Mastergate Audiobook By Larry Gelbart cover art

Mastergate

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Mastergate

By: Larry Gelbart
Narrated by: Walter Matthau, Edward Asner, Charles Durning, Hector Elizondo, full cast
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The Tony Award-winning playwright and creator of TV's MASH has fashioned a wickedly funny satire about the Iran-Contra Senate hearings and their participants. A top-notch Hollywood cast, headed by Walter Matthau, brings this scathing comedy to life.(P)2004 L.A. Theatre Works Drama & Plays Entertainment & Performing Arts Music Theater United States World Literature Funny Witty Comedy

Editorial reviews

Wiley Slaughter and Shepherd Hunter - a superbly deadpan Walter Matthau - have just completed one of the CIA's most covert and inane operations, which allegedly included producing Hollywood films for foreign dictators. Now they sit before a select joint House and Senate subcommittee, Senator Archer Bowman presiding - gleefully played by Ed Asner - ready to spill the beans. Every A-list actor in this broad, scathing, and somehow whimsical satire has the vocal style of real Congressional hearings down pat. Award-winning playwright and creator of the "M.A.S.H." TV series Larry Gelbart wrote this play in response to the 1980s Iran-Contra affair. It's clear from the uproarious audience laughter throughout this live recording that this political farce continues to ring true.
All stars
Most relevant  
Technically a political satire set during the Reagan era, the play is actually a parody of the misuse of language by media and politicians which makes it even more relevant (and funnier) after the last eight years. Partisan bickering, stonewalling, political double-talk and media inanity are all sent up hilariously by an excellent cast recorded in a live performance. Painful and painfully funny.

Classic and still timely

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If you like to relax, sit back, let a story breeze past your mind, smiling a distant smile every few minutes, stay away. This takes your entire mind. If you're driving, you will go over the curb.

There are no two successive lines in Gelbart's play, that aren't funny. And if it fizzes out a little towards the end, it's because you are exhausted from all the wordplay, and from the pure radio presentation, that can't make up for it in stagecraft, than from any fault on the side of the writing.

Prepare to be amazed, amused, and quoting it for years to come. Love it!

Wordy, astonishing, laugh out loud funny

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I was laughing out most of the time. You will have to know something about politics. On the bright side, if you only started following D.C., with the inauguration in 2017, you will understand this hysterical play!

Hysterical

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Would you consider the audio edition of Mastergate to be better than the print version?

I have not read a printed version, but the audiobook is excellent.

What did you like best about this story?

Humerous and entertaining.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

No favorite character. All were good

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Nothing really moving in the book. Just an entertaining look at Washington and Politics!!

Entertaining!!!

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As far as I am concerned, politics is not far from the action of the actors that are heard here. The only thing that is not true, is that the foolish stuff that is portrayed is undermining the average citizen to even wish to be in politics.

POLITICS SAD BUT TRUE

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