c/o Noah Frato-Sweeney
The musical comedy “Bonar!” debuted at the Patricelli ’92 Theater on Friday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m., with two additional performances on Saturday, Nov. 4 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. The show—written by Noah Frato-Sweeney ’24 and directed by Miranda Simon ’24—follows the life and political career of Andrew Bonar Law (or Bonar, as he’s called throughout the show) and includes twelve original songs, composed by Frato-Sweeney and his cousin, Abe Frato. While the show is based on the lives of real politicians who were active in the UK parliament in the 1930s and 1940s, the relationships and interactions portrayed on stage were mostly imagined. Over the course of the show’s one-hour-and-fifty-minute runtime, Bonar, portrayed by Frato-Sweeney, finds his political ambitions consistently overshadowed by his name but still manages to achieve his ultimate goal of being prime minister of the United Kingdom, becoming a champion of the women’s suffrage cause along the way.
Arriving at the ’92 for the Saturday matinée of “Bonar!”, we were unsure of what to expect from the show. We had grappled with the obvious question based on the show’s title: How many phallic jokes can the script make before they stop being funny or, worse, become uncomfortable? However, by the end of the production, the age-old adage had been proven true. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (or a play by its one-word title).
The opening scenes and song of “Bonar!” introduce the audience to the cast of characters by giving each a chance to give their perspective on Bonar, similar to the opening number of “Hamilton” written by Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02. Frato-Sweeney’s show has several nods to Miranda’s globally renowned musical, often satirizing its musical and theatrical styles and tone of overt reverence for its characters. Through the jokes about Bonar’s immigrant status (moving from Canada to Scotland), the musical poked fun at “Hamilton” by ridiculing the portrayal of Alexander Hamilton as an immigrant who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, given the historical figure’s elitism and willingness to support enslavers. While describing his writing process to The Argus, Frato-Sweeney commented on how “Bonar!” evolved from being a direct parody of “Hamilton” into his own telling of Andrew Bonar Law’s life.
“When I first stumbled across Bonar Law as a person—an immigrant politician with a name like that—I knew that it would be the perfect opportunity to make fun of Hamilton,” Frato-Sweeney wrote in an email to The Argus. “Ultimately, though, Bonar’s story came into its own and the final script included only a few digs at [Miranda]…. It was my goal, then, to find a way to parody [“Hamilton” songs] that fit the voice of Bonar as a show.”
Throughout the musical, the choreography by Sadie Goldstein ’24 matched the light-hearted nature of the script and emphasized the amusing relationships between characters. Similarly, the variety of musical styles engaged the audience as the score explored various genres, with thoughtful and well-written reprises scattered throughout.
The show’s set was simple but impressive. Made up of three desks, a collection of chairs, two cork boards, and various small props, the set created a versatile space throughout the show. Small changes, such as plastering a typical high school banner to one of the boards, transformed the space from Bonar’s home to his new school in Scotland. In combination with their purposely ridiculous wigs, the ensemble transported audiences to the halls of British parliament using the same table that was previously Bonar’s bed. The simplicity allowed these extremely different settings to blend together seamlessly. The lighting design contributed to these effortless transitions by creating different playing spaces on the stage and helped blend the music into the world of the play.
After a glimpse into Bonar’s school life, the song “Similar Stories” gives more insight into Emmeline Pankhurst, portrayed by Shanti Hinkin ’26, a classmate who goes on to be an avid suffragette and Bonar’s best friend. The lyrics of “Similar Stories” involve Bonar cutting off and singing over Emmeline as he equates their respective difficulties: his with having the name Bonar, and hers with living as a woman in a patriarchal society. Bonar’s relationship with Emmeline is central to the show, commenting on the ways that the perspectives of men constantly overshadow those of women.
Emmeline’s serious tone throughout the plot grounded the musical in reality and balanced some of the more satirical characters, making Hinkin’s performance a stand-out. Frato-Sweeney explained that his storytelling became more focused on Emmeline’s character than the titular role as he wrote the musical.
“Originally, the story was mostly about Bonar’s struggle to accept his name,” Frato-Sweeney wrote. “By the end, I realized that the real story wasn’t about Bonar, it was about Emmeline Pankhurst. But, of course, Bonar gets all the attention. That’s how it went back then.”
Later in the show, the audience also encounters Bonar’s main political rivals: David Lloyd George (Mac Katkavich ’25), Winston Churchill (Evie Dolan ’26), and H.H. Asquith (Ethan Norton ’26). Katkavich, Dolan, and Norton excelled as lovable, comical villains throughout the show. Katkavich ably balanced George’s indecision between his admiration for Bonar and his own political ambition, each of Churchill’s childish quips at Bonar landed to uproarious laughter, and Asquith’s clearly self-absorbed motivations never failed to be revealed in Norton’s sterling line delivery. Toward the end of the show, Churchill and Asquith challenged David Lloyd George and Bonar in a hilarious debate rap battle, aptly titled “Election Cypher,” which perfectly parodied “Cabinet Battle #1” and “Cabinet Battle #2” in “Hamilton.”
One point of contention for the reviewers was the fictionalized romantic relationship between Andrew Bonar Law and David Lloyd George. As far as our research shows, historically the relationship between Bonar and George was entirely professional. While Bonar’s relationship with Emmeline is also not entirely rooted in historical fact, it felt as though it was exaggerated to the end of commenting on the unequal treatment of women in society. Bonar and Lloyd George’s relationship does not necessarily achieve a comparable goal. While Frato-Sweeney and Katkavich’s performances conveyed a convincing mutual romantic interest, stymied by judgment from their colleagues, the romantic subplot could easily be read as an attempt to keep the audience intrigued by exploiting queerness. It clouds the musical’s ideas of giving women equal opportunities and representation and seems to use a minority group as a vehicle for jokes. The relationship between the two men fueled, rather than resolved, tensions between the accurate representation of queer stories and the fabrication of queer relationships in existing heteronormative narratives.
Near the end of the show, Hinkin beautifully delivered a power ballad, entitled “Two Steps Backward,” when Emmeline’s hopes for the passage of women’s suffrage are again thwarted by Bonar’s untimely demise. The characters then get to give a short epilogue of their lives after Bonar’s death through “Moving On,” as the ghost of Bonar disappointedly realizes that his life and career didn’t make as much of a splash as he had planned.
Overall, “Bonar!” offered a compelling, laugh-out-loud funny narrative of the life of an obscure historical figure, while showing off the immense talents of its cast and crew. Frato-Sweeney spoke highly of his collaborators in the production of the show, expressing his hope that audiences appreciate the cooperative effort of cast and crew that brought the show together.
“I hope the audience appreciates how much of a group effort putting on the show was,” Frato-Sweeney wrote. “I get my quotes in the paper, but [Simon], [Stage Manager] Isa Paley [’26] , [Orchestrator] Abe Frato, the whole cast, and many, many more deserve their flowers. This is their show and their project just as much as it is mine.”
Sulan Bailey can be reached at sabailey@wesleyan.edu.
Maddie Morehead can be reached at mmorehead@wesleyan.edu.