Talk about timing. On the evening of April 9, mere days before Hillary Clinton reportedly is set to announce her candidacy for president of the United States, the over-the-top production Clinton The Musical made its Off-Broadway debut.
Playing at New World Stages in Midtown Manhattan, the brisk, 92-minute, one-act musical offers a flamboyant take on the tabloid-ready Clinton-Lewinsky '90s sex scandal, and boasts a wild cast of characters, from cardboard Al Gore to a deviant, S&M enthusiast Ken Starr. The play, directed by Dan Knechtges and composed by Aussies Paul and Michael Hodge, opens with a spare Oval Office stage. Framed portraits of former presidents posing with images of their mistresses decorate the walls, from Thomas Jefferson with a slavewoman to JFK with a bevy of beauties, including Marilyn Monroe.
Then out pops Hillary (played by Tony Award nominee Kerry Butler), sporting her signature blue power suit.
“Good afternoon!” she announces. “My name is Hillary Rodham Clinton, and I’d like to tell you about my first presidency.”
Hilary is, it seems, the only one with her head screwed on straight—juggling two very different sides of her commander-in-chief husband: Billy Clinton (Duke Lafoon), a saxophone-playin’, pot-smokin’, shades-rockin’ horn-dog who loves “getting’ some tail,” and William Jefferson Clinton (Tom Galantich), a responsible, issues-oriented politician.
“When I read Bill Clinton’s autobiography, he talked about how he lead two parallel lives, and all these other people have talked about the contradictions in him,” co-writer Hodge tells The Daily Beast. “His political adviser Dick Morris had nicknames for the two sides: ‘Saturday Night Bill’ and ‘Sunday Morning President.’ It seemed like an apt device to sum up a complicated man, and something that we could have a lot of fun with.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
