It's 2030 and Donald Trump has been president for 14 years. Elections are a distant memory, Arnie Schwarzenegger is the VP, and that Mexican border barrier is still being built. Loosely based on The Wizard of Oz, our Dorothy (in a very Garland-like outfit) lives in a small border town due to be demolished to make way for the wall and wants to make her way to Washington to complain to the president, who she thinks is a decent man. Flights have been cancelled as an anti terrorist measure, so she's going to have to go overland.
Along the way she picks up companions who have their own reasons for wanting to meet The Donald, including the Mexican Resistance Army and an embittered Hillary Clinton, and has to face up to Arnie. Can they make Trump change his mind, does he have a heart?
Performed by a (mostly) young cast of 8, this is musical comedy at it's corniest. Predictable jokes, less than clever lyrics, dancing that's never quite fully coordinated and hammy acting. Looked at objectively it's nothing to get excited about.
Which reckons without the energy and enthusiasm and infectious sense of fun the group bring to the stage. They know it's not the world's greatest material and they don't care. They're having a good time, they have a good sense of the ridiculous, and want us to join in that sense of joy. It's funny, it's absurd and so bad it's good.
In the real world Trump, day after day, continues to exhibit behaviours so bizarre that he's putting himself beyond satire and parody. Perhaps the Trump'd approach, of simply turning the madness into fun, is the best way we have left to deal with him.
This was the final performance of Trump'd at Fringe 2018.
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