Rik Reppe has that sort of biting comedic insight that can take an everyday situation and tear it apart into little anecdotal chunks that define, condemn and compliment human nature all at once -- and in a delightfully vulgar manner.
Reppe worked for a time in the World Trade Center during early 2001, and after the Sept. 11 attacks, he embarked on a cross-country exploration to see what it really means to be an American.
Several years and countless conversations with every imaginable type of American later, he's now on the road sharing what he's learned. His one-man commentary, "Staggering Toward America," to be performed in the Bentley Theater on Wednesday night, will delve into our post-9/11 American identity -- along with some down-and-dirty hilarity that is sure to ensue as he recounts his experiences with the less-idealized side of America.
Why would Reppe go on a tour of the country in the wake of the traumatizing terrorist attacks? Simple: He didn't like watching the news coverage on TV.
"These talking heads kept telling me what Americans should want and need," he recalls thinking. "I've read everything there is to read on the topic. [So I thought] maybe what I needed to do was to keep asking people and maybe someone would tell me."
Reppe felt a distance from the events at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and from the people involved in them.
"Those planes ran into the towers and they fell down, but what does that mean? They killed my countrymen, but what does that mean?" he said.
In search of an answer, he traveled to Ground Zero to "experience it on a visceral level rather than an intellectual one," he said. It was a solemn trip, but it got him thinking about what impact that sort of event has on average people.
Reppe also drove to New Orleans after the Katrina disaster in 2005 and joined a flotilla to search for survivors. He boated through flooded streets, pulled victims from houses and waded through contaminated waters.
"Even through my cloak of cynicism, I thought I had what it takes to be a hero," he said. "I don't."
But he was struck by how many unlikely people did. He explained that we have a tendency to call people a one or a zero, either good or bad. But when a disaster like Katrina hits, the truth of human nature comes out.
"We're not ones and we're not zeros. We're .2s and .538s," he said. "I like finding a lot of beauty and ugliness in the same place, even in the same people."
He recalled an unsavory local who, it turned out, was leading a large fleet of fishing boats to rescue victims in the largely neglected towns near New Orleans.
"This ... redneck had done something more noble and admirable than I'd ever done in my life," he said. "That is why I fell in love with the place."
Now Reppe is relating his insights through "Staggering Toward America," a simple presentation in which he just sits on a stool and tells his story.
"I have one prop," he joked. "The only thing to see is me. The only thing to hear is me. Truth is, that's asking a lot of the audience."
He's confident that his show is cynical and intriguing nonetheless. "I guess it helps to be a megalomaniac that doesn't play well with others," he joked. At least, it sounded like a joke. He seemed pretty serious. Given his tendency to break off into hilarious high-powered denunciations of everything he thinks is wrong with America, I wouldn't be so sure.
Spending an hour interviewing Reppe was an experience I won't soon forget. He's travelled the country more widely and experienced more American craziness than anyone has a right to, but it hasn't turned him into the patriotic idealist you might expect. He's simply a down-to-earth American with a penchant for revealing the gritty side of society, with no shortage of stories to tell.
"I really could do a five hour show," he laughed, but "audiences don't respond well to that."
All said, Reppe stressed one particular experience truly defined his view of America.
"I found, for me, what it meant to be an American -- in a country where you can love every dysfunctional inch of -- at the Great Truck Stop Karaoke Uprising of Gary, Indiana," he said. What could have happened there? He wouldn't tell me. But I'll be at Bentley tonight to find out.
