April 28, 2019
Most
dramas I know of that are speculative ruminations about two contemporary
historical figures postulate either a confrontation between two characters who
never, in real life, met (Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth in Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller); or
an occasion used as a pretext for some ultimate confrontation that never
happened between estranged characters (Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter by James Goldman)—and
the characters are always dead. But Hillary
and Clinton, a 2008 play (previously seen only regionally) by Lucas Hnath,
may be the first I know of in which not only are all the dramatized characters
still very much alive…but the events are entirely plausible.
Hnath provides a monologue prologue for Hillary—really,
tacitly, for the actress playing Hillary (Laurie
Metcalf)—which postulates infinite parallel universes sharing the same
people but trajectories that work out differently in each…and that simple
little device grants permission for the actors to eschew imitation, and for the
audience to nonetheless believe that the actors, using their own personæ, are authentically Hillary and Clinton…not,
perhaps, as we know them, but as we understand them. Additionally, it allows
him to present a version of events that may well actually have happened,
without incurring legal vulnerability.
What
are those events? Well, to say too much
is to spoil a fairly slender plot, which is the trigger for character
exploration. But the premise is, we’re in Hillary’s hotel room on the eve of
the New Hampshire primary in 2007. To put it mildly, she’s concerned that her
position to win the Democratic nomination over Barack (Peter Francis James who will appear later) is not as strong as she
planned; for reasons I won’t particularize here, she thinks it may be time to
put in a call to Bill. Her dogged, dedicated campaign manager, Mark (Zak Orth) argues that not only is she better positioned than she
thinks, but what she perceives as weaknesses are ultimately strengths, as long
as she stays unvaryingly on course and does not
bring Bill into it; Bill, he argues, is the last thing she needs having influence on the campaign. Distance is
not only crucial, but key.
The
cast of four are all quite compelling, and the decision to eschew imitation
allows them to explore layers that might not otherwise be apparent or even
accessible to them; this is perhaps even more important when you have a
force-of-nature actress like Ms. Metcalf playing against a canny old master
like Mr. Lithgow. Of course, being an “anonymous” background character, Mr.
Orth doesn’t need an excuse to sidestep familiarity. Mr. James as Barack,
however, hews closer to the edge: An actor who has been periodically called upon to be Obama (in the television
sketch comedy arena), he does kindasorta resemble the
future President, in physiognomy and bearing. But he lets that speak for itself
and does nothing else to move past the thin gray line of demarcation.
All
this stated, it goes almost without saying that the direction by Joe Martello is top notch (in some ways
for being mostly invisible, save for the big choices of atmosphere and tone;
but I did notice one thing that I don’t think we’re meant to notice. Why I
noticed it has to do with an anecdote of my early theatre training not worth
particularizing here, save that my instructor made me become very aware of the
need for characters who know each other to relate as if their familiarity
extends to a life offstage, when we don’t or haven’t seen them. And so what I
noticed was the prop work. At one point, Clinton pulled out a roll of Mentos
from his jacket pocket and popped a mint. Then he took off his jacket and
tossed it somewhere (I think the floor). I intuited that it wasn’t part of the
play’s text and thought, Nice detail. Then
a few seconds after, still clearly not in the text, Hillary decides she wants a
Mento too, so she goes to the jacket, reaches into
the pocket, pulls out the roll, pops one herself and then puts the roll back.
Small?
You bet.
But
it speaks volumes about intimacy.
And
after that, I couldn’t stop noticing
these small, brilliant details in which the handling of objects define the state of relationships, or negotiation between
individuals.
As
I say, I don’t think Mantello draws attention to
this—but it helps fill a very empty room with very specific life. (It’s also
worth noting that the only furniture in the room is a single folding chair.
This too becomes a tool for psychological revelation: who’s up, who’s sitting, how they’re sitting, how it gets moved.)
The
sum and substance of all this is one of the best political stage dramas in the
American canon…right at a time in which, unfortunately, re-associating genuine
thought and articulateness with the electoral process comes as refreshing.
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