Review: ‘POTUS’ sends up powerful men — and the women who save their hides

These two — and the five other women in the president’s orbit we’ll wind up spending time with — are dealing with what you might call a rough start to their morning. It’s a perfect storm of nuclear negotiations, a photo op with a group of disabled veterans and a speaking engagement for an organization amusingly called FML, or the “Female Models of Leadership” Council.

All of this is exacerbated by POTUS having casually described, in earshot of the press, the first lady’s (FLOTUS) mood with the dreaded c-word. We never see the president, but we don’t have to: A vivid portrait emerges through various vile anecdotes and in the way the women behave to try and make him seem more capable and caring than he actually is.

Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

Which brings me to the one character that doesn’t work quite as well as the others: Dusty, an eccentric, blue slushy-obsessed young woman who we learn is having a hot and heavy affair with POTUS. As you would expect, the commander in chief’s beleaguered team of fixers tries to sweep her under the rug, especially with a reporter nearby — but she’s not having it.

Somewhat jarringly, Jordan Postal plays Dusty as pretty childlike, to the point where initially I thought she was supposed to be the president’s teenage daughter. Which I guess might be kind of the point?

But the accentuation of her youthful naivete for comic effect felt distracting from the actually funny parody. Instead, it hit on some deeper truths about the machine that gives powerful men permission to grind up young women with impunity. (Just ask present-day anti-bullying advocate Monica Lewinsky, whose harrowing story and treatment by the press in the 1990s has thankfully been reappraised.)

In other words, it’s the question of whether a joke is punching up or punching down, and I was never quite sure with Dusty which one we were getting. That said, there are lots of funny beats throughout — and the writing does take us in some refreshingly new directions.

The standout comic performance of the night, hands down, was Marcie Millard as Stephanie, channeling the spirit of “Saturday Night Live” alumna Rachel Dratch — who played the role during the original Broadway run of the show.

Millard has a knack for physical comedy and, as the president’s secretary, gets the chance to showcase those talents in an extended, increasingly absurd, over-the-top meltdown that spans the play’s entire second half.

To give you a taste: In one scene — blood smeared across her face, an inner tube around her waist and stripped down to just her skivvies — Stephanie races across the stage, toting an American flag like a weapon, in probably the best (and most metaphorically apt) image of the night.

At one point, FLOTUS (a rubber-faced, hilarious Brittani Minnieweather, clad in a power pantsuit and Crocs) lists all her achievements: prestigious advanced degrees, a multi-hyphenate lawyer-author-philanthropist. She even has advanced skill in a martial art. It’s an extended, updated version of the famous quote about how Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did but backward in high heels.

Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

There’s a recurring line that different women characters ask each other: “Why aren’t you the president?” It’s a good question. And one we all know the answer to.

But the show doesn’t just show the gender imbalance on Capitol Hill. Chris (Camille Monae) is a journalist trying to juggle new motherhood (and having to pump while on the job) with the pressure to compete for the substantive stories for which her younger, more mediocre male counterparts are all too energetically competing.

Meanwhile, the always-great Gina Rickicki is clearly having fun as Bernadette, the troublesome sister of POTUS, awaiting her brother’s promised pardon of her crimes while toting a duffel bag full of Tums bottles filled with little white pills that are clearly not Tums.

(As an aside: I’m not a drug expert per se, hand to God, but I also was unclear about what the mystery drug — which, of course, like Chekhov’s gun, can and MUST be deployed before the end of the show — was supposed to be, given the very specific effects of the high that winds up happening later.)

Under director Rachel May’s clever guidance, along with assistant director Eve Krueger, all hell breaks loose as a carefully choreographed floor routine, with furious tumbling and twisting and maneuvering. The highs are high and the lows are … well, seemingly without a bottom.

Fillinger also does not let the White House team off the hook, even as she uses empathy to characterize each haplessly floundering woman’s attempts to right the sinking ship. (And also, a great deal of relatability if you’ve ever had to work for an incompetent jerk — cue Dolly Parton.)

These are, after all, enablers to the highest degree, running around in circles to make sure that someone unfit for office can stay there.

Which plays an interesting trick on the audience, asking us to interrogate ourselves as we watch how absurd these somersaults all look. How far are we willing to go to justify or excuse the behavior of those who abuse their power? We may not all be press secretaries having to explain away a casual comment that stirs an international crisis on live TV, but perhaps we’re all culpable in some way, when we try and normalize the extremely abnormal.

THEATER REVIEW

“POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive”

At Synchronicity Theatre through Oct. 27. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays. Starting at $35 for adults; $30 for students, seniors. Wednesday shows are “pay what you can.” Peachtree Pointe, 1545 Peachtree St., Atlanta. 404-484-8636, synchrotheatre.com

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Alexis Hauk has written and edited for numerous newspapers, alt-weeklies, trade publications and national magazines, including Time, the Atlantic, Mental Floss, Uproxx and Washingtonian. Having grown up in Decatur, Alexis returned to Atlanta in 2018 after a decade living in Boston, Washington, D.C., New York City and Los Angeles. By day, she works in health communications. By night, she enjoys covering the arts and being Batman.

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

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