Review

The absurdist performance art event at Times Square felt more like an elegy during this national moment.

Spike Einbinder is crowned the winner of The Most American Pageant Ever! in Times Square on July 22, 2026 (all photos Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

Watching Curtis Sliwa watch comedian Spike Einbinder — brother of Hacks star Hannah Einbinder and son of Saturday Night Live alum Laraine Newman — get shot in a comedic recreation of the former New York City Republican mayoral candidate's infamous 1992 kidnapping and shooting was the kind of experience I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Thankfully, the other parts of the performance were just as absurd, verging on the erratic, which was pitch-perfect for The Most American Pageant Ever!, an event billed as a “renewed portrait of America,” though it often felt more like an elegy during the nation’s semiquincentennial year.

Former Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, along with the other performance art event judges, holds his hand to his heart during the singing of the US national anthem during the event

Even if you believe that the United States is the “greatest country in the world,” like both the Donald Trump impersonator — who was seemingly everywhere in the show and acted out the President’s infamous Butler assassination attempt not once but twice — and the real one, who continues to spew it like a truism even when evidence to the contrary is staring us in the face, you will have to admit that this crassly thrilling celebration in front of a giant wiener cannon was just what we needed at a time of deep sorrow? repose? regret? … However you characterize it, it’s deep, because this is America and we do things in extremes, even when we’re gloriously shallow. 

The Most American Pageant Ever! was organized by artists Jen Catron, Paul Outlaw, and Abby Lloyd (playing Trump), who are wizards of the glittery stars-and-stripes variety of quintessential Americana, and their fete at capitalism’s commercial heart felt as unscripted as reality TV. 

Abby Lloyd as Trump standing in front of the contestants, including the hyper-capitalist entrepreneur played by Jordan Cooley, and the other contestants, which included Spike Einbinder, Ellery Neon, Kenneth Youngblood, Kiki Ball-Change, Celine Abdallah, Relish the Entertainer, Peter BD, and ClaywomanUPS delivery person shows up with the Epstein files as two Revolutionary-era actors linger in the background

The contestants ranged from a drag queen as Melania to a voguer named Relish, an alien, a primordial clay woman, a patriotic singer named Kenneth Youngblood, a hyper-capitalist entrepreneur, and a UPS delivery person who dropped off the top secret files from Mar-a-Lago before entering the contest and getting down for the talent competition.

Abby Lloyd as Trump takes to the stage with artists Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw looking onRelish the Entertainer wows with his floor performance

The mood was jubilant, the music was too loud, the shtick turned the volume to maximum, and even when there were groan-filled lulls, the performers uplifted you into thinking that maybe the best part of this country is that we have no shame, at least not in the pursuit of money, fame, or even art, apparently. 

There was no land acknowledgment, an absence only made more noticeable by the throngs of tourists who got their crazy New York story to regale those back home. The winner was supposed to be announced first by Trump, who wanted to award it to himself, and then by Outlaw, who grabbed the mic and bestowed the golden crown and flag cape on Spike Einbinder, which was picture-perfect. 

The alien contestant shines on stage

Einbinder was invited to tap a comically oversized button that was supposed to release the unredacted Epstein files and did so with a cannon shot out of the giant hot dog that I assume was supposed to reproduce a cum shot, even if a somewhat anemic one, far short of our expectations of porn. 

During her opening remarks, Catron explained why the giant hot dog parked in Times Square felt necessary, and she referenced their original performance with the massive prop in 2024, called “Hot Dog in the City”; this iteration was called “The Second Serving,” because the gluttony of this nation means we’re always returning for more, more, and more. She explained that they created this giant food item because “We were interested in the hot dog as a symbol of spectacle, celebration, contradiction, and excess. It's a surprisingly loaded object, it speaks to class, to capitalism and how it’s made and consumed, and … the enduring myth of the American dream.”

The giant Catron/Outlaw hot dog cannon parked in Times SquareSpike Einbinder being stalked by a taxi assassin on stage

In that idol-sized sculpture, the artists see a nation “built on enormous optimism and enormous contradictions,” according to Catron, and the last two years “have felt … more chaotic, more polarized, more surreal, and somehow always a little louder.” She admitted that their taste is over-the-top, but they also see how “reality had outpaced the [art]work.” You can’t argue with that.

Maybe the way to celebrate the United States of America is by making fun of ourselves, because we’ve become the clowns of the planet while still dominating it through our wealth and power, both hard and soft. 

A few weeks ago, I attended the Great American State Fair in Washington, DC, and it was as sad as you could imagine, something that would’ve been more appropriate for a regional college or small county fair than a world superpower. At the Catron and Outlaw celebration, I saw something that I didn’t encounter in DC that day, namely a self-consciousness about what we’re facing. 

A view of the Times Square audience at the event

Sliwa said it best when he witnessed the restaging of his assassination attempt on stage: “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” And in that regard, the artists flatter the American Republic in a way that perhaps it doesn’t deserve, but feels necessary nonetheless. 

In Giovanni’s Room (1956), James Baldwin writes, “Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced.”

Something has certainly been misplaced in the United States of America. But the question is really whether what was mislaid can ever be found again, or if this country is always only chasing after the money shot, and what was lost be damned.

The panel of judges, left to right, Lily Marotta, Curtis Sliwa, Waris Ahluwalia, and Jean Cooney

The Most American Pageant Ever! was hosted by artists Jen Catron, Paul Outlaw, and Abby Lloyd and featured a panel of judges including Curtis Sliwa, Waris Ahluwalia, Lily Marotta, and Jean Cooney with performances by Spike Einbinder, Ellery Neon, Kenneth Youngblood, Kiki Ball-Change, Celine Abdallah, Relish the Entertainer, Peter BD, Jordan Coley, and Claywoman. The event was presented by Times Square Arts and took place on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, at 7pm EDT.

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