Mike Daisey (Ursa Waz/Woolly Mammoth)
By DCist contributor Seth Rose
Monologuist Mike Daisey might be the American theater artist best suited to tackle the formidable problem of Donald Trump. As the election season continues to test a nation’s patience and comprehension, the voice in Daisey’s latest monologue The Trump Card traces how we ended up here.
Daisey spends the first minutes of the show not talking about Trump at all, instead admonishing the presumably liberal theater audience for their collective hand in making this monster, and assuring them that they will not be getting the “red meat” they assuredly came for. Daisey wastes no time establishing that he is just as interested in the society that created Trump as in the candidate himself.
Yet there is plenty of red meat. Daisey is no friend of Trump, and spends a lot of time tearing the candidate down in spectacular fashion. Daisey’s simmering, almost manic anger and carefully modulated energy lend themselves well to a field in which emotions run hot, and he is not interested in holding back.
If you’re looking for a passionate, well-argued, and hilarious evisceration of Trump, Daisey won’t disappoint. He earns his reputation as one of the foremost monologists in America, and Trump gets him fired up enough to create something uproariously funny.
But Daisey is also a storyteller, and he tells the story of Trump even as he laments his
rise. When he isn’t unloading directly on the candidate, Daisey threads a narrative of Trump’s origins and history among illustrative personal anecdotes and examinations of “where we went wrong.” It drags on and feels unfocused at points, but Daisey wraps it all together by the end, and the result is a a compelling snapshot: of Trump, and of the systems that enabled him to become the figure he is today.
As with all of Daisey’s work, The Trump Card is sold by the performer’s presence and talent. A loud, rambunctious provocateur who is no stranger to controversy, Daisey recognizes that, on a conceptual level, there’s a fine line between his performance and Trump’s performance. This troubling parallel is at the heart of his show. If you want to understand Trump but can’t stand to listen to him, Daisey might be the next best thing.
The Trump Card runs at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company through through August 7. But tickets here.
