Having lost the last four presidential elections to the same Democrat, the Republicans desperately want a winner in 1948. Strategist James Conover (Michael Durkin) has an idea. Why not nominate a successful businessman who is a populist outsider? Aircraft industrialist Grant Matthews (Kyle Minshew) is summoned to his D.C. home. With a major newspaper publisher and a political reporter also in attendance, Mr. Matthews is convinced to run and shake up the State of the Union.
A Pulitzer Prize winner, this 1945 play was likely a riff on real-life utility magnate and improbable 1940 presidential nominee Wendell Willkie. He changed political parties the year before from Democrat to Republican. Mr. Willkie was well-known for standing up to Congress against plans for the Tennessee Valley Authority. Our fictional hero also has a backbone and a fine reputation. How can he get elected while having an affair with Kay Thorndyke (Jennifer Reddish), the newspaper publisher?
A party switching businessman in a relationship outside his marriage with no political experience wants to run for President of the United States? Impossible! Ridiculously far fetched, you bewail! Seventy years have passed since this successful play (and the Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn film adaptation) was written. Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (Anything Goes, Life With Father) are perhaps best known now for collaborating on the book for The Sound of Music. Having just seen Call Me Madam at Encores! last weekend, apparently it’s Lindsay and Crouse month. Uncannily fresh, State of the Union is filled with crisp dialogue, witty banter, slithering irony and thoughtful perspectives before detonating in a delectably enjoyable third act.
In order to kick off the campaign on the right foot, the rumors of Mr. Matthew’s affair need to be dealt with. He and his wife Mary have been estranged for more than a year. How to convince her to stand by her husband’s side as he announces his candidacy? She knows of the affair and is described as a tough lady prone to aggressive behavior. Mary is so disgusted with the divided politics of this country that she “can’t even read a newspaper.” “I get so mad.” Expertly played by Anna Marie Sell, this character becomes our guide through the muck of the Washington swamp.
Cocktails are served at every opportunity which makes this comedy lighter than it may sound. Mary hears that she is “the most attractive plank in her husband’s platform.” The machinations of fund raising, compromise and special interests all get thrown into the mix. Important figures promise votes for favors. “How can you deliver the votes of a free people?” The play responds and it’s a doozy: lazy, ignorant and prejudiced people are not free.
State of the Union is a long three act play which requires a little patience as it simmers until its grand payoff. Laura Livingston’s direction of the Act III sazerac-induced truth telling is exemplary. In a tiny off-off Broadway house, a sizable dinner party is staged so naturalistically I felt like a fly on the wall. I did indeed laugh. I also fretted about a political system still worried about the next election rather than the nation’s future.
Ms. Sell’s Mary, Mr. Durkin’s strategist Conover and Linda Kuriloff’s brilliant southern sunbeam Lulubelle Alexander were especially praiseworthy performances. Vincent Gunn’s unfussily attractive set design commendably encapsulated the scene changes. (The overhead suspended crown molding was a nice touch.) Offstage interchanges and frequent entrances and exits are rarely handled this clearly. State of the Union is a finely mounted production. This is very good off-off Broadway theater; both entertaining and provocative.
The Metropolitan Playhouse explores America’s diverse theatrical heritage often focusing on older literary works and those based on American history. This selection is particularly inspired and should become a play revived at least by regional theaters everywhere. The 2020 election is not so far away. Find a few big stars and this one might also be ripe for a Broadway revival. More impossible things have happened.
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