Two clusters of people around me found Ghost of John McCain (SoHo Playhouse, to Nov. 10) howlingly funny. They shrieked with laughter, snorted, squealed, and whooped—responses that are even more jolting in the compressed confines of SoHo Playhouse.

The musical begins with the 2018 death of McCain, who arrives onstage spiffily dressed in a white suit, lugging a wheeled tote and, as played engagingly by Jason Tam, looking not a day older than when he was released from the Hanoi Hilton. In the jaunty musical number “Heaven or a Three-Star Hotel,” McCain wonders where, exactly, he’s landed.

The play sees the late McCain living in Trump's head as the latter wants to hear he was the best president in history.