DOESN’T GET OUR VOTE
Not even two of the brightest stage stars — Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow — can make “Hillary and Clinton” more than a wispy exercise.
The barbed comedy that opened Thursday night on Broadway doesn’t lack for laughs. But as it rehashes old wounds, it offers no fresh insights into either political or personal realms.
Blending fantasy and facts, Lucas Hnath’s play toys with reality as it tries our patience. While the title conjures the former first couple, the main characters are not that Hillary and Bill, or so we’re told. No pantsuits for her — rather, turtlenecks and slippers. No drawl for him — instead, crisp diction and running shorts.
We’re told it’s a parallel universe, where a woman, Hillary, happens to be running for president. Her husband, Bill, happens to be a former POTUS. Hillary explains this as soon as she gets onstage, when a microphone fails her. See? She can’t get her message across. Director Joe Mantello’s sly stroke hints that nothing is going well for Hillary, who’s sitting in a New Hampshire hotel room in January 2008. She’s trailing a candidate named Barack in the primary, and her campaign coffers are empty.
Although her campaign manager, Mark (a spirited Zak Orth), begs her to steer clear of Bill, she calls him. She needs his money, not his campaigning, but he goes behind her back and stumps anyway. Between his interference and her own rare show of tears, she wins New Hampshire — but victory is short-lived. Barack (a dignified Peter Francis James) arrives with game-changing ammo.
Hnath — author of the Ibsen sequel “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” for which Metcalf won a Tony — has a keen ear for dialogue. He gives Hillary the first and last words, and she cuts deep, calling Bill “a stench” she can’t shake. Bill, meanwhile, moans that Barack’s rise has left him “erased, like I never existed.”
Metcalf and Lithgow, top flight even when things go lowbrow, are consistently entertaining. She’s the queen of deadpan delivery, while he’s adorably doleful. And by the time Bill tells Hill that “alone, we’re not so good. We’re lesser. But together — we’re very successful,” it’s obvious he isn’t just talking about politics. Public office and private marriage work in mysterious, negotiable, unsavory ways.
Duh. We didn’t need an alternate universe — or an extended sketch like this one — to know that.