British Clown Brings FINDING MELANIA to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival

Finding Melania is a solo show merging dark clowning, surreal metaphors and utter silliness in an exploration of authoritarian and populist regimes and our complicity in enabling them. Melania, still lurking around in the bowels of the White House, invites us into her lonely world, always keeping her husband pumped, she performs her Flotus and wifely duties, taking us through the pains and gains of what it really means to "Stand By Your Man.”

For performer and creator Denise Stephenson in a London rehearsal room in 2016  two events had changed the balance of our lives - Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. These events signaled a shift in the political landscape which at the time felt shocking and disturbing. Sensing a shift to the right in the UK after Brexit and having lived in the US, watching the Trump presidency evolve from England fascinated Stephenson. The genesis of the show was a Sunday Telegraph magazine cover in 2018 the headline screaming ‘Hey Melania What’s Really Going On In There?’  Was she with him for love, for money, for fame, or was she being held against her will, needing help to escape the golden cage? 

“I became interested in Melania because she was so opaque which generated a lot of mystery around her. The Free Melania memes, the twitter chatter, the Melania ‘double’ stories, the excitement each time she appeared to hold her own against Trump especially after the Stormy Daniels revelations. The less she said the more was projected onto her and there seemed to be a desire to believe that someone so beautiful on the outside must be ‘good’ inside. This in turn gave Trump legitimacy, having her by his side made him seem even more the successful strong man figure while there was always the possibility she would temper his more extreme tendencies. Things seemed to take a turn however when she wore ‘that coat’ on a visit to see the refugee children separated from their parents and reportedly held in cages. I became curious about what was really going on in her- what did it mean to stand by this particular man and what could be the cost for the women who find themselves in these roles?” says performer and creator, Denise Stephenson.

Director and co-creator Sarah Calver’s Lecoq background led to exploring Melania in a clown format, allowing for a lot of audience interaction, which has become a huge element of the piece. For centuries clown has been used to bring truth to power - from Shakespeare to Dario Fo - and through using a clown Melania the show takes a subversive glance at the supportive wife dynamic whilst questioning our complicity in the success of The Strong Man leaders.

Finding Melania runs September 11 - 17 at The Proscenium Theatre at the Drake (302 S. Hicks Street). General admission is $20. For tickets, visit https://phillyfringe.org/events/finding-melania/ 

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