WAIMEA — As actor John Sucke relaxed in his Waimea home, recalling with affection his different roles over the years, it was tempting and unavoidable to see him as the gentle Doc Gibbs in Thornton Wilder’s classic play “Our Town.”
Suddenly he shook a menacing finger, bringing a sudden, deep chill to the room. His quiver of dramatic skills is not to be underestimated.
Tonight and tomorrow night he will present Mike Daisey’s monologue “The Trump Card” to Big Island audiences at Aloha Theatre in Kainaliu, with a final performance 2 p.m. June 18 at People’s Theatre in Honokaa.
An actor since third grade, child of amateur actor parents and a former criminal lawyer, the local audiences will see someone very different from good old interlocutor Doc Gibbs.
Sucke is in this for the challenge of engaging an audience in a 90-minute one-man show that tells about Trump’s influences and social issues from the playwright’s perspective, explained through sketches. It will be the first performance of “The Trump Card” in Hawaii or anywhere since the president’s election.
The play is steeped in politics, without taking sides. The unforgiving observations buttonhole every position on the political spectrum.
And make no mistake: he’s ready to risk it all. Good lawyering and effective acting share the bright lights of chance.
Sponsored by Matriarchy Rising, North Hawaii Action Network and Hamakua Resistance, “The Trump Card” is not a rant, not an exclamation mark above a silky blond wig and not an attack from a shrill Democratic Congress person. It’s far more subtle and unsettling.
Written and first performed by veteran actor Mike Daisey, “The Trump Card” was created before the 2016 election. It is largely a penetrating review of how Donald Trump became the kind of man and leader that he is.
The somewhat interactive monologue traces his early influences with almost reverential awe — especially his father’s, and later, Roy Cohn’s, who became Trump’s powerful tutor, long-time lawyer and unquestioned counselor. Attorney Cohn was, some might remember, Joe McCarthy’s minion, helping to send the Rosenbergs to the electric chair, and defending, among others, Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno, Claus von Bulow and George Steinbrenner.
The play guides the audience to a more comprehensive understanding of where we are today, however one feels about that. But because this was created before Trump’s inauguration, everyone in the audience can experience the thrill of knowing the answer to a riddle before the riddler has finished with the clues.
Sucke has decided to sift most of the coarse language from the play, which is probably good, since Daisey’s big-city, heard-it-all playgoers are perhaps more used to this than a small town’s gentility. But do not expect to be made entirely comfortable either — especially as the play builds to its unusual and unsettling finale.
Near the end, Daisey’s mother — almost holographed on the stage like others during the narrative — listens to her son’s exasperated account of where America is as the election approaches. Her response is, “Where the hell were you?”
And then there is the dreadful conclusion.
“The play,” said Sucke, “is a battle of ideologues — an examination of both ideologies and how one of them produced an idol.”
It is a phenomenon not unfamiliar to Western civilization, and especially not to those living through much of the 20th century.
The late Jim Morrison of the band The Doors once said famously, “No one gets out of here alive.” Sucke’s interpretation of “The Trump Card” pushes the edges as well, and will not let viewers out of the theater without a self-examination that will most likely stay in thought for a long time.
After the play is over there will be a sing-along with Hawaii’s premiere group, The Harmony People. And, at the People’s Theatre performance Pablo Beimler will lead some slam poetry.
Tickets for the Aloha Theatre shows are available at door or online at apachawaii.org. The Honokaa People’s Theater afternoon show is $10 per person available at the door, at Kamuela Liquor or by emailing mattbinder@earthlink.net.