REVIEW: POTUS (Arena Stage)
Preview: “Cunt.” The very first line of Selina Fillinger’s raucus POTUS or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive is enough to set the mood: brash, blunt, and unabashedly feminine. After a brief stint on Broadway this past season, it’s reconstituted (pun intended) around the country to become the third-most produced play in Amercian theatre this season. As good as that is from an artistic standpoint if you’re Fillinger, I think it really begs the question of which audiences it’s built for. It’s easy enough to plop a show like this in the international eyes of the Rialto, but what about places like Orlando or Minneapolis? Aye, the true test of POTUS’ efficacy is right here in its set city, the District, under the cautious in-the-round auspices of Arena Stage.
Book: Fillinger’s audacious book is well-paced, but struggles to escape its nature of a two-hour-long SNL skit from 2017. Referencing the opening epithet: it’s how the President refers to the First Lady (Felicia Curry) when she apparently does not show up during a press conference. From here, things splinter into several interweaving subplots featuring his wife, chief of staff, delinquent sister, press secretary, his (regular) secretary, a journalist, and an 18-week-pregnant flax seed heiress. Breast pumps, blue slushies, blind veterans, and blowjobs are among the handful of running bits scattered throughout, which range from left field Play That Goes Wrong surprise humor to forced laughs you can see a mile away. Some of this is as a result of its in-the-round staging (which still mostly works), and others is just the nature of the generally shallow characterization. Surprisingly, it was a two-act show, but its plot actually creates natural pauses and unique devices. The biggest shame is that as many legs it grows for the potential closure, it settles on the weakest. The quality is mildly elevated being staged locally: plenty of quips ring around the audience in a way that can’t get more vivid than with the DC crowd. It masks the otherwise often-silly book with a hometown hero vibe that’s more empowering to the cast and the audience. 7/10
Acting: The namesake seven women are all artfully cast, each bringing something funny to their characters that turns their carboard archetypes into something resembling full characters with backstories, which is hard given how many the show juggles in its stories. There still exists some tragedy of the commons though, since each character demands so much attention, it simultaneously suppresses them all. Perhaps it does the best it can with its crammed cast, perhaps it’s self-sabotage in its messaging (quality over quantity?) 7/10
Production: I had heard concerns about the feasibility of staging this in the round, but director Margot Bordelon manages to keep things together. Disappointingly, only few elements (doors that rise up at the corners) have a plasticky aesthetic that match the hovering White House, which with its neon traces (Marika Kent) was a cool creative choice; everything else seemed rudimental. I did, however, love Ivania Stack’s characterized costuming, which gave heaps of personality to each actress. 5/10
VisDev: The program art is Corporate Memphis-inspired glyph art by Loveis Wise. It’s stylish, powerful, but above all fun, and provides a colorful look at the whimsy that ensues. Pre-show staging is merely the Presidential seal projected onto the stage, below a dangling acrylic plastic model of the White House. It doesn’t provide much insight besides, “it’s about the President”. Which, yeah. 6/10
VERDICT: POTUS is funny and well-paced, but relies on direction that has too little to work with.
