Alec Baldwin may take Saturday Night Live – Trump impression to Broadway
In a recent appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Baldwin noted that he is interested in doing a Broadway presentation as his Presidential character, similar to the brief show Will Ferrell had there at George W. Bush. He isn’t altogether interested in taking on the role for a lengthy period of time, but apparently does feel as though it would be a fun opportunity to expand the character.
Also in the interview Baldwin noted that such a move would have the involvement of SNL creator Lorne Michaels, who had approval over the recent book co-written by Baldwin as the Trump character. Michaels, like he does with many creations of the sketch show, owns the intellectual property to the impression. This is what makes SNL such an interesting beast in general; someone can come up with their own character, but then using it somewhere beyond the original platform is a little more difficult of a process than you’d imagine.
As for if we think Baldwin’s character can sustain a full show, it’s possible — we know that there are plenty of people out there who would pay to check it out, but there’s a pretty clear difference between paying for a show and enjoying it. The problem with Baldwin’s Trump is that there may not be enough of a narrative through-line to keep something going for longer than ten minutes. His take on Trump is that of an egocentric blowhard who is a bit of a dullard, offensive to every demographic but his own, and is really just a puppet of other people trying to fulfill their own offensive agenda. Part of what makes this Trump so funny is his relationship with other people, whether it be Kellyanne Conway (Kate McKinnon) or Steve Bannon (Mikey Day). If you could get another couple of characters making cameos over the course of the stage show it would probably work a little bit better than the opposite scenario where there aren’t any.
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