In its debut at Lincoln Center Theater, Anthony Giardina's The City of Conversation proves that harrowing and funny tete-a-tetes make for powerful political drama. The center of this compelling play is not the politician himself but his magnetic mistress, Hester Ferris, a sharp, liberal Washington DC hostess played by Jan Maxwell (Follies),who knows all the movers and shakers in the Nation's Capital.
Hester is a glamorous woman of passion, incisive points of view and a fierce dedication that eventually forces her to make choices and live with the consequences. At the top of the show in 1979, Hester is getting ready for her dinner party for some influential Republicans when her son, Colin, returns from his studies at the London School of Economics. With him is his fiancée, brainy and calculating Anna. Sparks flicker and eventually fly as the two women face each other warily, both at opposite political corners. Hester encourages the couple to join her dinner party that evening, and it is there that Hester sees just how far apart Anna's viewpoints are from her own.
Jump to 1987, President Reagan's era, and Hester is busy trying to defeat the nomination of conservative Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Anna and Colin are now married, and each is active on the conservative side of the political aisle. They have a six-year-old son, Ethan (Luke Niehaus), whom Hester adores. She shares with him her political views despite his parents' objections. Furious, Colin and Anna force Hester to make a cruel, heartrending decision, and Hester's response is life-changing.
Director Doug Hughes keeps the tension building as Hester's anti-Bork campaign collides head to head with Colin and Anna's tireless work for the opposite side. Giardina has written strong cases for each side, although it is obvious that Hester's liberalism edges closer to his own feelings.
The cast is strong, led by Maxwell's rich portrait of a smart, energetic Hester over 30 years. She plays the doting grandmother with the same fierce intensity shown her political causes, generously giving the boy ample doses of warmth. Hester's devotion and unconditional love for Ethan is obvious, and when she is forced to make a decision, the consequences are stamped clearly in the final segment.
Supporting players are spirited and effective. Beth Dixon plays Jean, Hester's sister and long-time help-mate. (What is the back story here?) Kristen Bush is persuasive as the ambitious daughter-in-law, and Michael Simpson portrays young adult Colin and, later, the older father. Kevin O’Rourke, as Chandler, Hester's longtime love, is sparsely drawn but John Aylward and Barbara Garrick make strong statements as a Kentucky Senator and his wife. Donald Logan appears at the end.
The Georgetown set by John Lee Beatty is well designed and Catherine Zuber's costumes for sensible Anna and chic Hester illuminate their individual characters. While the promise of progress hovers over the final scene when Ethan, now 27, comes to visit his grandmother on Barack Obama’s inauguration 2009 day, The City of Conversation still proves to be a city of compromises.
