Not long after the Iran-Contra hearings, the great comedy writer Larry Gelbart decided to try and see if he could top that absurdity and the use therein of the English language to deceive. He wrote Mastergate, a play that had a brief Broadway run of 69 performances but which has lived on via regional productions. There was also a radio drama version that starred Walter Matthau, Ed Asner, Harold Gould, Hector Elizondo and Charles Durning, plus there was a 1992 Showtime TV-Movie version which also had a helluva cast.
It presents to us the television news coverage of a series of Congressional hearings. On the spot is a soldier named Major Manley Battle who, not unlike Oliver North, arranges for some U.S. weapons to go someplace they weren't supposed to go — in this case to guerilla forces in Central America, ostensibly to use in filming a war movie.
But it's not just a parody of what went on with Iran-Contra but also of Watergate and the Joe McCarthy inquisition and every time our legislators sit before TV cameras pretending to seek some important truth from witnesses who do their best to reply without actually saying anything. Indeed, it even parodies hearings that have occurred since Gelbart wrote it. As the L.A. Times noted when the Showtime version was released…
"I feel that these kinds of situations are going to be with us forever with government, the military and business being as big as they are," said Gelbart, whose long list of credits includes creator of TV's M*A*S*H and Tony-winning writer of City of Angels. "But first and foremost, Mastergate is a play about the language. It's not for me to discover that politicians are corrupt or full of hot air. It's really about what they and television have done to the way we speak and the way we listen."
The dialogue is amazing…and difficult. Broadway singers have been known to say that the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim are wonderful but very, very challenging for the performer who has to perform them. The speeches, many of them lengthy that Gelbart wrote for Mastergate present the same challenge.
Wanna see it? Well, you can. Today, the video of the 1992 video version becomes available again. My buddy David Jablin who produced it has arranged for it to viewable for a small fee on Vimeo's On Demand service.
As I mentioned, it has an incredible cast that includes James Coburn, Robert Guillaume, Dennis Weaver, Bruno Kirby, Ed Begley Jr., Marcia Strassman, Darren McGavin, Henry Jones, Pat Morita, Tim Reid, Buck Henry, Jerry Ohrbach, Richard Kiley, David Ogden Stiers, Paul Winfield, Ken Howard and Ben Stein. Here's a preview that will make you want to see the whole thing…
You can view it on this page for $1.99 for a one-week streaming period or $9.95 for unlimited streaming. All proceeds go to Norman Lear's People For The American Way Foundation in memory of Larry Gelbart, who was a big supporter. It's 90 minutes of pure Gelbart wit.