Nature Theater of Oklahoma - No President
Nature Theater of Oklahoma just made their London debut with ‘No President’, a surreal look at theatre security, power politics and much much more…
Robert M. Johanson, Bence Mezei, Ilan Bachrach, Gabel Eiben and Tale Dolven in Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s ‘No President’. © Heinrich Brinkmöller-Becker.
Nature Theater of Oklahoma
No President, A Story Ballet of Enlightenment in Two Immoral Acts
★★★✰✰
London, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre
9 July 2025
oktheater.org
www.southbankcentre.co.uk
It’s never easy to write up something as avant-garde and subversive as Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s No President, but the difficulty here is raised a notch because an audience member’s health emergency sadly meant I (for one) lost the last few minutes of the performance. The show was stopped, and after ten minutes, house management asked us all to clear the auditorium and wait for an update in the foyer. It was understandably going to take a while to pick up the threads, and with limited train options, I decided not to risk staying. Goodness knows what strange ending I may have missed. However, having seen 2 hours and 10 minutes of No President, I think I have a pretty good feel for the work and doubt whatever I missed would overly change my overall assessment.
Nature Theater of Oklahoma is a New York-based company named after an imaginary troupe in Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel, Amerika. According to the Wikipedia entry for the book, ‘The theatre promises to find employment for everyone,’ and indeed, the real troupe appears to be an interesting mix of the dance-trained and not, coming in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and beards. But No President is not so much a dance show as a piece of physical theatre in which a meandering narrated story is acted out in crude amateur dramatic mime, often featuring gym moves, as if conceived by kids - a teenage Ben in Outnumbered could well have come up with some of the more outlandish skits we see, particularly on cannibalism. However, this is not a kids’ show - masturbation in very rich variety is a running gag, and some sex between hyenas in a mock National Geographic documentary comes to mind.
That all sounds a rather straightforward and sober telling, but what should be shouted from the rooftops is how funny and fast-paced the approach is - what appears amateur is very clever and slickly performed by a fine bunch of comedic physical actors. And in neatly downmarket sets and costumes too - the work of Jenny Theisen. The plot is ostensibly about a security firm that employs actors to do theatre security and revolves around Mikey and, to a lesser extent, his best friend Georgie’s love for their statuesque supervisor, who is the partner to the boss of the company they all work for. So far, so relatively sensible, but it all unravels as a second security company, composed of ex-ballet dancers, looks to muscle in on the contract, and we focus on Mikey’s life, insecurities and demons at the same time as he takes control of the company and we get skits around the idiosyncrasies of powerful men. ‘It’s not like we made a show about Trump. We made a show about this type of behaviour in humanity,’ said Pavol Liska, one half, along with Kelly Copper, of the artistic team behind the company and show.
No President is driven by a cracking script delivered by a straight-talking devil character - it never stops and, together with selections from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, it rather wafts you along with its deadpan absurdities. It’s wonderfully delivered by Robert M. Johanson, who neatly wends his way around the stage action. Mikey is brought to life by the gloriously chubby Ilan Bachrach - just to look at him move makes you laugh, and he has the most expressive face and eyes. His friend Georgie is actually the strong dancer Bence Mezei, who is also a fine comedic straight man to boot. And hard to ignore Tale Dolven’s suffering supervisor - I was reminded much of Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in MASH*. Supporting the leads are nine others who often trot on in unison and animate stage furniture and props. And do ballet steps. And for some weird reason, we get lots of star jumps and burpees. It can be all funnily bewildering.
I really warmed to No President over its first hour for the never-ending clever plot twists and the joyful means of illustrating them, but thereafter I progressively started to get uncomfortable in my seat. By two hours, while I still admired the evolving plot, the movement was starting to wear thin at times, and I was most resentful of their decision to run it straight through. It’s nominally a 2-hour and 15-minute show, but with a late start, we’d all been sitting there far longer than necessary. They either need an interval or a big edit, and quite possibly both. I think there is a 4-star work in here, but the length rather takes the shine off it, and hence 3 stars. And even if the final few minutes had been absolute gold, you can’t get away from No President’s ill-conceived length. Although it was hardly a mass exodus, it was noticeable that after 75 minutes some were leaving mid-performance.
This is Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s debut in London, and props to the Southbank for making it happen. A great company and great theatre, but think twice about seeing them unless you are super comfortable in a theatre seat for well over 2 hours. If you are, get to it - the run continues through to Friday 11 July.