Review: POTUS: OR, BEHIND EVERY GREAT DUMBASS ARE SEVEN WOMEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM ALIVE at Arena Stage

I wish that I could start this review with the same word that POTUS: OR, BEHIND EVERY GREAT DUMBASS ARE SEVEN WOMEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM ALIVE. It’s four letters long, jarring, and would certainly catch your attention the way it does audiences for Arena Stage’s newest offering this season.

It would be a fitting way to kick this review off, but I like reviewing shows in the DMV and would rather not be banned from this platform. To find out what Naomi Jacobson’s Harriet says at the top of the show, you can either fill in the blank with your best guess or you can take the path I’d recommend, which is getting to Arena Stage to actually see the show yourself. 

Though I won’t be writing the word here, there are several other much more appropriate words of varying lengths I’d use to describe Arena Stage’s POTUS, which opened this past Thursday night on the Fichlander Stage. Funny, unique, riotous, reflective, satirical, sharp, energetic, frenetic, powerful, etc. 

It’s political satire meets NOISES OFF meets everything that makes Washington DC tick. A play brimming with political humor that all stripes or affiliations will find hysterical. A seemingly tailor-made comedy for DC audiences especially, it’s the kind of rollicking good time that we need in this moment of extreme tension not only in this city but also in this country. 

The aforementioned opening line serves as a sort of starting gun for a wild evening for the play’s characters. As the program indicates, the setting is the White House but “perhaps not the current administration, exactly - but broad strokes of past presidents, combined with stress dreams of future ones.” We’re dropped into the action on a busy and blooper-filled day when Harriet (Naomi Jacobson), the President’s Chief of Staff, is conferring with Jean (Natalya Lynette Rathnam), the President’s Press Secretary. 

POTUS has had a…challenging…morning with his wife and First Lady, Margaret (Felicia Curry). Unfortunately, POTUS (we never actually hear him referred to by name) let slip to the press his unfiltered feelings about a contentious morning with his wife in a less-than-dignified way that would require an urgent conference between the Chief of Staff and the Press Secretary. The two plan out a way to wiggle the President out of this situation, but, as is the case in any good stage comedy, nothing goes according to plan.

For one, the two women must wrangle the President’s neurotic Secretary, Stephanie (Megan Hill), who is a nervous ball of energy learning to take up space as a woman in the workplace through self-help tapes and power poses. One of the characters fittingly describes Stephanie as “a menopausal toddler,” which is an accurate description of the character when we first meet her. She’s unpredictable and trying to prove herself, Hill does a tremendous job with the physical demands of the role. 

As would be the case with a real-life Presidential PR nightmare like this one, the press has jumped all over the story. Chris (Yesenia Iglesias), a journalist, has come to Jean for a comment, which does not go well. Stressed by the day’s onslaught of cleaning up the President’s mess, a recurring theme in the play, Jean tells Chris to “get off my *eggplant emoji*.” You get the point. 

With every subsequent character entrance comes another challenge and a ratcheting up of the comedy as well. Dusty (Sarah-Anne Martinez) is no exception as a young, spritely woman trying to “discreetly” find her way through the maze of people, offices, and security in the White House. More of a bull-in-a-china-shop than anything resembling discreetness, Dusty has been instructed to find Harriet but, having never met the Chief of Staff, wanders around asking to be pointed to the “intense woman.” This doesn’t exactly narrow down the pool of potential candidates. Many shenanigans later, we find out exactly who Dusty is and what she’s doing there, and it certainly doesn’t make the situation any easier. 

When we finally meet the First Lady, Margaret, she’s been on the receiving end of her husband’s ire in front of the press (and the nation for that matter). Her day is not going well so far. She’s also undergoing a sort of image repair in an attempt to be more “earthy,” which means swapping out high heels for unsightly Crocs. Margaret is an amalgamation of all the impressive women who have held the title of First Lady. She’s also a biting criticism of the reality that so many First Ladies have had to grapple with. She has 5 nonprofits, 2 children, and one POTUS under her command not to mention degrees from Stanford and Harvard. Yet, she’s expected to stifle her potential so as not to overshadow her powerful husband. 

