The night before he became the first and only American president to resign, Richard Nixon met with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the White House.
In the political satire “Nixon’s Nixon,” which will open at the Hamner Theater with a preview at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24 (see box for more), playwright Russell Lee speculates on what the two men discussed that night.
“Kissinger is trying to get Nixon to accept the reality that he had to go,” says director Marcello Rollando, a former New York stage actor now living in Charlottesville.
“It is a cat and mouse game. It is a chess game. It’s a mastery of diplomacy and puppet and puppeteer, and they exchange those roles on a beat.”
He directed the first incarnation of the play, which was originally titled “Nixon & Kissinger,” about 15 years ago for the Circle Repertory Company, an acclaimed off-Broadway theater company.
Rollando says Circle Repertory’s artistic director gave him a stack of six plays and asked him to pick one to direct. He was initially put off by the play’s title, but “once I started reading,” he says, “I couldn’t put it down.”
His production led to the publication of the play under its current name, and it has since been performed all over the world.
“No matter what you think about Nixon, he wasn’t a stupid man,” Rollando says, adding that he and Kissinger “were shrewd. They understood the rules of the game. But they broke the rules a lot.”
If you’re going
- WHAT: “Nixon’s Nixon”
- WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24, 25, 26, 27 and March 5, 11 and 13 and 2 p.m. Feb. 28 and March 7
- WHERE: The Hamner Theater, 190 Rockfish School Lane, between Afton and Nellysford
- TICKETS: $10
- INFO: (434) 361-1999 or www.hamnertheater.com
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