POTUS
Produced by The Geffen Playhouse
Experienced in Los Angeles ~ 2024
The Experience & How it Works:
It’s a play! You buy a ticket, show up at the Geffen theatre, and lovely ushers hand you a program and seat you. That being said, the director and actors have used the entire theatre as an extension of the stage, so it’s not your average play.
Why it’s Interesting, IMHO:
The full title is POTUS or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. If that’s not interesting…
Beyond the marketing blurb in the Geffen mailing, which is what hooked me, it was exciting to know there would be so many women on stage, only women on stage, and more performers than theatre these days can often afford to pay. It’s a comedy. And when I called the box office to book tickets (yes, I called), the woman who helped me disclosed that the actors perform all over the theatre. It immediately got me wondering how immersive it was and how it was immersive.
Initial Impression & Critical Discussion:
The show starts with a bang, more specifically a curse word. The performers grab our attention and they don’t let it go… for the duration. One of my theatregoing buddies commented that they end at an eleven, but they start at a 9, implying they didn’t leave themselves very far to go. While she’s not wrong, they do sustain it; they don’t drop down. This is a high-energy, always- moving show.
In terms of the immersive nature of the show, the play alternates between letting us in on private moments at the White House — which is exactly where the play begins — and casting us as the audience at the Female Models of Leadership (FML) Council gala — at which one of the performers stands at a podium addressing us. In between, we are also cast as either the walls of or visitors to the White House, with the characters hustling down the corridors. (To be frank, I was so engaged in the story, it’s hard to remember exactly our role in some of these immersive moments. What was clear is that the performers were in the aisles and/or balcony of the theatre and sometimes we were meant to be real people in the story world and sometimes we were meant to be invisible voyeurs).
While it would be tempting to argue that this changing of perspective or person would be jarring, it was not. We are either an audience member in the theater or an audience-member-of-sorts in the storyworld. Accordingly, our role and abilities/responsibilities do not shift drastically. And, in both cases, we have an “embodied” experience, meaning that our visual and narrative points of view are consistent with each other.
In the first case, we are seeing the show from a visual perspective outside of the world of the show (3rd person visual) and the story is of characters in the story (3rd person narrative), it is not our story, nor are they acknowledging us, an audience on the other side of the fourth wall.
In the second case, we are seeing the show as an audience member on the characters’ side of the fourth wall; the proscenium has been virtually extended by the performers coming out into the aisles so that, the theater-going audience is now “on the stage” and “in the show.” Instead of breaking the fourth wall, these actors have pushed it. Therefore, the theater-goer is now seeing the show through their own eyes as a audience member in the show (1st person visual) — think of it as being cast as an extra for the FML gala scene. And while the main storylines are still of the other characters, because the theater goer is now also someone in the storyworld, you in seat C6 also have your own story — as an extra, you’d be playing a (minor) character in the show. So, interestingly, the narratives being referenced in the E.V.E. (see below section) are no longer the same narratives; the narratives referenced in both exist, though the extra’s narrative disappears when the extra isn’t “on set.”
The audience has a non-entity effectual POV when they are the theatregoing audience outside of the show’s storyworld, in other words, the first case, in which they have an embodied third person perspective. This is because in those moments, the characters are not aware they are there and, therefore, the audience’s presence does not affect the story or scene in any way. This is evidenced in the very first scene in which two characters are discussing White House matters that they are trying to keep confidential.
And the audience has an entity POV when they are the “audience within the show,” at the FML gala, in other words, the second case, in which they have embodied first person perspective. This is because, in these moments, the characters are aware of the audience’s presence and, therefore, the audience’s presence does affect the story or scene in some way.
This is all fairly straightforward. Where it begins to get complicated is with experiential POV, which expresses the impact the audience member has on how they experience the story or scene.
What’s fascinating is that the audience has more knowledge than you would normally have with mortal experiential POV. For example, they know what went on in the closed-door scene before the FML gala. And so, even though we have not physically teleported, travelled through time, or made a choice about what role we are playing and when we change roles, the theater-makers have enabled us to teleport, travel through time and change roles.
