Megan Jenkins – the creator of the stage play with music, BILL, about the life of Milton William Cooper – sat down to speak to us ahead of it’s premiere at Omnibus Theatre in December. Sometimes dubbed “The Granddaddy of American Conspiracy Theorists”, decades before QAnon, false flags, “crisis actors” and Alex Jones, there was Milton William Cooper.
1. What drew you to adapt the life of Milton William Cooper into a musical comedy, and how do you balance humour with the darker consequences of his conspiracy theories?
I’d read about Bill Cooper during Trump’s first term, when I was trying to make sense of the election result and our own country’s acrimonious political landscape. It was immediately clear that Bill’s life lent itself incredibly well to our company’s brand of genre-bending ‘chaos theatre’, from the aliens and alleged assassination attempts to the very real and very violent consequences of his rhetoric, in both his own time and our own. We balance these two sides of Bill by leaning heavily into the dichotomy, combining conflicting theatrical styles throughout the show.
2. Cooper’s Behold a Pale Horse is infamous for its reach, from being the “most shoplifted book” to influencing modern conspiracies. How does the play explore the legacy of his ideas in today’s political climate?
Bill’s most immediate influence is going to be very clear, quite early on, without us needing to do very much at all. The moment Bill talks about his ‘Q’ security clearance, for example, alarm bells will ring for any audience member who follows US politics. However, it’s when he begins to thread these conspiracy theories around seismic events like Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Columbine, and build in militia, insurrections, and new world orders, that we really start to see his mark on what we now know to be the American right. I personally find the moments where Bill speaks about social issues in a way that would now be considered left-wing most interesting: when he is pro-choice, when he reprimands a caller to his radio show for homophobia, or when he repeatedly calls out police brutality against black Americans. In him, we often find a shared feeling, or moment, or thought, between the two sides of our increasingly divisive modern politics (I know, we were as surprised as you are). Although this is all sounds incredibly serious, I promise you, it’s very funny.
3. Musical comedy and conspiracy theories seem like an unusual pairing—what inspired you to use this genre, and how do the musical elements enhance the storytelling?
I feel that musical elements generally enhance most stories, and, in BILL, various musical styles lead the audience from the 1940s all the way through to the 2000s, helping cement a sense of place and time in a sprawling and complicated story. The original score is made up of country-western, funk, musical-theatre, pop, pastiche, and an actual Latin requiem at one point (it’s about a paperclip), among others. Having said that, musical comedy is only one of the genres we utilise in BILL; we generally go with the style that serves that scene best, whether that be sketch comedy, puppetry, or ‘no way that’s actually verbatim’ verbatim.
4. With Cooper’s life encompassing everything from aliens to anti-government paranoia, what was the biggest challenge in adapting such a sprawling, controversial figure for the stage?
From the get-go, the biggest issue was how to make it clear to the audience when something was factually true, when we were quoting, and when we were taking artistic license. After all, the show is essentially about what is true, and how much that matters. We finally found a work-around (actually dead simple, should have thought of it earlier), but it’s a bit of a spoiler so I’ll leave that there. Of course, the other issue is depicting a controversial historical figure. We opted for a docu-theatre approach. We try our best to avoid being either sanctimonious or celebratory and often, since we have so much source material, we just let Bill speak for himself, in his own words.
5. Audiences today are saturated with conspiracy content—how does BILL help us reflect on the power of these narratives while keeping the show entertaining and accessible?
I think we allow the audience to reflect by very rarely asking them to do so. Theatre, if it wants to make a difference in any way whatsoever, needs to first and foremost be a good night out for its audiences and that is our main goal with BILL. Yes, the show is political, and yes, you could learn something, but think of it like a really really good lasagne that just has loads of vegetables that are good for you hidden in the sauce.
Bill runs at Omnibus Theatre, 3 – 22 December 2024 – get tickets here.