Play a Day: Bill Clinton Hercules

Rachel Mariner

For Saturday, I read Bill Clinton Hercules by Rachel Mariner and posted at New Play Exchange.

It was not my intention to read a play about Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton this go-round, but these things happen. What I found surprising about the work is that it was written before the 2016 election. It is a monologue of the 42nd President giving a speech to a public audience. These are not meant to be private thoughts, these are the thoughts that he is choosing to share.

And overshare. Clinton was one for oversharing, at least as far as Presidents go.

Three years ago, the Slate podcast Slow Burn revisited the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal. It was revelatory, it was eye-opening. It was shame inducing. Shame because yes, we defended him. Yes, we said his personal life was none of our business. Yes, because it was a Republican staged sham and entirely unfair.

Because this play is told from his perspective, he cleverly acknowledges the scandal, and more than cleverly he dismisses it. He has always missed his momma. And Monica was a flirt. And he was the most powerful man on earth.

"Bill Clinton"
Pristina, Kosovo

That is the true narrative of this piece, which is beautifully and believably written. The comparison between himself and Hercules, the demigod who returns to earth to instruct and lament man’s inability to abandon hate and mistrust for peace. Here the master orator, code-switching as necessary, between Bubba and William Jefferson Clinton, espousing his love of Arkansas watermelon at one moment, and Nelson Mandela the next.

Did you know there is a statue of Bill Clinton in Pristina, Kosovo? Now you do and so do I.

This Bill Clinton comes to lament the decisions he’s made, but only insofar as it relates to a greater peace, and domestic surveillance. He says nothing of damaging the social safety net, encouraging the prison-industrial complex, or again, what he refers to as “his love life.”

His love for his wife appears genuine, and he truly believes she will be elected in November 2016. But then, we all did.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Monica: This Play Is Not About Monica Lewinsky

Dianne Nora

For Friday, I read Monica: This Play Is Not About Monica Lewinsky by Dianne Nora and posted at New Play Exchange.

“I have faith in people and I can’t seem to shake it.”

This is a fascinating brain experiment, to cast the idea of a woman about whom we have the most intimate knowledge, but about whom most people know absolutely nothing. 

In that, this fictional version of Monica Lewinsky becomes an everywoman. Some suffer their abusers in private, others on full display, and the real Lewinsky is one of the most public examples of that. 

But this play is not about her specifically, but every woman’s journey toward feeling whole, to having a heart (as is described so poetically in the denouement) that can heal itself.

Nora’s narrative jumps back and forth in time with a dry wit, passion, and alacrity. It is an experiment which determines its thesis.

Who should I read tomorrow?