نيكسون .. نيكسون

by Russell Lees, عاطف الغمري (Translator), أمين حسين الرباط (مراجعة)

It is the night before President Nixon is to announce his resignation, and he has summoned Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the Lincoln Sitting Room. Kissinger arrives, expecting to find his President preparing to resign. But Nixon is in the process of wrestling with that very decision. Unstable, nostalgic, garrulous and paranoid, Nixon leads his Secretary of State on a journey through the high moments of his administration and Nixon's past. The journey borders on the surreal as Nixon pressures Kissinger into reenacting crucial scenes: Kissinger plays Nixon, Nixon plays Brezhnev, Kissinger plays Kennedy and Mao the scenarios become dizzying. Meanwhile, Kissinger is subtly working to convince Nixon to step down so that he can pursue his geopolitical goals and his own quest for historical glory unencumbered by a weakened President. Nixon, however, can't face the lonely aftermath of such a decision; he envisions himself "wandering some hellish golf course, waiting to die." As the evening and the drinking progress the two concoct a plan to provoke an international crisis that would allow Nixon to leave office a hero. Kissinger muses, "Sometimes I stare in the mirror. What's happening behind those eyes? I'm astonished. Mystified." Then adds, "I like it." Nixon confides he no longer stares in the mirror, although he did on the way up. He not only stared, he talked to himself. "You sly dog,' I'd say. And we'd share a secret smile. But then I fell. I fell like Satan tossed from heaven."

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Historical Fiction

134 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Martin Denton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Russell Lees's insightful, prescient play Nixon's Nixon imagines what President Richard M. Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger might have talked about during their (historically factual) meeting on August 7, 1974, the night before Nixon announced his resignation. Let's listen to what Lees has them say as they make a last-ditch attempt to maneuver Nixon out of his political mess:

KISSINGER: It's hopeless. You'd need an international crisis.
NIXON: That's what I was thinking...
....
KISSINGER: Not much margin for error. We need something...it would be good if it didn't directly involve the U.S., that way, if it gets out of control, you know, who cares?
....
KISSINGER: We time the incidents according to the press.
....
NIXON: Let 'em know they've crossed me. Let 'em know they've pushed me too far. Cities crumble. Nations catch fire.
KISSINGER: They'll never recover.
NIXON: Let 'em impeach me, let the hippies and the Harvard judges and the pinko congressmen and the fag reporters impeach me with the world on fire.

In 1996, when Lees wrote this, I'll bet people thought, could American political leaders ever be so megalomaniacally cynical to trade human lives to stay in power? I think I would have called this the stuff of fantasy back then; Nixon did, after all, resign. Today, though...

Nixon's Nixon fictionalizes history with the luxury of perspective, and now, nearly 50 years after the events depicted in the play, its authenticity (which is not the same as factual accuracy) and, more important, its usefulness, feel well nigh indisputable. Lees bends whatever happened when these two men, arguably the most powerful in the world, had their last secret meeting; he shapes it with grand dramatic skill, providing each of his characters with potent subtexts that propel the encounter. Nixon knows he must resign but wants to be talked out of it. Kissinger does not want to lose his position as Secretary of State. Both men's egos are far out of control. One seems to be on the verge of hysteria and paranoia, the other is steely and sane. Which brand of monomaniac is the more dangerous?

Lees's script is often quite funny, but it's also an empathetic account of an honest-to-God tragedy, with Nixon its grand heroic figure, approaching greatness but for a gnawing, fatal flaw. He plays with the caricature "I am not a crook" Nixon that we remember, but he imbues his protagonist with depth and complexity. The moment where Nixon enumerates those who died under his watch, for example, is enormously moving. Kissinger's more calculating, results-driven style--a more modern approach to the game of politics that has become a norm, I fear--is impossible to admire and tougher to respect here.

Invaluable as political drama, Nixon's Nixon is also top-notch theater for the thinking person, brimming with ideas both historically compelling and eerily resonant.

[Bobby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can really come to life on stage with some great actors, but in written form it's uninspiring. I found it bogged down in and dependent on its history, and if I hadn't been researching Watergate beforehand I would have been lost. It's an interesting represenation of the drama inherent in two actual American political figures, while not being a great drama itself.