Soon-Yi and Hillary at the Magic Theater
By Jason Ma

Perhaps in response to the Tammy Wynette song “Stand By Your Man,” playwright Michelle Carter wrote “Hillary and Soon-Yi Shop For Ties” and ponders what millions of Americans have been thinking: why did the spouses of President Bill Clinton and filmmaker Woody Allen faithfully have stood by despite the avalanche of public outcry that followed both men.

The former, of course, is only the second U.S. President to be impeached, and the latter was widely derided in 1997 as being “his own father in-law” when he married his adoptive stepdaughter Soon-Yi Previn, after ending his relationship to actress Mia Farrow.

With questions as complex this, the answer is just as perplexing. Yet, Carter, who also is a novelist, creates a thoughtful and multi-layered answer that, while sometimes falls short in its humor, also transcends the timely, news-making nature of its subjects.

In a series of vignettes (spliced with occasional singing), the First Lady (Lorri Holt) and Soon-Yi (Amy Tung) dig into each other’s personal histories, gradually uncovering nuggets of their vulnerabilities and insecurities.

The two characters first take on a mother-daughter relationship, with Hillary looking to comfort a Soon-Yi struggling with her burgeoning attraction to her stepfather. Then, with allusions to Monica Lewinsky, that play out later in the show, the relationship becomes more competitive, underscored by the refrain, “I’ve seen you before,” from one of Hillary’s songs.

And while the non-linear vignettes seem a little disjointed at first, by the end of the first act the audience sees the convergence of Hillary and Soon-Yi as the two characters move from being like mother and daughter to being more like early and present-day versions of the same person.

Methodically, Carter brings together the seemingly polar opposite public personas of Hillary Clinton and Soon-Yi Previn with a unifying thread of being seduced by a figure so charismatic, the subject loses her grip on individuality.

“You’re identity depends on where you are and who you’re with,” says Soon-Yi near the end of the first act.

But, the versatility and talent of Holt and Tung is most apparent in the second act as Carter brings out the pair’s seduced ancestors, including the Greek goddess Persephone, who was swept off her feet by the god of the underworld, Hades.

Holt also has a poignant speech playing a blind Marylin Monroe, as an elder stateswoman best acquainted with being the victim/perpetrator of seduction, roaming the earth not unlike a self-loathing Oedipus Rex.

Tung, previously with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, gives her best performance as the semen-stained Monica Lewinsky in the now-infamous blue dress from the Gap, catching that awkward, adolecent interlude between romantic naivete and sexual assertiveness.The incorporation of such characters from history and folklore, highlighting a seemingly inheirited tradititon, is one of the plays strengths and is what makes it more than just a simple farce about a transient subject.