The good thing about Trump and Melania as a work is that it may be one of the best “Trump” plays ever written that uses Trump as a character. The bad thing is that virtually all plays that use Trump as a character are extraordinarily bad. It is impossible to satirize Trump since no one is capable of writing something more ridiculous than his own statements. Trump and Melania avoids some of this problem by making Melania the protagonist. That is a role she certainly hasn’t earned, but it isn’t awful in a work of fiction. But anytime Trump appears he is the center of attention and that is ultimately the downfall of Oscar Valdez’s work here.
Throughout the play there is the sense that Valdez is constrained by his “day job” of psychiatrist. He bends over backward to give Trump the humanity he lacks. Ultimately, though, Valdez’s effort fails and his Trump rejects both Melania’s independent thought and his own conscience. Valdez also has created a problem for his work by having it anchored firmly in Trump’s first term. The references to “advisors” worked then. Even though most of his advisors were sycophants then, most retained some measure of independent thought. In his second term no advisor is allowed or dares to express any opinion or take any action that doesn’t parrot Trump’s positions. There is no intelligent input allowed. Valdez’s play needs to, but fails to, embrace this reality.
Structurally, Valdez has the problem that after a relatively strong first twenty or thirty minutes, the play devolves to scenes where each scene is final scene. No scene leads to the next, but rather stands independent of that that follows. When audiences either hesitate to acknowledge the end of play or feel that the play is over after ever scene, as happens here, the work has a significant problem. Part of that was Valdez failed directorial decisions. He continuously goes to black and then has characters enter the room after lights up. Almost all of those scenes should be lights up with the actors already on stage.
Valdez did do an excellent job choosing his cast. Dante Jayce and Carol Tandava Henning give excellent performances as Trump and Melania. Henning’s Eastern European accent is extraordinary and, since she was born in Brooklyn, it fairly certain that it was learned and not something acquired from birth. Charles Kennedy as Putin and Jedidiah Dore as Xi Jinping were strong in their supporting roles. Sharon Zaslaw as Trump’s conscience does spark audience curiosity, but may not actually move the play forward.
It is best to attack Trump through his lackeys and sycophants. Attacking him directly his not a smart exercise. The play that I would love to see his Jared and Ivanka, The Divorce, which occurs after Trump determines that his base can no longer tolerate Jews and needs to have Ivanka renounce her conversion and get her children baptized or be disinherited. Pure fiction – for the moment.
