'Weekend' of sex, cash and politics Vidal's topical work rings true after 40 years
by Hedy Weiss, Theater Critic
published August 26, 2008
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Timing is everything in both politics and the theater. Just consider the scintillating Chicago premiere of "Weekend," the razor-sharp, continually surprising comedy of Beltway manners by Gore Vidal, now at TimeLine Theatre.
Vidal's winking tale of presidential election year maneuvering was written 40 years ago, but it has the red-hot immediacy of a play penned just in time for this year's conventions. And it suggests everything old is new again when it comes to the donkeys and elephants, and the intersection of sex, race, money and politics.
A deeply political animal, Vidal learned his lessons at the knee of his grandfather, a Democratic senator from Oklahoma, and, in 1960, ran for (and lost) a seat in the House of Representatives from New York. He turned his insider knowledge into a hit play, "The Best Man" at the time of the Kennedy-Nixon race.
The similarly fictional "Weekend" picks up eight years later, in the spring of 1968, one of the most tumultuous moments in U.S. history. The Vietnam War rages, Lyndon Johnson is rumored to be ruling out another run for the presidency and Richard Nixon appears ready for a comeback. Race is a hugely divisive issue, too, with the movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" taking a pop look at such matters.
Vidal's story unspools in the handsome Washington, D.C., living room of Charles MacGruder (Terry Hamilton), a veteran Republican senator from a border state who has spent his career mastering the art of ruffling no feathers. Sensing an opening for a presidential run, he tries to gain the support of a conservative Southerner, Sen. Andrews (Tom McElroy), while at the same time boldly talking of pulling out of Vietnam.
The stars seem neatly aligned for MacGruder's success, with both his wife, Estelle (the peerless Penny Slusher), and his secretary-mistress Miss Wilson (Juliet Hart) as ardent backers, and his nerdy pollster (Ian Paul Custer) on top of the numbers. Then his prodigal son Beany (Joe Sherman) returns from Europe with a serious girlfriend, Louise Hampton (Mica Cole), in tow. She is black, beautiful, bourgeois and shrewd, all of which could add up to catastrophe.
Vidal, a master caricaturist, has nailed both the politicians and their women (including Andrews' pricelessly bigoted wife, played with comic brilliance by Janet Ulrich Brooks), as well as Louise's archconservative parents (the picture-perfect Andre Teamer and Joslyn Jones) and the MacGruders' devoted black butler Roger (a subtle, spot-on Sean Nix), who has God on his mind.
Damon Kiely's fleet, bristling direction and his pitch-perfect TimeLine cast take full advantage of every wicked note in Vidal's masterfully written satire.
