From the very first word uttered on stage in POTUS or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive’, it’s clear you are in for a very atypical Sonoma County theatre presentation. The word is number four on George Carlin’s list of seven dirty words, and you will hear it, along with the other six, repeatedly throughout Selina Fillinger’s farcical take on a chaotic 24 hours at a not-so-fictitious modern-day White House. The Left Edge Theatre production runs in Santa Rosa at The California through December 21.
The (unnamed) President of the United States (POTUS) uttered a variation of that word at a White House gathering and his staff has gone into full crisis mode. Harriet, the President’s Chief of Staff (Jill Wagoner), and Jean, his Press Secretary (Sarah Dunnavant), are trying to figure out how to spin it. It’s just the latest in a long series of Presidential gaffes and screw-ups the women around him have had to “fix”.
Margaret, the First Lady (Serena Elize Flores) and target of the President’s remark, has issues of her own as she deals with the press’s fixation on her shoes instead of her voluminous charity work. Her scheduled interview with reporter Chris (Jeanette Seisdedos) couldn’t come at a worse time.
To make that time even worse, the President’s lesbian, drug dealing sister Bernadette (Laura Downing-Lee) has arrived looking for a pardon, and Dusty (Allison Lovelace), one of the President’s “friends”, has arrived bearing a gift. It’s all the President’s secretary Stephanie (Shawna Del Sol) can do to limit their access to him and his exposure to everything.
Fillinger throws the issues of foreign policy, nuclear disarmament, reproductive rights, and the patriarchy in amongst the discussions of lactation, rough sex, anal abscesses, blow jobs, and dildos. She even throws in a sink, though not the proverbial kitchen one.
Director Beulah Vega has a fearless cast at work here. A true ensemble piece, the cast’s uniform comedic energy is dissipated only during some scene transitions. The original Broadway production eliminated this by putting the set on the theatrical equivalent of a Lazy Susan with quick spins from scene to scene. Here, Vega has the action spread throughout the theater with the cast entering and exiting from all over including through the audience. While this may add to the overall sense of the chaos, it does hurt the timing.
And timing is everything in comedy, especially farce. Thankfully, this cast displays the comedic skills necessary to pull it off, both physical and verbal. Del Sol’s Stephanie is almost completely physical comedy, but by the show’s end everyone gets into the act. The physical bits, like the scene transitions, could stand to be sharpened a bit, which should happen quickly over the show’s run.
Fillinger’s snappy dialogue comes at you at a machine gun, Mamet-like pace, with the best bits coming from Wagoner’s Harriet, Dunnavant’s Jean, and especially Downing-Lee’s Bernadette (in a particularly ballsy performance.)
Left Edge’s POTUS… is definitely a show for mature audiences and won’t be to everyone’s taste. For those looking for escapism, it’s topical. (Sadly, maybe a bit too topical.) Folks who cringe at words like ‘damn’ or ‘hell’ would have a tough time getting past the opening line, let alone the whole show.
But for people who want to laugh…
Even Mike Hunt would approve.
Left Edge Theatre’s ‘POTUS, Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive’ runs through December 21 at The California Theatre. 528 7th Street, Santa Rosa. Thu – Fri, 7:30pm; Sat., 1pm. $11–$44. 707.664.7529. leftedgetheatre.com