This is what presents the quandary. If we, the audience, were to be able to do any of these things ourselves, it would constitute deity experiential POV because those things defy the laws of the physical universe. However, because we the audience don’t have control over these abilities, it is not.
Because the theater-makers control when we teleport, travel through time and change roles, we may be temped to conclude that the audience has robot experiential POV. This is not the case. We, as the audience in the Geffen, are still able to look all around the room, lean forward, etc. So, we have, at the least, mortal experiential POV.
Now, while we’ve concluded that, in POTUS, you don’t have any more control over your own experience than you would in mortal experiential POV, you do have more knowledge than you would normally have with mortal experiential POV. This raises the excellent question of whether and how can we account terminologically for the audience having the knowledge that a deity experience would give them without having the agency of true deity experience. It certainly seems significant that the theater-goer knows things in a given scene that a regular human in that situation would not know; and the play capitalizes on that knowledge. What if we say that POTUS has mortal experiential POV with deity-level knowledge?
Please share your thoughts in the comments on whether you think this is a suitable solution and/or if you have other ideas on how this type of situation can be addressed within the taxonomy and E.V.E.
After all, POTUS gives you the experience of teleporting, traveling through time and changing roles. It just doesn’t give you the agency to do those things or, perhaps more importantly, to not do those things.
Experiential Viewpoint Expression (E.V.E.):
In alternation:
Embodied, 3rd person visual, 3rd person narrative, non-entity, mortal
Embodied, 1st person visual, 1st person narrative, entity, mortal with deity-level knowledge
Story Anchor:
When the President speaks ill of his wife in public, his Chief of Staff works with his PR rep to contain the story, and then strife with a journalist trying to get the scoop takes down the president.
NOTE: This story anchor attempts to be somewhat vague in order to avoid spoilers. The play deserves to be a surprise to anyone seeing it for the first time. Additionally, there are multiple storylines, each driven by a different characters.
Pillars of Game:
Voluntary Participation — check!
Goal — to watch the show.
Rules — stay in your seat, don’t talk.
Feedback — none.
Conclusion: This is not a game.
Who Should Experience This?
Feminists. And non-feminists. Hey, maybe it’ll convert them. #FML
Everyone should see this.
BONUS: COMPARISON TO VR
Fascinatingly, as mentioned above, as an attendee at the FML gala (the role of the extra), the theatre goer has the knowledge that would come with deity effectual POV. This is because even though we have not physically teleported, travelled through time, or made a choice about what role we are playing and when we change roles, the theater-makers have enabled us to teleport, travel through time and change roles. And, by doing so, we, the audience have acquired a level of knowledge that we could only acquire if we’re able to defy the laws of the physical universe.
To make our above determination about experiential POV, we asked ourselves: If a VR experience were to give you those experiences but force you to have them, would it be deity or robot?
Well, if you are made to move in a certain way or to a certain place, that is less control than you would normal have as a mortal. So, if you were made to move to a certain time, that would also be less control than you would normally have, even though it would open up more options for the types of experiences you could have than your normal life might offer. Therefore, moving through time could be considered part of robot POV if the viewer-participant doesn’t have control over that movement through time.
However, in the Geffen experience, the audience POV is never going to be robot because in any given scene, you have the 6 degrees of freedom that people usually have in life (even if we’re not inclined to use elevating, e.g., standing up from our seat).
If you’re not familiar with the taxonomic terms used in this article, you can learn more about EFFECTUAL POV (e.g., non-entity, entity, participant) and EXPERIENTIAL POV (e.g., robot, mortal, deity) here.
If you’d like to watch a video explaining the taxonomy, you can find it here.
And if you’re looking for a citable academic publication on the topic, that’s here.
If you’re curious how this taxonomy can help you create smarter and more successful immersive and XR experiences more easily, reach out to me on LinkedIn here.
