Factwino Meets the Moral Majority

Recordings (1)
Songs (0)

Show Details

Music: Bruce Barthol (9)
Lyrics: Bruce Barthol (9)
Book: Joan Holden (6), Tede Matthews, Henri Picciotto, Peter Solomon
Notes: Told in comic book style vignettes, this was the first of three Factwino sagas the Troupe produced throughout the 1980s.
Plot: In a once-great nation fearful of it's future, ignorance has triumphed at the polls... The defense budget doubles, social services slide, and the fundamentalist fanatics of the Moral Majority declare war on Knowledge. Responding to the distress call of a frightened Librarian, the Spirit of Information makes an emergency visit to Earth. After discovering that books stolen from local libraries have been systematically replaced by Bibles, the Spirit decides help is needed on the planet. She grants Sedro, an erudite wino, with the power to make people see the truth, and he becomes Factwino, defeater of ignorance, disseminator of information, defender of free speech and social justice; the perfect superhero to take on the Moral Majority and others of their ilk.

As Factwino, our hero pursues his mission with single-hearted devotion. Mindful of the Spirit's warning, "If you booze it, you lose it", abandoning his faithful sidekick Buddy, Factwino transforms anti-abortion crusaders, book-burners and homosexual-haters into thinking citizens---and arouses the ire of the main enemy, Armageddonman.

From his secret stronghold deep under the desert, this awful incarnation of the military-industrial complex sends his Robot Lackey to extract the secret of Factwino's identity from the heartbroken and booze-befuddled Buddy. At the moment of his greatest triumph---when he has provoked thought form the mighty mullah of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell---the Superhero of Clarification is kidnapped by Armageddonman.
Premiere: 1981