EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT WASHINGTON, DC’S iconic presidential monuments, majestic memorials and treasure-filled Smithsonian museums, but where can you find mirth, mystery and mischief in the heart of a capital city and world superpower that, some suspect, takes itself far too seriously?
Start by spending a Friday or Saturday evening at an On the Capitol Steps performance held in the amphitheatre of the Ronald Reagan Building a few blocks from the White House. Featuring five talking, singing and dancing actors, it takes fearless, frisky pot-shots at not only Washington’s politicians but those farther afield.
This band of merry mavericks has gotten away with its irreverence even since some young Senate staffers were asked to put on a Christmas show about three decades ago. Realising that “a nativity play was out, as we couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin in Congress”, they decided instead to take the Mickey out of the people and places that employed them.
On the night I visited, we are introduced to ‘Barack Obama’ countering Donald Trump’s concern about the legitimacy of his birth certificate with “I would like to see the birth certificate of whatever is living on the top of Donald Trump’s head”. Then there’s a tribute to the 2016 Republican presidential nomination scrum by four actors holding campaign posters as they march across the state singing 76 Unknowns on the Campaign Trail set to the music of 76 Trombones from The Music Man. And that’s not to forget ‘Angela Merkel’ with her version of songs from the renamed musical Greece.
As Bill Hurd, the PR for On the Capitol Steps, puts it to me: “When news breaks, come to our show to find out what rhymes with it.”
GOING UNDER COVER AT THE SPY MUSEUM
Reinforced by an evening of mirth, I set out the next morning in search of mystery. I find it at the International Spy Museum, founded by a Korean War code breaker and set between Ford’s Theatre (where President Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 15, 1865) and The American Art Museum & National Portrait Gallery (look for new portraits of Ted Turner and Maya Angelou).
As I enter, I am told to assume a secret identity (mine is so secret I couldn’t possibly tell you what is is). I’m then invited to pick up a GPS and head out on a spy hunt through the neighbourhood. (“It’s sightseeing like you’ve never experienced,” I am assured.) But as time is limited, I opt instead to go on a treacherous spying mission (virtually speaking) into the fictional city of Khandar. So demanding is this experience that it’s a relief to retreat into the Exquisitively Evil exhibition of James Bond villains.
Not only does this pay tribute to the launch of Commander Bond 50 years ago by Ian Fleming – who was reputedly inspired by his World War II intelligence experiences – but it leads to tributes to a wide range of spies and spymasters. Among them are Old Testament superstar Moses, author Daniel Defoe, entertainer Josephine Baker, actress Marlene Dietrich and TV chef Julia Child. There’s even a 1777 employment letter from George Washington to his spy master.
Other intriguing exhibits include a World War II Enigma machine, a KGB agent’s one-shot pistol disguised as a lipstick case, and an umbrella of the type used in London in 1978 to poison Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov.
For a bit of mischief – or perhaps I should say munching – I join a DC Metro Food Tour of the elegant Dupont Circle neighbourhood. As we pass various mansions, our guide recounts the colourful tales of their residents. Particularly notable are those of Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of President Teddy Roosevelt, and her one-time friend/later rival newspaper editor and publisher, Cissy Patterson, who had an affair with Alice’s husband, a US Congressman, and also shared a lover with Alice. Reputedly, in despair, the President told a friend: “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice. I can’t do both.”
But, in essence, the tour is all about the diversity of food on offer in this cosmopolitan neighbourhood’s numerous restaurants, so we sample everything from Sushi Taro’s wagyu beef morsels to pear-vodka cocktails and crab rolls at Bar Dupont.
NATIVE AMERICAN FOOD; NEWS ON TAP
Moving away from my Mirth, Mystery and Mischief quest, but still hungry, I head along the central parkland known as The National Mall to the National Museum of the American Indian, one of the few Smithsonian museums I have not visited on my previous trips to DC. Tray in hand, I zigzag between its cafeteria food stations, selecting fresh tuna from one of the north-western tribal nations, a corn dish from the mid-Atlantic region, and some spicy tacos from the south-western tribes. Then I spend a couple of hours learning about the museum’s 12,000 years of history, which covers about 1,200 indigenous cultures not only in the USA but also from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
A Newseum map shows the level of press freedom throughout the world – red for none, yellow for some and green for total freedom
The next day, my target is Pennsylvania Avenue’s non-Smithsonian Newseum. Not only can I read that day’s front pages from around the world, including the UK’s Times and Guardian, but I also can learn about how news has been made in numerous countries for nearly 500 years.
Among the displays are a 1546 German ‘newsbook’ report of the death of that great leader of the Reformation, Martin Luther; America’s earliest magazines, including one launched in 1741 by Benjamin Franklin; an eye-witness account of the death of the pirate Blackbeard; the first news of the Gold Rush to California; and, more recently, the print and TV coverage of the assassination of President John F Kennedy.
To mark the 150th anniversary of the assassination of another president, Abraham Lincoln, the Newseum is staging an exhibition of the New York Herald’s coverage of that tragic event. Other special exhibitions this year are dedicated to the coverage of the Civil Rights movement, which began about 50 years ago, and on The FBI Today.
But amidst all the print and TV coverage, the most moving tribute was to the men and women who have been killed covering the news, including 80 in the past year, among them the two journalists beheaded by the ISIS militants in Syria.
At the other end of the Mall, circling the tranquil lake-like Tidal Basin, are the city’s most iconic memorials to its presidents and war heroes. The Lincoln Memorial, featuring an enormous statue of the seated president apparently deep in thought, is in many ways its most impressive, particularly when you recall that it was from these steps that Dr Martin Luther King Jr made his famous “I have a dream” speech on August 28, 1963 (his memorial is nearby on Independence Avenue). But one of my favourites is the statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt seated in his wheelchair, his little Scottish terrier, Fala, at his feet.
Here, too, is the starkly-elegant, black-granite wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial but in some ways I find the Korean War Veterans Memorial even more evocative. With its platoon of helmeted soldiers plodding through a field to face whoknows- what dangers, it seems to have more relevance to such modern conflicts as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Nation’s Capital remains lively when the sun goes down. I spend my last night with friends attending a play at the Tony-winning Arena Theatre, followed by cocktails in the rooftop bar of our sleek, modern W Hotel. It, unlike this article, provides an overview of the White House far below.
