Lehrer by numbers

Letters From Lehrer, the one-man show rooted in a temperamental correspondence with reclusive American political satirist Tom Lehrer between interpretations of his songs, is playing at CanStage (26 Berkeley St.) through February 25. But what seems like intriguing meta-theatre has garnered weak reviews from those turned off by Richard Greenblatt’s self-indulgence, as described by Silly Little Country blogger Alan Adamson, annoyed by the attempt to carve eternal left-wing grievances into Lehrer’s half-century-old song catalogue: “He appears to have failed to notice as well that the Soviet Union collapsed,” writes Adamson, “and that world poverty has been of late on a pretty good trend of reduction”. Maybe the federal election results here will end the default Torontonian perspective that the most sublime art form in America is anything hostile toward Republicans – at least one-man shows here are deserving of their own rulers to ridicule. Tom Lehrer’s decision to quit performing music in the mid-’60s, in favour of teaching mathematics at Harvard, makes for a decent fable – the American Dream was being obliterated by conflict, which drained his motivation to write whimsical songs about the periodic table, let alone Henry Kissinger. More realistically, Lehrer’s worldview was better served by grappling with the irrationality of numbers than struggling to crank out a few more yucks from behind the piano – he finished his statement before succumbing to self-parody. With his creative output suspended in time, the lousiest reaction Lehrer’s legacy will have ever received can be pegged on somebody else.