Darrell Hammond's famous impressions from Saturday Night Live run the gamut from Bill Clinton to Sean Connery.
The prolific comedian impersonated more than 100 celebrities over his 1995-2009 stint on the show. Now he's bringing that skill to the stage in a serious portrayal of Pekin's favorite son.
The Honorable Mr. Marigold is a creation of Wade Dooley, who was commissioned by the Dirksen Congressional Center to write the play.
Tiffany White is the executive director of the Dirksen Congressional Center. Both her and Dooley had previously interned for Ray LaHood during his time in Congress.
She said a mutual connection linked up Hammond with Dooley, adding it was a role that piqued the actor's interest.
"As somebody who is well known for being a comedian, and who still does comedy, the truth about Darrell is that his talents are complex. And I think that he is anxious to get into theater right now," she said. "And so it was just perfect timing for all of these circumstances to converge. And we signed a contract with him a few weeks ago, and he's been on board fully ever since."
The play is set in Dirksen's final days in Walter Reed Hospital in 1969. The senator had been admitted for surgical complications following lung surgery.
Around that time, the producers of a TV segment called "A Day in the Life" had contacted Dirksen about a story centered around the average day of a U.S. senator. The Honorable Mr. Marigold exercises a little artistic license by sending a young Black female reporter to interview Dirksen ahead of the show.
"That didn't actually happen," said White. "But what we're invited to imagine as a result of what takes place in the play, is what a conversation like that would look like between two people who seemingly have very little in common, who come from very different perspectives in life, and what it would look like if they got to talking about serious issues, and not just whatever Dirksen has for lunch every day."
A stage reading set for the first two weeks of November in New York will feature Hammond in the titular role. White said his Dirksen impression isn't an exact replication, but an homage that also allows for some artistic interpretation.
"But even that less exact version of the voice really captures the essence of how Dirksen spoke, the cadence and the tone. And you really get a sense of what it might have been like to sit in a room with him," she said.
The two weeks in November will serve as a workshop for the play to craft a final version to shop around to theater directors. White said Chicago and Washington, D.C. would be ideal markets due to their Dirksen connections, but she also thinks smaller theaters also will put on the show eventually.
Ideally, White said the play would debut in theaters in the fall or winter of 2024, but 2025 might be more realistic.
"Maybe this play is exactly what will be required to sort of cleanse that palette and give people a reset button to think a little bit more differently and more optimistically, about the potential of public discourse in our country," she said.