For example, one of the biggest issues on her plate when we meet her is a need to come across as more “earthy.” A recurring bit in the play, Margaret is the first to be asked “Well why aren’t YOU the president?” It’s a great question considering her resume, and again, a commentary on who gets to be the President - and, more importantly, who doesn’t. 

The final player to be introduced, and arguably the match to light the fire of ultimate chaos, is the President’s transient sister, Bernadette (Kelly McAndrew). She’s arrived at the White House in anticipation of a Presidential pardon armed with a large duffle bag full of surprises like a nefarious Mary Poppins. Bernadette is an ex-con afraid of no one and no thing, and she certainly does her part to ratchet up the hilarity of the proceedings. To complicate matters further, she’s an ex-girlfriend of the Press Secretary, Jean, and the two squabbles as ex-lovers do amidst everything else going on. It’s the final ingredient to an already unpredictable recipe, and it’s nothing but comedic chaos afterward.

Once we’ve met all of our players, the real excitement begins. After an unfortunate accident involving the sculptured bust of a famous suffragette flying through the air, the 7 women must work together to…well…try to keep the dumbass alive. The title is both figurative and literal, and much of the second act is watching these women navigate the predicament they’ve each had a hand in creating. It’s a riotous romp that continues to ratchet up before racing to a sobering conclusion. 

By the play’s end, all of their hard work is expected of them but woefully unnoticed and underappreciated. As is often the case with the President, men create the mess, and women come behind to clean it up. Things go back to the way they were before with the man front and center taking the glory and the women fading into the wings. I promise this is a comedy, but perhaps a thinking man’s woman’s comedy is a more accurate description. 

Enough cannot be said about the electric cast that forms this cohesive ensemble. I’m not sure whether to give credit to the script or the talented group of players - perhaps it’s both - but the play hits the blissful spot of delivering unique characters without anyone taking too much of the focus away from the collective. Each actress understands their place and their function to tell the story, and it works to perfection. Impossible to single out just one, there truly is no weak link, and it’s a joy to watch all seven perform their craft at a high level.

Arena’s production of POTUS is, in a word, outstanding. Playwright Selina Fillinger strikes a masterful balance between making us laugh and making us think. Audiences will delight in the slapstick, campy appetizers served with a heaping entree of incredibly poignant statements about the Office of the President of the United States, which has yet to have any gender except a male in its place. 

Ironically, and perhaps this is the point, everything and everyone is affected by the never-seen but omnipresent male at the center of it all, the President of the United States. Fillinger has created a superb social and political commentary by writing a play about seven women in which we can’t stop talking or thinking about the man. These women have no other choice because if they threaten the powerful men too much, it’s game over for them. It’s the reality of the play but also the unfortunate reality of our patriarchal society. 

The seven never receive their due credit for what they accomplish together in the play even though their actions arguably help save the country. As the play repeatedly asks, “Why aren’t [they] running the country?” The truth is what many of us Washingtonians already know, they already are. 

POTUS: OR, BEHIND EVERY GREAT DUMBASS ARE SEVEN WOMEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM ALIVE runs from now until November 12th at Arena Stage’s Fichlander Stage. The creative team includes the following: Margot Bordelon (Director), Kayla A. Warren (Assistant Director), Reid Thompson (Set Designer), Ivania Stack (Costume Designer), Marika Kent (Lighting Designer), Sinan Refik Zafar (Original Music & Sound Design), Tommy Kurzman (Wig & Hair Design), Lisa Nathans (Dialect & Vocal Coach), Otis Ramsey-Zöe (Dramaturg), Joseph Pinzon (Casting Director), Christi B. Spann (Stage Manager), and Dayne Sundman (Assistant Stage Manager). 

The play runs approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes with 1 intermission.

Photo Credit: Photo by Kian McKellar. (From L to R) Kelly McAndrew, Megan Hill, Sarah-Anne Martinez, Natalya Lynette Rathnam, Felicia Curry, Yesenia Iglesias, and Naomi Jacobson in POTUS at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater running October 13 through November 12. 

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