Hillary and Monica: The (White) Gloves Are Off

Hillary and Monica: The Winter of Her Discontent

Written and directed by Yvette Heyliger; Featuring Heidi Dallin, Jacqueline Kristel, Vanessa Shaw, Jeff Pierce; Production Stage Manager, Marsha Smith; Set Design, Jenna McFarland Lord; Costume Design, Seth Bodie; Lighting Design, Deb Sullivan

Performances through June 3 @ Gloucester Stage Company    

Box Office 978-281-4433  www.GloucesterStage.org

Hillary and Monica: The Winter of Her Discontent is a "what if" exercise in which the playwright imagines a 1996 meeting between the two famous (or infamous) women in the White House China Room before the whole sordid affair blew up. Gloucester Stage kicks off its 28th season with the New England premiere of this dramatization.

The play begins with such promise. A slide show of the better (read: promising) days of Bill and Hillary is projected on a screen above the mantel while Johnny Mathis croons, "Go away, Little girl." By the end of the song and the slide show, the Commander-in-chief has spiraled down to his nadir.  A Greek chorus wearing masks and holding newspapers aloft previews in verse the events to come. Lights up on the China Room, ably reproduced by Jenna McFarland Lord, and enter Monica (Jacqueline Kristel), eyeing the presidential place settings like a hungry tourist. While not a dead ringer for Lewinsky, Kristel is zaftig enough to look the part, aided by her youthful long hair and her adolescent mannerisms and facial expressions. 

Moments later, the First Lady surprises the intern and stuns the audience.  Heidi Dallin's resemblance to her is uncanny. Sad to say, it may well be the most remarkable thing in this production. The fact that Hillary is able to get in touch with her inner bitch and pulls out all the stops to intimidate Monica is the opposite of remarkable. It is neither noteworthy nor clever to cast her in that light as her foes have accused her of that characterization all along. No, what might be more striking would be a portrayal that combines her strength and stoicism with a heartfelt gentleness unlike anything the world has seen from her. I'm not suggesting that she be the nurturer or mentor to Monica's siren, but I expect that a woman of Hillary's age and experience has far too many resources available to her to allow her to sink to the levels shown here. A middle-aged woman, married to the leader of the free world for decades, mother of their child, gifted and accomplished in her own right, is going to say to a 22-year old junior staffer, "Stay away from him"? Yeah, right.

The segments of the play that ring truest are those where Hillary is onstage alone. When she screams out, "Damn it, Bill, why are you straying from the plan?" and lets loose with four-letter words and vitriol, her anger is focused on the appropriate target.  When she drops to her knees to pray that her husband will be straightened out by a higher authority, not so much. In a later scene that depicts her on the political stump, microphone in hand, bathed in bright lights and crowd noise, her speech about men having it all and the involvement of previous First Ladies in their husbands' careers shows how articulate she is and also provides a bit of a history lesson.  What it all comes down to is power - and she wants her share.

Following the intelligence and believability of that sublime scene, comes the ridiculous denouement in the China Room. With the President's secretary Betty Currie (respectably played by Vanessa Shaw) and a Secret Service Agent (Jeff Pierce) present, Hillary sinks to 1950's sitcom depths as she threatens to hurl a plate at Monica. (Although predictable, there is a good line here about saving the Kennedy plate and smashing the Reagan one instead.) A tussle, name-calling, and somebody being handcuffed to a flagpole ensue, climaxed (you'll pardon the pun, but it's in the spirit of this script) by the arrival of POTUS himself (Pierce does a pretty good caricature). "But, Honey-" dialogue follows and it is presumed that Hillary throws the plate as the lights go down. The Greek chorus makes another appearance to wrap it all up and offer the contemporary bumper sticker slogan: "When Clinton lied, nobody died."

My exercise is to imagine "what if" Yvette Heyliger had given us a view that was less stereotypical and played less to prurient interests? Admittedly, it is Heyliger's fantasy, but she didn't sell me - or much of the audience - on it.  I am aware that the challenge here is to separate one's own political point of view from a critique of H&M as a play.  But I think the characters have to have some dignity and believe their own truths to work within the context of the play.

As the wronged party, Hillary was damned if she did and damned if she didn't - leave Bill, that is.  The one thing that she was absolutely successful at was not allowing herself or the office of the First Lady to be dragged through the muck and mire.  Yet, despite her purported admiration for Mrs. Rodham Clinton, Heyliger has chosen a flight of the imagination which portrays her as spiteful, vindictive, and verbally abusive to, as she calls her, "little girl" Monica Lewinsky and which devolves into a hissing, hair pulling cat fight!  Somehow I just can't imagine that scenario, unless this was billed as Hillary and Monica: Dynasty Revisited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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