The 2016 presidential debates were recast onstage in New York, with Trump as a woman and Clinton as a man. The result raised troubling questions

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Would we allow a female leader to speak like Donald Trump?



That question inspired a new play that restages parts of the three 2016 presidential debates word-for-word and gesture-for-gesture – but with a woman depicting Donald Trump and a man playing Hillary Clinton.

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Her Opponent was performed on Saturday night in New York City. On Friday, a rehearsal raised unexpected questions, some of them troubling. For instance, was the real Trump’s rhetoric offensive to liberals because it was delivered by a repugnant reality TV star?

“When a woman says it, it doesn’t sound as crazy,” said Maria Guadalupe, a professor at France’s INSEAD Business school and a co-creator with Joe Salvatore, clinical associate professor of educational theatre at New York University’s Steinhardt School, of the play.

Did Clinton supporters not realize how much her hyper-polished political style alienated people?

“When a man [re-creates Clinton’s performance],” said Salvatore, “it feels like a lot of mansplaining.”

Salvatore voted for Clinton and describes himself as left-leaning. Seeing Clinton’s words performed by someone else left him “feeling unsettled” about that support.

At rehearsal on Friday, Clinton was played by Daryl Embry and Trump by Rachel Tuggle Whorton.

“When we cross gender but stay authentic to speech pattern, the audience is shaken awake and sees it differently,” said Salvatore, noting Bertolt Brecht’s belief in the need “to make the familiar strange”.



As a man, Clinton seemed like a cliched and sleazy politician, overly polished, making grand promises. Her constant smiling felt more forced when a man did it, since it’s rare for men to fake smiles.

When Embry read out Clinton’s website address and book information, mid-debate, he seemed overwhelmingly smug.

Hearing someone else read Trump’s lines made it easier to focus on the content of what he was saying. Perhaps for the first time, I heard the clear messages: “more jobs” and “lower taxes”, criticisms of Clinton’s lack of action.

Female Trump felt like a feisty woman speaking from the heart. Perhaps that was because society expects women to be more dramatic and emotional.

When “Trump” talked about paying few taxes because “Clinton’s” buddies liked staying rich, and Tuggle Whorton said: “All your friends wouldn’t change it … he never will change,” it reminded me of conversations women have about men never changing.

“Clinton is more cerebral,” said Guadalupe. “Trump goes to the gut. When you catch people in the gut, it’s hard to reason.”

These were not new criticisms of Clinton, but the gender switch in Her Opponent let viewers rethink attitudes and misconceptions towards both candidates.

Guadalupe noted that the female Trumpalso had physical differences from the male version, such as height and voice range. The real Clinton had to deal with society’s expectations of how a woman is allowed to behave, demanding smiling and always being prepared.



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Her Opponent was performed on Saturday at the Provincetown Playhouse in the West Village, New York City. It was also streamed online.

The play will live on: Andrew Freiband, a film-maker and faculty member at the Rhode Island School of Design, planned to shoot and edit a re-creation.