Rosie O’Donnell: Common Knowledge puts Trump feud and family center stage
Rosie O’Donnell’s Off Broadway solo show mixes childhood loss, parenting, Ireland and a long-running clash with Donald Trump.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Rosie O’Donnell: Common Knowledge has arrived Off Broadway with a lot on its plate: her mother’s death, her youngest child’s autism and nonbinary identity, a move to Ireland, and yes, Donald Trump.
Deadline critic Greg Evans reviewed the 75-minute solo show at the Daryl Roth Theatre, where O’Donnell writes and performs under the direction of Gabriel Barre. According to Evans, O’Donnell tells the audience at the start that the material is true.
The show opened the same night Trump appeared at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, where he again aimed remarks at O’Donnell. Deadline reported that Trump joked she wanted to attend to honor him, called her a sufferer of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” and described her as “a sick young woman,” before correcting himself to “a sick older woman.” Evans wrote that the room met the line with silence.
What is Rosie O’Donnell: Common Knowledge about?
Common Knowledge is an autobiographical solo show built around O’Donnell’s family history, her parenting life and the emotional fallout of her public fight with Trump, according to Deadline. The title refers to her child Clay’s view that the facts they know should be “common knowledge.”
Trump is part of the evening, though Evans wrote that he is not the whole show. A pre-show photo and video montage includes O’Donnell’s 2006 View segment about Trump and the Miss USA controversy, the TV moment Deadline identifies as the start of their long public feud.
O’Donnell says in the show that her January 2025 move to Ireland was prompted in part by Trump’s second election, Deadline reported. After that move, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was giving “serious consideration” to taking away her citizenship and called her “a Threat to Humanity.”
Onstage, O’Donnell says she first thought the post was a joke, according to Evans. She then told reporters Trump could not legally revoke her citizenship, though in the show she says her private reaction was far less restrained.
Deadline also reported that the production projects some of O’Donnell’s hand-drawn Trump portraits, which she began posting on social media while living in Los Angeles. In the show, O’Donnell says her publicist checked on her after the posts and asked how many she had made. Her answer: 211.
Family stories carry the show
Evans wrote that the most affecting sections involve O’Donnell’s childhood and her youngest adopted child, Dakota, later called Clay in the show. O’Donnell recounts being 10 years old in 1973 when her father told her that her mother had died, and describes her younger brother saying she would now have to be “the mommy.”
The show also follows the family’s move to Donegal, Ireland, after her mother’s death. Later, O’Donnell describes seeing echoes of her mother in Irish women during her adult life there, Deadline reported.
O’Donnell also talks about Clay, who was diagnosed at age 2 with autism, hyperlexia and echolalia, according to the review. The show includes video of Dakota speaking in full sentences at 10 months and recounts Clay later telling O’Donnell that their stuffed animals are nonbinary, “and so am I.”
O’Donnell says she accepts Clay’s they/them pronouns, while also acknowledging her own slips, according to Evans. The show does not dwell on O’Donnell’s film and TV career, and Evans noted that it does not offer an insider account of The View.
One TV tease does make it in. O’Donnell says she hopes to perform a Trump-themed version of The Wizard of Oz song “If I Only Had a Brain” during her August guest-hosting stint on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, though she says producers told her song parodies can be difficult to clear for broadcast. Her point, as reported by Deadline: the show is live.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.