Dave (Drew Gehling, center) isn’t the president, he just plays one. (Photo by Margot Schulman)

There’s a moment toward the end of the first act of the new political musical Dave that, on opening night, had nearly everyone in the audience at Arena Stage on their feet. It’s not an impressive bit of choreography, nor a show-stopping solo, but a performance of the national anthem, sung during a scene that takes place at Nationals Park. Before the first notes rang out, many in the audience rose from their seats, singing along as though they were at a real baseball game. By the end of the song, the entire room was applauding—for the performers on stage and for themselves.

It’s the most obvious example of audience manipulation in a show that uses barely concealed winks to President Trump and jokes about how the government never gets anything done to bait its audience into virtue-signaling applause, knowing “mmms,” and peals of they-went-there laughter.

In the hands of SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical director Tina Landau, this script by the late Thomas Meehan (Annie, Hairspray) and Nell Benjamin earns its greatest applause with its central, earnest idea: that ordinary people know what makes for a good and just government, not power-hungry politicians.

Despite that marketable emotional core, the goofy 1993 Kevin Kline film Dave isn’t an obvious choice for a musical adaptation. The titular Dave makes a meager living impersonating U.S. President Bill Mitchell, his doppelganger. When Mitchell suffers a debilitating stroke, his team coaxes Dave to impersonate the commander in chief for the American people.

Drew Gehling (who, aside from minor TV roles, is known for originating the male lead role in Broadway’s Waitress) plays both Mitchell and Dave with an impressive buoyancy, bounding up- and downstage and through the maze-like circular set for quick changes to alternate between the two men, often during the same song. His Dave is utterly charming; his Mitchell perfectly slimy, issuing typo-riddled tweets boasting about his wealth. (Get it?!)

Dave is a great comedic showcase for Gehling, and for the other men of the show, including Broadway vets Douglas Sills as the cartoonishly villainous Chief of Staff Bob Alexander and Josh Breckenridge as the gruff Secret Service agent Duane Bolden.

I wish I could say the same for the excellent Mamie Parris, here in the thankless role of First Lady Ellen Mitchell. After proving she has comedic chops in a snarling opening number, she gets far too few chances to show them. Dave’s songs, with music from Tom Kitt (behind another Arena export, Next to Normal) and lyrics from Benjamin (Legally Blonde: The Musical), include a handful of clever, memorable tunes for its male leads, but mainly solemn, wistful ones for Parris.

Given its star power, it seems inevitable that Dave is destined for Broadway, where Gehling’s physical comedy and the smoothly handled character switcheroo will likely earn it acclaim. But there’s little here to prove it will have lasting impact. Does it matter? Dave isn’t meant to be challenging—it’s meant to be cheered at.

Dave runs through August 19 at Arena Stage. Various times, $176.