The time and the setting for this hilarious comedy are set in concrete: the Lincoln Sitting Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., at 10 p.m. on Aug. 7, 1974. It was a meeting between President Richard M. Nixon, on the eve of his resignation, and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The meeting itself is docu-mented fact. What transpired during the next few hours in soon-to-be ex-President Nixon's favorite room is up for grabs.After months of research into the two statesmen, native Utahn Russell Lees has created an uproariously funny peek at what might have happened that night.
The opening night performance at SLAC was aswarm with local politicians - everyone from Karen Shepherd and Merrill Cook to former Gov. Calvin Rampton. The latter commented briefly in the foyer while leaving the theater about meeting Nixon at a governors' dinner just a few weeks before the historic resignation - and that Nixon seemed to be preoccupied and worried.
For the cast of the two-man production - Robert Baker as Nixon and William March as Kissinger - "Nixon's Nixon" is a slam-bang tour de force. Neither one of them looks at all like his real-life counterpart, but the men's gestures, diction and other well-known characteristics are perfect.
Nixon, with Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony blaring loudly from the stereo, is a bundle of nerves - calm and collected one moment, agitated and uptight the next.
For the next 90 minutes or so, as he and Kissinger ponder some of the highlights of his career, the audience sees the beleaguered president deteriorate from a gentleman who claims he's "light as a feather, almost giddy" into a sad, pathetic mess. Along the way, there's some reluctant role-playing.
It takes staid Kissinger a couple of slugs of brandy from the decanter to get into the swing of things, but their re-enactments of a few of Nixon's confrontations with other world leaders provide some of the production's funniest segments. During the course of the play, the brandy becomes vodka for the Moscow summit with Brezhnev and sake for a meeting with Chairman Mao of China.
In rapid succession, Richard and Henry also touch on the war in Vietnam, the secret bombing of Cambodia, even Nixon's famous "Checkers" speech in 1952.
Most of these incidents were serious matters at the time they took place, but as they're being spun by a man who is clearly at the end of his precariously frayed rope, they take on hilarious new twists.
Reminiscing about the historic Moscow summit, Nixon chides Kis-sin-ger: "You be him . . . I'll be me." When Kissinger hesitates, Nixon says, "OK, I'll be him, you be me."
Near the end there's a bit that is both poignant and humorous when Nixon, desperately grasping at straws, suggests a bizarre plan to draw attention away from the besieged White House.
"We need something with bravado. Pizazz," Nixon says, "Some dinky assassination in Irkutsk's not going to make middle America pee its pants."
Kevin Myhre's scenery, costumes and lighting provide the perfect setting for "Nixon's Nixon." Especially the lighting effects. When Nixon and Kissinger are in the here-and-now, they're spotlighted at either two chairs or on a longer couch. When they're remembering past incidents, the lighting shifts away from a large sketch of President Lincoln to a staircase directly behind the men.
- Sensitivity rating: How this rates on the Laugh-O-Meter will depend largely on what side of the political ticket you stand. There's some profanity and vulgarity as the night goes on and the brandy loosens them up.