The President: Hugo Weaving gives an obvious turn but the play has other surprises
The Gate’s play is about numbskulls in charge, and the people who have to listen to them.
Gate Theatre, Dublin
★★★★☆
In this political era, as we watch world leaders take to the stage to speak, only for them to stumble into tactless gaffes and unfortunate blunders, you might wonder if we’ll ever feel inspirationally led again. When faced with ineloquence by those in charge, it’s difficult to not want to pull your hair out.
If it’s easy to feel discouraged or cynical, then the Gate Theatre’s play The President – an unexpected English-language outing of Austrian playwright Thomas Bernhard’s 1975 play – is a dark comedy for our times. It throws its incompetent, mouthy leaders deep into a national crisis, and sees how they squirm; a president of an unnamed country (Hugo Weaving) has just survived an assassination attempt.