell reporters they were now having second thoughts, but it is difficult to estimate how much the documentary will actually influence the election in November. Even if the film is seen mostly by the converted, it will certainly energise the Democratic base. It has meanwhile infuriated Republican activists who say that advertisements for the documentary are, in effect, commercials for the Kerry campaign. They want them regulated by the Federal Election Commission.
Only a small number of Americans will see the movie but a much larger number will be bombarded "by these political ads" said Mr David Bossie, head of Citizens United, a conservative group that supports Mr Bush. There are other movies already showing or coming soon that are delighting the liberal base.
A weekend ago independent cinemas started screening The Hunting of the President, a documentary arguing that the right wing tried to stage a coup against President Bill Clinton, which has been applauded by pro-Clinton audiences. A 90-minute documentary about Democratic candidate John Kerry, depicting him as a Vietnam hero, will be released in September.
The onset of these anti-Bush productions reflect a palpable change in atmosphere - at least in New York - about the war and the Bush administration. Early last year, as America went to war, criticism of Mr Bush might have readily been construed as unpatriotic. Now after months of negative publicity over his handling of Iraq and 9/11, he is openly derided, in cafe conversations, television talk shows, movies, and Broadway plays. Combined with last week's poll showing that for the first time Americans have turned against the war, there is a feeling that this is a pivotal moment in American political history. And challenges to Bush lurk even in Hollywood blockbusters such as The Day After Tomorrow, which is showing at 3,400 cinemas in the US.
As Frank Rich pointed out yesterday in the New York Times, the hero of this film, which is about global warming causing a deluge to destroy New York, is a Richard Clarke-like alarmist whose warnings are ignored by an inept president and an arrogant Dick Cheney lookalike vice-president. Cinemagoers are reminded that the country's leaders failed to protect New York on 9/11 and may do so again.