Hillary and Clinton

[edjames]

I'm seeing this next week.

 

Review: In ‘Hillary and Clinton,’ Codependence, and, Yes, Camaraderie

 

A mighty sigh — equal parts frustration and resignation — seems to animate “Hillary and Clinton,” Lucas Hnath’s piquant, slender new play about … well, it’s about exactly what, and whom, its title suggests. This production, which opened on Thursday night at the Golden Theater under the suave direction of Joe Mantello, is indeed a portrait of a marriage between two extremely well-known American politicians.

As for that propulsive sigh, it emanates from the title character called Hillary, who spends the surprisingly airy 90 minutes of this show in what might be called a state of angry wistfulness. It is our very good fortune that Hillary is portrayed by Laurie Metcalf, an actress who does being thwarted better than anyone.

And make no mistake. Though “Hillary and Clinton” features an excellent John Lithgow as the male half of this power couple, Mr. Hnath’s latest offering is ultimately all about Hillary. It is asking us to see the world through the eyes of a woman who ostensibly has all the right stuff to be president and yet is never allowed to win.

Staged in an earlier version in Chicago in April 2016, when it seemed likely that the real Mrs. Clinton would be the next resident of the White House, “Hillary and Clinton” has acquired a fresh topicality since her loss in that year’s presidential election to Donald J. Trump. You can feel the audience at the Golden nodding in collective agreement when Mr. Lithgow’s Bill Clinton — in a New Hampshire hotel room during the 2008 Democratic primary — explains the importance of grabbing the electorate by their hearts, not their minds.

“People don’t vote with their brain,” he says. “They don’t, even people who think they do, don’t. It’s never not emotional.” He continues: “Feelings — people think you don’t have them.”

The bone-tired, exasperated expression on Ms. Metcalf’s face at that moment suggests that Hillary has been living with such observations for way too long. And that if a person hears comments like that about herself often enough, she may begin to wonder what her real feelings are.

That’s a tricky state of mind for any performer to convey, and especially tricky if the character being portrayed is as well known — and as regularly parsed by pundits and plebeians alike — as the real Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Hnath’s play doesn’t presume to be an authoritative view of the woman behind the mask, or even of the mask itself.

Instead — and this is what makes this play something more than a receptacle for recycled observations about its famous subjects — “Hillary and Clinton” strips its protagonist down to her most ordinary self. And it invites us to look at her with the easy familiarity with which we might regard someone living next door, or in our own family. Or even our very selves, as we could be in an alternative universe, such as the one this play presents.

That’s the sort of leap of imagination that Mr. Hnath made in his superb “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” (2017), which envisioned the life of Nora Helmer after she walked out on her husband in Ibsen’s epochal drama. Nora was portrayed by Ms. Metcalf, who won a Tony for that performance.

It is not a criticism to say that Ms. Metcalf’s Hillary looks and sounds a lot like her Nora, even if in this case she’s wearing sweatpants and fleeces (Rita Ryack did the costumes) instead of a corset and floor-sweeping skirts. Ms. Metcalf becomes other people not by putting on disguises.

Instead, she turns her own distinctive face and form into a polished, utterly transparent magnifying glass for the — you should pardon the word — feelings that define the character she’s playing. It is appropriate that she makes her entrance in “Hillary and Clinton” as herself, more or less, while the house lights are still up.

She strolls in from the wings, acknowledges the audience casually and notices that her microphone stand lacks a microphone. She shakes her head with the irritation of someone who might have expected this and schleps the stand offstage, to return with a hand mic to address the audience.

This throwaway vignette is the perfect prologue to what follows. Our heroine — this Laurie/Hillary amalgam — begins her time in our company by dealing with an obstacle. She is here to speak, yet she is denied the means of amplifying her voice.

Tossing a coin while delivering a Tom Stoppard-esque meditation on chance and causality, this woman makes it clear that what we will be observing is not intended as a simulacrum of reality past or present. We should instead pretend, she says, “that light years away from here on one of those other planet Earths that’s like this one but slightly different that there’s a woman named Hillary.”

That universe will be recognizable to anyone who has read insider campaign books like “Game Change” or even Mrs. Clinton’s autobiography. The play proper is set in a naked motel room (the set designer is Chloe Lamford), both the essence of blank anonymity and — it turns out (with some help from Hugh Vanstone’s lighting) — a threshold to the cosmos.

 

 

More reviews at:

http://www.playbill.com/article/read-reviews-for-hillary-and-clinton-on-broadway-starring-laurie-metcalf-and-john-lithgow

[foxy]

Laurie Metcalf is always interesting to watch on stage and Lithgow as Clinton was quite good. But I found the play pretty light and instead of an ending it just stopped. For me I wanted more and left the theater feeling hungry.

[edjames]

Foxy is correct. I saw it last night. This is a light-weight comedy made better by the presence of Metcalf. She is always a revelation to watch. However it avoids current politics and we are treated to a fictional flashback of the 2000 primary election in New Hampshire. Still, I was entertained and enjoyed it very much.

[+ beethoven]

I saw this last night, and while I enjoyed it, by the time I got home, I couldn't remember a thing about it. "Light weight" is an understatement. This is the most unsubstantial soufflé I have seen in a long while. Good acting, funny, but there's no there there.

[edjames]

Closing on Sunday....

 

‘Hillary and Clinton’ to End Broadway Run Early

Lucas Hnath’s play about a familiar-sounding power couple will wrap up on June 23.

 

“Hillary and Clinton,” a Broadway play that explores the relationship of a political power couple, will close on Sunday, four weeks earlier than scheduled.

 

The play, by Lucas Hnath, stars Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow and is directed by Joe Mantello. It opened in April; at the time of its closing it will have played 37 previews and 77 regular performances at the John Golden Theater.

Set a hotel room in New Hampshire in 2008, the play imagines an interaction between Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton — not the real ones, but characters with the same names in an alternate universe — talking about her struggling campaign for president that year.

 

The play, with Scott Rudin as a lead producer, cost $4.2 million to capitalize; that money has not been recouped. It is the third play that Mr. Rudin has shuttered in rapid succession this spring, following the early closings of a “King Lear” revival and the new play “Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus.”

 

None were financial successes, though another of Mr. Rudin’s productions, Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” is a major hit.

 

“Hillary and Clinton” was nominated for only one Tony Award, for Ms. Metcalf’s performance, and did not win. It was struggling at the box office, grossing $291,098, 36 percent of its potential, during the week that ended June 9, according to the Broadway League.