The Trump Card

Rating:

Company: District Theatre Collective

Genre: Unclassifiable

Venue: 4 Pantages Mainstage

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It's a question a lot of Canadians and Americans, for that matter ask whenever they hear the words "President Trump": how did that happen?

• Winnipeg Fringe 2017: read our reviews

This intriguing production from District Theatre Collective may not fully answer that question, but it does shed some light on the rise of Donald Trump.

It's based on a monologue American playwright Mike Daisey wrote and performed prior to the November election, but here District Theatre has adapted it for performance by a five-person cast.

Tatiana Carnevale's production uses a clever meta-theatrical framing device the members of the company researching the show by playing the Trump board game ("Trump the Game can best be described as Monopoly for dogs," we're told).

Around that, they relate facts about Trump's family and business history, and his relationship with the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, and riff on whyThe Apprenticewas a key glimpse of things to come.

This could easily become heavy-handed sermonizing, but the talented and likable cast keep a breezy conversational tone, making for a consistently engaging and often darkly funny 75 minutes.

A consistently engaging and often darkly funny 75 minutes.- Joff Schmidt

Most of this is stuff that you could just look up on Wikipedia. But that wouldn't be nearly as much fun and you'd miss out on a chilling ending that suggests the worst is yet to come.