Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Laurie Metcalf towers in HILLARY AND CLINTON, Lucas Hnath’s sneaky little play

• By drediman
• May 12, 2019
• No Comments

John Lithgow and Laurie Metcalf in Lucas Hnath’s “Hillary and Clinton” at the John Golden Theatre. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

Yesterday at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway, I took in Lucas Hnath’s enticingly-titled new play Hillary and Clinton. The work is an odd little piece of theater, and it joins Taylor Mac’s Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus and Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me as an unorthodox work that has somehow found itself on the Great White Way. Set in a sterile hotel room in New Hampshire during the 2008 primaries, Hillary and Clinton is an intimate look at the former First Lady’s flailing attempt at at the presidency.

Surprisingly, Hillary and Clinton, a sharply-observed play to be sure, is less interested in the politics of the time than it is with he psyches behind the politics. Mr. Hnath has the uncanny ability of simultaneously humanizing and mythologizing them figures that have been burned into our collective social consciousness – e.g., Walt Disney, Nora from A Doll’s House, and now Hillary (and Bill) Clinton. In comparison to A Doll’s House, Part 2, which boldly forges on with Nora’s saga, Hillary and Clinton is a more subtle and sneaky piece of playwriting – it’s neither the rambunctious satire nor message-waving political epic that you’d expect from such a title. Rather, the play is more of a gently tragic, insistently personal portrait of the woman on the other side of the iron curtain. However, no matter how well-written, a part of me was hoping for more than a sketch-like impression from the play.

Luckily, Joe Mantello has meticulously and stylishly staged the play to bring out its very best features. Indeed, in this skilled director’s hands, Hillary and Clinton heartily lands all its laughs while elegantly depicting its more existential elements. Ms. Metcalf, one the treasure of the American theater, is every bit as good as she was in A Doll’s House, Part 2 (for which she deservedly took home the Tony). She grounds Hillary in gripping specificity in a towering performance so thrillingly present that you just simply can’t take your eyes off of her (even when she’s not speaking). As Bill, John Lithgow is ideally cast, at once defeated yet still imminently likable. It’s refreshing to see both actors capture the essence of both public figures without resorting to and attempting distracting imitations. Rounding out the cast, Ms. Metcalf and Mr. Lithgow are provided first rate support by Zak Orth as Hillary’s campaign manager and Peter Francis James as none other than Barack Obama.

RECOMMENDED

HILLARY AND CLINTON
Broadway, Play
John Golden Theatre
1 hour, 25 minutes (without an intermission)
Through July 21