Jackie

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff
Written and directed by:Gip Hoppe
Sets:David Gallo
Costumes:Susan Santoian
Lighting:Peter Kaczorowski
Sound:J. Hagenbuckle
Opened:11/97 at the Belasco Theater
Cast:Margaret Colin, Bill Camp, Thomas Derrah, Gretchen Egolf, Lisa Emery, Kristine Nielsen, Victor Slezak, Derek Smith, Sam Catlin and Linda Marie Larson

This biographic lampoon of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis opens with a spoof of the highly publicized Sotheby's auction of the icon's belongings. As the auction-goers exit the stage bleating like sheep (get it?), the scenery parts to reveal Jackie herself atop a staircase. She glides down the steps to confront the audience: “What do you want from me?” Indeed, in our age of paparrazi-hounded celebritydom, it's a trenchant question. More impressively, it immediately makes theatergoers shift in their seats and maybe even feel a tad guilty for being there. Imaginative sets, featuring larger-than-life cardboard cutouts and giant, effigy-like puppets, further drive home the point that fame flattens out the object of its attention. This tongue-in-cheek whimsy emerges as the production's most consistent strength; otherwise, it swoops errantly in its tribute to the former first lady. Colin projects moments of luminescence in the lead, hinting that beyond those familiar wide-set eyes was a woman of unexpected complexity. But the rest of the production adds up to goofy satire, relying on a barrage of sight gags to make its points (for example, patriarch Joseph Kennedy is portrayed via a gargantuan puppet). The show pokes the usual jabs at Hamptons society, the East Coast upper-crust, the boyish high jinks of the Kennedy clan, the hulking vulgarity of Aristotle Onassis and the Nixon-Kennedy debates. Though Colin, like the woman she portrays, manages to maintain her dignity through it all, Jackie plays more like a Saturday Night Live skit than a full-scale production.


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