Photo via Capital Fringe.
By DCist contributor Seth Rose
Reminds us of: The West Wing for a world gone mad, House of Cards in a collapsing house
Flop, Fine or Fringe-tastic? Fringe-tastic.
The inevitable Fringe show about Donald Trump makes no secret of closely emulating The West Wing. Instead of the veteran politicians and staffers of that show however, Let Trump Be Trump populates its cast with the sort of politically green “outsiders” one would expect Trump to appoint to his White House staff. They’re exactly as crass, loud, and rambunctious as the candidate himself, and their attempts to navigate a hostile Congress and media make for some entertaining political schadenfreude. More importantly though, they’re not caricatures. It would be easy enough to make a show like this into a series of punchlines about how silly Trump and his supporters are, but Krizel leaps over this trap and gives the Trump staff some real humanity. They’re cartoonishly rude and utterly unwilling to compromise, but in between we see just enough into their backstory and motivations to get a little glimpse into why they act the way they do.
The staffers being compelling is especially important given that the titular candidate is largely absent. Make no mistake, though, his presence is felt. Much as he does in real life, Trump in this show takes the form of a sort of memetic virus that infects his followers as they drop more and more pretense of decorum and “proper politics.” By the time that process is complete, they’re speaking in rambling, directionless paragraphs that bear a suspicious resemblance to certain speeches you can probably watch live on CNN right now. It’s a clever way to both dodge directly depicting a difficult-to-portray character and comment on the phenomenon of his rise. Playwright John Krizel and the whole team should be proud of producing a show that handles a deeply contentious and current topic with such grace and humor.
Let Trump Be Trump is playing at Gallaudet University on July 14 at 6:30 p.m., July 16 at 7:45 p.m., July 19 at 6:15 p.m. and July 23 at 3:15 p.m.
