As the lights go dark, Donald Trump appears on stage. Bertie Carvel has the demeanour, gait and speech patterns all done to a tee, so much so that it is hard to believe that we are not in the presence of the 45th President, taking a break from golfing in Mar-a-Lago.
And it’s at Mar-a-Largo where the play begins. Trump is facing the difficult task of picking which one of his children will be his spiritual successor. Will it be the sycophantic Donald Jr. (Oscar Lloyd), the dim and juvenile Eric (Freddie Meredith), or the calm and intelligent Ivanka (Lydia Wilson)? In the end it is his daughter who is picked to receive his inheritance, in scenes similar to those from King Lear. In fact, the play takes a lot of inspiration from Shakespeare, written in blank verse, with characters pronouncing long, captivating soliloquies, all a common part of playwright Mike Bartlett’s work. His earlier play, the Oliver Award-winning King Charles III, a “future history” drama about the succession to the throne, was also written in Shakespearean verse.
It is the eve of the 2024 Presidential election and Ted Cruz is the favourite for the Republican nomination. The Texan senator seeks Trump’s endorsement, but is hijacked by “the Donald,” who announces his bid for the presidency with the slogan, “America Rules.” James Garnon’s performance as a weak-willed, subservient Cruz deserves a mention.
Carvel brilliantly portrays Trump’s bullying and cruel nature, spooking a feeble and impotent Joe Biden (Simon Williams) to the point where he resigns and hands over his powers to Tamara Tunie’s Kamala Harris who becomes the eponymous 47th President. As a President, Harris is cautious and a stickler for laws, an object of great derision from Trump. Tunie is a convincing Harris but it is Carvel’s magnificent performance as Trump that lights up the Old Vic stage.
There is also a subplot based around liberal journalist Charlie Takahashi (James Cooney) and his sister Rosie, played by Ami Tredrea, who also happens to be Ivanka Trump’s chauffeur. Tredrea, in particular, conveys the typical dogmatic, conservative Trump voter, and, as her brother says, her tight jeans and fleece are “her uniform”. She follows a far-right group, much like the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, that seeks to “protect the nation” through violent acts. Joss Carter’s Shaman acts as a metaphor for Trump’s passionate rhetoric which hypnotises his supporters into action against the “liberal elite” and the “mainstream media”. It is these people who take to the streets at Trump’s command to vandalise and terrorise the populace.
The play might have been great, based on just the first half, but it is reduced to merely good by the second half. The first act makes the audience realise why people voted for Trump. As he says, people knew what he stood for, and everyone could name five of his policies, with Hillary Clinton however, people only knew that she was a woman, and she disliked Trump. Act two does not possess the same depth and instead descends into anti-Trump propaganda.
Suddenly, Trump is hated by his children with Donald Jr. and Eric plotting to tell law enforcement about his dodgy business dealings in return for immunity from prosecution. The law-obsessed Kamala Harris wishes for an “Act of God” that would kill the insurrectionist President. This is all done without much explanation and is a stark contrast to the pragmatic dissection of Trump’s nature earlier in the play. The surprise twist at the end is worth waiting for but analysis is sacrificed for entertainment.
At the beginning of the play, Trump tells the audience, “You hate me!” but at the end of the play, it is clear the playwright does too.
