‘POTUS’ Broadway Review: Julie White, Rachel Dratch, Julianne Hough & All-Star Cast Corral Chaos In New Political Farce

deadline.com:

Like some strange brew blend of VEEP, Noises Off and one of the late Charles Ludlam’s outrageously vulgar (and still sorely missed) Ridiculous Theatrical Company follies, Selina Fillinger’s all-female, star-packed political satire POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive is an occasionally glorious mess of a farce, sometimes chaotically funny and other times as what-were-they-thinking??

goofy as the last segment of a Saturday Night Live episode.If POTUS, directed by Susan Stroman and opening today at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre, never quite rises to the level of those three influences – not as darkly clever as VEEP, as lightning quick as Noises Off nor as go-for-deliriously-broke as Ludlam – POTUS barrels through its weaker stretches on the contagious enthusiasm and in-it-together vivacity of a crowd-pleasing cast.With a mostly female creative team – Beowulf Boritt contributed the excellent rotating set of White House offices that serves as the equivalent of all those Noises Off slamming doors – the first word out of POTUS‘ mouth is the one word that could be used for comic effect only by this all-women ensemble (and maybe vintage Mamet, but never mind).The word is all but shrieked in disbelief by Harriet (a miraculous Julie White), the harried chief of staff of the president we’ll never see on this stage.

Harriet is repeating (and screaming) the word in disbelief after learning that her boss has used the taboo vulgarity in public.

We’ll come to expect such outrages from the unnamed POTUS, who seems to combine the charm of Barack Obama, the stupidity and incompetence of Trump and the sexual piggishness of Clinton.