“Has he said anything else?” The man two seats to the left of me in the theatre whispered, leaning over his wife’s shoulder and peering at her phone. She, in turn, was absorbed in the news she was scrolling through. “Not yet,” she replied. They were talking about Donald Trump.
That afternoon, Trump had delivered a monotonous, rambling speech at Davos in which he informed the audience – in Switzerland – that they would all be speaking German if the US hadn’t intervened in WWII. He also confused Greenland and Iceland several times and when later referring to the Nordic country, he said that, until just a few days ago, the Icelandic people loved him and called him “daddy” (Alex Cooper, eat your heart out). In a Q&A session after his address had finally ended, he claimed that the Spanish flu had ended WWI.
All in all, it felt like an odd day to go and watch political satire. The whole thing felt very meta. Still, the show must go on.
Directed by Fiona Kingwill and performed by comedian and writer Leigh Douglas, ROTUS: Receptionist of the United States is a searingly smart and unexpectedly dark parody that pokes fun at the state of US politics. Fresh from its sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe, the one-woman piece is now making its London debut. Douglas is superb, hopping seamlessly between ditsy sorority girl giggles and poignant contemporary quips.
So, meet Chastity Quirke (Douglas): White House receptionist, ex-chapter president of Kappa Gamma Zeta, and a die-hard Republican. Each day, she arrives at the office three hours early, blowout perfected and triple shot venti latte in hand ready to slather her face in make-up.
She’s a firm believer in the MAHA movement (Make America Hot Again) and serves at the pleasure of her best friend, the president. Her favourite season is fall (of feminism) and if you disagree with her, then that’s fine – but she always knew you were a Democrat anyway.
Quirke is part of the Ronald Drumpf Administration, a testosterone-heavy environment where she soon learns that she must leave her small-town personality behind if she is to succeed and starts to earn favour with the women of the Drumpf administration, swapping her vodka cranberrys for neat bourbons. It’s not long before Texas congressman Garrison Marshall offers her the very special task of sniffing out disloyalty.
Armed with baked goods, she uses her sex appeal, peroxide-blonde hair and muffins to lure men of the White House into revealing their ulterior motives, one bite at a time. Rest assured, these are homemade baked goods – Chastity wants no part in the “filthy Libs’ war on gluten”, thank you. A problem then arises when Chastity takes off her rose-tinted glasses and sees her coworkers for what they are: morally dubious.
Parallels with the Trump administration are hardly subtle. Douglas plays Chastity with an almost bot-like sense of “patriotic duty” and her attacks on the woke, left wing agenda could have come straight from Karoline Leavitt’s mouth. “More filler than woman” and donned in a baby-doll dress, white bow and red Chanel jacket flung on the back of her chair, her admiration for Republican fashion and cosmetic beauty nods to Mar-a-Lago face.
Not unlike Trump’s Davos speech, the show has a little bit of everything. Narration from a future Chastity? Sure. Choreographed musical interludes? Absolutely. Audience participation? You got it.
In one of Douglas’s monologues, we were squawked at in a farcical manner to “scream if you love freedom!” Out of fear, we obliged. “Now scream if you’re conservative!” got a quieter response, with only a handful of whoops from the back rows followed by sheepish giggles as they realised their mistake.
A third of women under 30 voted for Trump in 2024, and understanding how such a number can back policies that do not benefit them is a complex conundrum. ROTUS doesn’t have the answers, and some of its jibes are a little easy. But to those who are still feeling complacent about the dangers of MAGA, it’s a theatre-shaped wake-up call.
Two-thirds of the way through the performance, the woman next to me had forgotten to silence her phone and it buzzed with a BBC News alert. It was only after the show that I checked my own notifications and learned Trump had agreed the framework of a deal with Nato on Greenland and he’d dropped tariffs.
So, one more time, everyone: Scream if you love freedom.
ROTUS is at the Park Theatre until 7 February
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