THE US presidential campaign is already the most entertaining in living memory, with plot-lines and characterisation worthy of a Hollywood musical from the 1950s. Sarah Palin is the star turn just now. But I can't decide yet whether the Republican scriptwriters have cast her as Annie Oakley or Calamity Jane, writes Frank McNally
The name of her Alaskan hometown provides a clue. "Wasilla" sounds suspiciously like a contracted version of the nickname Sitting Bull gave Annie when they starred together in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. "Watanya Cecilla," he called her: Sioux for "Little Miss Sureshot".
That would also explain the choice of venue for the Republican convention. A pivotal scene in Annie Get Your Gun is also set in Minneapolis-St Paul. This is where she upstages the rival production, "Pawnee Bill's Far East Show", by performing a trick shot from a moving motorcycle - in the process catapulting herself to stardom.
The scene must surely have been in party strategists' minds when they arranged for Palin to wing Barack Obama — "I guess a small town mayor is sort-of like a community organiser, except that you have actual responsibilities" — from the pillion seat of McCain's wobbly bike.
As Palin's poll ratings subsequently rocketed, you could almost hear the handlers burst into the musical's showstopper: "There's no people like show people/ They smile when they are low./ Yesterday they told you you would not go far/ That night you open and there you are/ Next day on your dressing room they've hung a star/ Let's go on with the show!"
As for those Palin family pictures, with her "First Dude" husband and the baby called "Trig", and the pregnant daughter, and the boyfriend like a rabbit in the headlights of a car - all that was missing was Annie herself leading the group in a chorus: "Folks like us could never fuss/ With schools and books and learnin'/ Still we've gone from A to Z/ Doin' what comes naturally (Doin' what comes naturally)". Then again, the partnership of Palin and the maverick McCain, with their promise to "shake things up" in Washington, has echoes of the stormy romance between another western heroine - Calamity Jane - and Wild Bill Hickok, which also inspired a musical.
The contemporary resonance here would be Calamity's dismissal of Obama's home town and all its vaunted sophistication: "I just flew in from the windy city/ The windy city is mighty pretty/ But they ain't got what we got, I'm tellin you boys/ We got more life in Deadwood city/ Than the whole of Illinois." In either musical, there's a happy ending for the gun-totin' gal. It remains to be seen whether the Republicans' modern adaptation can run all the way to Washington. But for now at least, Obama has lost some of his box-office appeal by comparison, and he may have to find his own Western-themed score to recover.
If only Mel Brooks had produced a musical version of Blazing Saddles. The plot is perfect, after all. A black sheriff takes on lynch mobs, corrupt politicians, honey-tongued seductress Lili Von Schtup, and a large cast of other ne'er-do-wells. Somehow he emerges unscathed to save his town. Then, having persuaded people of all races and creeds to live in harmony, he rides off into the sunset, post-modernist style, in a limousine. All it needs is a few good songs.
SPEAKING of musicals, we know now that when Giovanni Trapattoni credited Mozart as a major influence on his thinking as a football manager, it was definitely not the operas he had in mind. Or not their story-lines, anyway.
His first competitive games with the Republic have been carefully orchestrated works, with perfect pitch (except of course the pitch in Montenegro, which was a bit bumpy) and pacing. But there were none of the absurd plot-twists associated with both opera buffo and recent Irish soccer teams. And apart from Kevin Kilbane's face-mask - a phantom of the opera in every sense - there was barely a hint of melodrama.
It's true that when the opposition pulled a goal back late in Act II of last Saturday's production in Mainz, veterans of Macedonia and other tragicomedies had flashbacks of fat ladies singing. Fortunately, time was almost up by then. No sooner had the large Georgian soprano cleared her throat than the curtain fell on her.
The performance of the Irish orchestra itself in both games was almost faultless. Steven Reid conducted admirably alongside Glenn Whelan, who has been plucked (or "pizzicato" as Trapattoni would say) from obscurity to play a leading role. Behind them, the string quartet of Dunne, O'Shea, Finnan, and Kilbane were note-perfect. So were lead violins of Keane and Doyle. Only the wide men needed tuning.
Such is the symphonic perfection threatened by the team that it may be a good thing if Trapattoni's fluency in English is postponed indefinitely. As translated by himself and others, there is a melodramatic quality about his utterances which is welcome. The price of success is that he may soon be the only unpredictable thing about the team.
His lament about Irish players eating mushrooms was highly entertaining (although only magic mushrooms could explain last year's 5-2 defeat in Cyprus). So was his ominous judgment on managers who stake their reputations on exciting football. It could almost have been an extract from the synopsis of a modern opera: "Everybody knows about the coaches who say: 'We played well! We lost! We played well! We lost!' After a while, the newspapers are waiting for them."