Sometimes a show comes along that has the potential to be sharp and scathing about current events. ROTUS (Receptionist of the United States), currently on in the Park Theatre’s studio space, is one of these.
Leigh Douglas (writer and performer) and Fiona Kingwill (director) collaborate on this curio that gained high praise last summer at the Edinburgh Fringe for its ‘whip-smart, disturbingly prescient satire’.
It focuses on a barely disguised Republican administration, under President “Ronald Drumpf”. Chastity Quirk goes from college beauty influencer to West Wing receptionist, where we find her at the play’s start.
Chastity is blonde, pretty, smart, and deeply annoying: a picture postcard of the WASP American woman. This is a one-person show, but Douglas creates a wide range of characters who pass by her desk and contribute to her day, gossiping, eating home-baked muffins, and backstabbing.
There are the tough and ambitious Washington ladies who befriend and advise her, with a token male representation from her boss (the Chief of Staff), and her boyfriend. She’s smiling, but something’s off in the White House.
The early part of ROTUS is light in tone, with Chastity cheerleading and extolling the virtues of her fellow ‘Conservative Brides of Christ’, sorority sisters. There’s chanting, dancing, and an attempt to get the audience on-side as if we are a tour group.
Later, things turn darker, but not dark enough considering the reality we now see every day with the ‘Leader of the Free World’ appearing increasingly unhinged.
There’s a golden opportunity to rip into the American Dream and the MAGA mania from the perspective of a job that’s often overlooked, but Douglas doesn’t take it.
Instead, ROTUS presents a watered-down comedy that presents the thesis that women are blind to corruption and abuse because they “want the boys to like them”.
It isn’t enough in an unstable world where a third world war seems more likely with each speech or tweet from the Oval Office. Wisely, the POTUS himself is not portrayed directly.
If Chastity’s account as a receptionist monitoring staff for disloyalty needed to be told, why did it need to be in a real country, and specifically this one?
ROTUS doesn’t raise many laughs and doesn’t tell us anything new. If anything, it holds back on the madness around a President who wants to cling to power indefinitely, and gun-loving yes men who come together to do his bidding for America.
The ending moments suggest an understanding of this underlying context, but seem to belong in a different show. All we’ve seen is this girl cavorting like a pretty mannequin and blithely naming names.
Sadly, this show is sometimes more awkward than controversial, and it left me wondering exactly what it was written for. Perhaps the cold reality of the current US administration is far more unsettling than any dramedy can ever be.
**
ROTUS (Receptionist of the United States) continues in Park 90 at the Park Theatre until 7 Feb – tickets here.
Photos supplied by publicist.