Trump’s tweets are better than this

THERE’S a moment in this three-and-a-half-hour play where the characters discuss political theatre.

A play shouldn’t be ‘about the current moment’, one of them suggests, but the ‘eternal moment’, it should speak to something wider.

This new Anne Washburn drama obsesses with the current moment. Specifically 2018, Trump’s America.

Seven friends assemble in an old farmhouse in upstate New York, snowed in, low on supplies, to complain about the President.

Nothing fresh is examined, no truth revealed, it is pure intravenous moan. Twitter has finally been dramatised, the echo chamber made flesh. It’s a real watch-checker. Six times I spied weary heads bobbing.

There’s not even any jeopardy. All are white, middleclass liberals with little to lose. None are immigrants at the border, black voters seeking to protect their rights, federal contractors trying to make a living. Why has this been identified as an interesting group?

Variety is, thankfully, interjected by two other stories: one involving Trump himself, the second focusing on the house’s previous occupants.

The latter is an interesting if ambling look at race and identity, mixed with adoption, which is lifted by Fisayo Akinade ( in great form). Risteard Cooper as his father is also gently touching.

But any gain is soon cancelled out by two ludicrous and surreal scenes involving Trump himself. First in a suit, then underpants and a cape.

For the life of me, I could not make head nor tail of it. Run a marathon, or do two loads of washing; either would be 210 minutes better spent.