Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – THE FORD/HILL PROJECT powerfully splices the trailblazing testimonies of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford

• By drediman
• October 21, 2024
• No Comments

This past weekend at the Public Theater, I caught the final performance of Waterwell’s production of The Ford/Hill Project (the piece is co-presented by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC, where it played for a very brief run prior to its New York engagement at the Public). Created by veteran director Lee Sunday Evans and the great actress Elizabeth Marvel, the work allows audiences to take in, verbatim, the public testimonies of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford in their respective Senate committee hearings — Hill with respect to sexual harassment charges against Justice Clarence Thomas, and Ford with respect to sexual assault charges against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Although the testimonies are separated by a gulf of three decades, there’s no denying the stark parallels between the two instances. Spliced together from transcripts from these hearings, they find new power and urgency in the intertwined voices of Hill and Ford, especially through the lens of time and what has come since. Invariably, their testimonials come across as articulate and convincing depictions of the harassment and assault they each had to endure, especially when juxtaposed with the bluntly dismissive reactions from Kavanaugh and Thomas, which are also regurgitated verbatim. There’s a great deal of shame in their accounts (at times difficult to sit through), and it’s clear that it took immense bravery and much soul-searching — especially with their careers and personal lives on the line — to come forward with their stories.

The piece is not the first of its kind — Tina Satter’s Is This a Room, Elevator Repair Service’s Baldwin & Buckley at Cambridge, and Waterwell’s own The Courtroom quickly come to mind as works of verbatim “docu-theater”. Nevertheless, The Ford/Hill Project is a sobering and eye-opening work of unabashed political theater, thanks in large part to the clear-eyed simplicity of Evans’ staging. The performances from the accomplished quartet of actors — Marvel, Dylan Baker, Eric Berryman, and Amber Iman — generate their potency by largely staying clear of histrionics, merely functioning as conduits for the trailblazing words courageously uttered by Hill and Ford (indeed, there’s even a stretch when Baker and Berryman stepped into Hill and Ford’s shoes).

RECOMMENDED

THE FORD/HILL PROJECT
Off-Broadway, Play
The Public Theater (in collaboration with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Waterwell)
1 hour, 10 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed