Nixon's Nixon: Let Me Say This About That

Remember that classic sketch from the good old days of Saturday Night Live, with Dan Ackroyd's Richard Nixon forcing John Belushi's Henry Kissinger on his kness so the two of them can pray together on the eve of his resignation?  Funny stuff, right? 

Now picture the same kind of routine going on for an intermissionless eighty minutes, with a somewhat somber ending tacked to the finish.  Funny?  I chuckled here and there.  Well acted?  In a sketch comedy sense, yes.  Satisfying theatre?  Not so much. 

Original cast members Gerry Bamman (Richard Nixon) and Steve Mellor (Henry Kissinger) are once again teamed with original director Jim Simpson for MCC Theater's 10^th Anniversary revival of Russell Lees' Watergate comedy Nixon's Nixon, a fictional piece that speculates on what might have happened during an actual late-night meeting held between the United States President and his Secretary of State on the night before impeachment hearings forced him to hand the highest office in the land over to Vice President Gerald Ford.  The original production transferred from its successful run at MCC to a hit Off-Broadway mounting that lasted well over a year. 

As imagined by Lees, Nixon is still on the fence about stepping down as he meets Kissinger for several drinks in the Lincoln Sitting Room, though to his Republican colleagues the matter has been carefully mapped out and is a done deal.  Kissinger is concerned about his own future; worried about taped conversations between he and Nixon going public and Ford's willingness to carry him on as Secretary of State so he can continue his Nobel Prize-worthy work in negotiating a cease-fire in Vietnam, not to mention establishing peaceful relations with China and the Soviet Union.  Such a set-up could provide tense and riveting drama or, approached another way, piercing satire.  But instead we get a sophomoric, schticky vaudeville act that, while amusing at times, does little to explore the minds of two of the 20th Century's most intriguing Americans. 

Bamman's Nixon is the kind of caricature that helped make the careers of impersonators like David Frye and Rich Little.  Hunched over, shifty-eyed and jowls flying, he's a delusional madman convinced that the people will support him now that he's the underdog.  Energetically prancing about the stage, he throws imaginary punches at invisible enemies: "Screw the impeachment.  Screw the Senate.They're all sheep.  Candyass sheep."  His voice and physicality are cartoon variations of the real thing as he ponders how history will remember him.  ("Jefferson had some funny business, didn't he?  He did alright.") 

Mellor's Kissinger is the deadpan straight man, reacting to his leader's antics in an exaggerated deep German monotone.  He reluctantly takes part in role-playing games where Nixon wants to act out highlights of his administration involving Mao Zedong and Leonid Brezhnev. 

The attempt to provide a poignant ending (I'm not giving away anything here) has Nixon trying to total the number of people who have died during his tenure as a result of the Vietnam War.  As the two of them count soldiers on both sides, civilians and those shot at Kent State, projection designer Brian H Kim's flashes photos from the conflict.  Given the lack of substance of the production that preceded it, the moment is forced and ineffective, despite the best efforts of the actors to tone down their performances. 

I did not see the original production, but reviews noted how Bamman and Mellor approached their roles realistically that first time, playing the scripted characters without any attempt to impersonate their famous subjects.  Apparently Simpson had something very different in mind this time.  There may be a good play lurking beneath the silly antics taking place at the Lucille Lortel, but on a first viewing without a script to review, the quality of Lees' work may not be perfectly clear. 

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Steve Mellor and Gerry Bamman
Bottom: Gerry Bamman and Steve Mellor