PROVIDENCE — “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” says Brutus to Cassius in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” In other words, timing is everything.
This is certainly true for Selina Fillinger’s “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive,” a funny, fast-paced piece of Oval Office outrageousness that is now past its prime and also just ahead of its time.
In “POTUS,” an incompetent, immoral, and potty-mouthed President of the United States unwittingly spins a self-induced PR nightmare into a global crisis, and it is up to the seven brilliant and beleaguered women that surround and support him to save the day.
They are Harriet (played on opening night by understudy Mary Potts Dennis), his hyper-tense chief of staff; Jean (resident company member Rachael Warren), his harried press secretary; Stephanie (Jenna Lea Scott), his mild mannered and overwhelmed secretary; Bernadette (Rachel Dulude), his felonious sister; jaded journalist Chris (Sara States); the steely first lady Margaret (resident company member Jackie Davis); and POTUS’s ditzy mistress Dusty (Tay Bass).
The script was written in 2019, during Donald Trump’s time in office, but the nameless President in the play is never seen on stage and the script’s author notes judiciously state that the play’s setting is “perhaps not the current administration, exactly.” Still, there’s a long running gag in this play that revolves around this fictional President’s public utterance of a vulgarity that is akin — in brazenness and body part — to the one captured by a hot mic in an “Access Hollywood” van that was uttered by Trump. And this cast of characters is a carnival fun house mirror reflection of the six parody-prone women who were part of his enabling inner circle.
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OK, there was no mistress among them, as there is in the play, but there could have been had Stormy Daniels been more of a team player.
A 2019 production of “POTUS” would have been a fierce, front-line satire that used the unseen Republication elephant in the room as the latest and best example of the white male supremacy that has defined the presidency since its conception. But COVID kept this comedy on the shelf and by the time the show made its debut on Broadway in 2022, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were in the White House.
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In light of this new reality, Tony Award-winning director Susan Stroman — best known for her crowd-pleasing work in musical theater — turned what was satirical into the same kind of broad-based farce found in her productions of “The Producers” and “Bullets Over Broadway.” Stand-up comedian Lea DeLaria and “Saturday Night Live” alum Rachel Dratch were added to the cast to help ratchet up the outrageousness.
“POTUS” went on to become one of the most-produced plays in regional theaters in 2023 and secured enough bookings to become one of the most-produced plays in 2024. But just before this Trinity Rep production went into rehearsal, Harris clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. And, if she defeats Trump in November, she will be America’s first female president.
White male supremacy in the Oval Office still serves as a viable punching bag in this play. But from now until November, all the hilarity takes on an unexpected layer of prophecy. This becomes particularly apparent when one of the female characters asks another “Why aren’t you President?” each time POTUS’s lack of presidential prowess rises to the surface, which is often. What was once a throwaway punch line has taken on new and intriguing significance.
It does so without reeling in the mayhem, impeding the pacing, or detracting from all that is laugh-out-loud funny in the script. Not when Dulude as POTUS’s sister turns each line of dialogue into comedy gold, Bass imbues each of Dusty’s seemingly absurd inanities with an awesome core of intelligence, and Dennis’s brilliant depiction of the harried chief of staff’s mounting hypertension drives this production forward. Every member of this talented ensemble finds what’s particularly funny about the characters they inhabit. Even costume designer Shahrzad Mazaheri’s creations work as sight gags.
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What does hinder this production is the hesitant and stagey execution of Rocio Mendez’s fight choreography and slapstick physicality. These antics are mainstays in a show like this and could use more rehearsal time.
Collette Pollard’s scenic design, which serves up a large and well-appointed rotunda as the place where everything happens, doesn’t help matters. On Broadway, a revolving stage allowed the increasingly unhinged action to play out on a variety of quickly transitioning White House locations. Here, there are no quick transitions to facilitate the comedy and laborious entrances and exits up and down the aisles that subdivide the audience slow things down even more. And with so much territory to cover, much of the movement on stage seems aimless.
But this is the only flaw in Curt Columbus’s otherwise clever and effective direction, particularly when it comes to managing the play’s newfound resonance. Take the final line of the play, which is the most prophetic of all. Columbus brings it center stage and, as can be seen in the above production photo, he has his actors break the fourth wall and directly address the audience. The line is then delivered with subtle delight and a glimmer of hope. Because timing is everything.
POTUS
Play by Selina Fillinger. Directed by Curt Columbus. At Trinity Rep’s Dowling Theater, 201 Washington St., Providence. Through Oct. 27. Tickets are $24-$90. 401-351-4242, trinityrep.com.
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Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. Connect with him on Facebook.