By crafting a drama out of snippets of taped conversations, books, and speeches, the author has made a perfect use of the dramatic art to skewer his tragi-comic President.
Lees' gift for writing comedy is so subtle and fine that he almost invariably winds up on the money - able to make, for example, a line about soldiers watching their buddies' guts dripping from trees funny by keeping intact the Nixonian confusions and insane logic.
The play presents a nearly impossible task for two actors not just to speak words practically everyone remembers, but to impersonate the speakers. Outwardly, Steve Mellor's Henry Kissinger presented a more convincing figure. (His eye glasses helped a lot.) But Gerry Bamman's version of Richard M. Nixon captured not only the posture, walk, and wrinkled smile of the model, but the awkward, inner tension of a man whose public mask got stuck to his face.
Bamman was masterful. He could even make his character moving (as could the original) when talking about his daughter Julie, who never guessed her father "was just a bum"; or recounting 800,005 soldiers and civilians dead - "kablooey, on my watch."
Mellor's analytical Kissinger played an ever-constant, self-promoting action to survive the scandal lest his nemesis, Alexander Haig, take over. This strategy exposed a weakness in the play's otherwise remarkable credibility: that a man as wily and subtle as Kissinger would repeatedly articulate his power-lust agenda so nakedly.
Mellor was not only excellent, but sometimes hilarious, as when he impersonated Kissinger's imitating Mao speaking Chinese; or when he joined Nixon's hymn-singing with perfect bari-tone-deafness.
The well-paced direction blended and melded into all the other production elements seamlessly; while a clever set and lights by Kyle Chepulis, with effective projections by Abigail Simon and Tal Yarden, seemed amazingly real at times. They solved the small theatre's space limitations by taking us through time to Cambodia, China, Russia, Viet Nam, and various White House rooms.
Daniele Hollywood's selection of Kissinger's tuxedo and Nixon's flag-lapelled suit were perfect; and an admirable sound design by Mike Nolan went to such impressive lengths as to loop a section of Ravel's "La Mer" in order to score a Nixon monologue.
This splendid production benefited from a sense of professionalism and perfectionism so extremely rare off-off-Broadway that it's inconceivable the world won't be hearing more about it.
Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger