American Tragedy

Andrea Reese demystifies the late Jackie O in ‘Cirque Jacqueline.’

By: Matt Smith
"Andrea

TimeOFF photos/Frank Wojciechowski
Andrea Reese uncovers the "heart and soul" of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in Cirque Jacqueline, her one-woman show about the former first lady playing at the Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick May 16.


   The heads of passersby spin around in disbelief, straining for a second glimpse of the woman standing in front of the Crossroads Theatre on Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick. The bright pink of her 1960s ensemble and matching pillbox hat jump out against the muted tones of the modern streetscape. Dark oval sunglasses and a glistening string of pearls add to the mystery.
   The onlookers are perplexed. It couldn’t be who they think it is, could it? That would make this raven-haired beauty the ghost of Jackie O when, in fact, the dead ringer for the former first lady is actually actress Andrea Reese — in costume for a TV interview later that day about her one-woman play, Cirque Jacqueline.
   Ms. Reese is in town for a mini publicity tour and her first look at the performance space at Crossroads, where she’ll perform the show May 16. Seated in the lobby of the 310-seat theater, the excitable actress says she and her famous subject have been joined since birth.
   "I was born in Boston, and when I was in Mass General (Hospital) one of the nurses commented that I resembled Jackie as a baby," Ms. Reese says. "And when I was about 5, I had the same haircut as her, so people constantly would stop my mom in the street and say, ‘Oh my god, she looks like Jackie.’"
   As a teen-ager growing up in Washington, D.C., in the late ’70s, Ms. Reese began to resent the comparisons to her famous twin, adopting a "hippie girl" wardrobe and wearing her hair "long and stringy."
   "When I was in high school I didn’t want that image," Ms. Reese says. "At that time I didn’t know much about her and I imagined her the way some people do, as a debutante society girl, which was definitely not what I wanted to be. It’s only recently, doing the play and seeing all the good sides of her from my research, that I have a positive response to people saying, ‘Oh, you look like her.’"
   After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., and earning a master’s degree from the University of California, Irvine, Ms. Reese set out to become an opera singer but soon defected to the New York acting world. Her resemblance to the estimable Ms. Bouvier Kennedy Onassis finally paid off, landing her a turn as Jackie in a bizarre independent film, and a job handing out pearl necklaces and greeting guests at a party for the Broadway play, Jackie: An American Life.
   "One thing led to another and a director suggested I write a play about Jackie," says Ms. Reese, also a personal assistant for a best-selling author. "At first I wasn’t sure. There was so much done on her I was afraid there wasn’t room for more. But then when I read everything, watched the videos and movies, I felt they hadn’t really shown the whole picture."
   The countless other retellings of Jackie O’s life were rich in Camelot style but short on substance, Ms. Reese says. These surface-level interpretations failed to humanize their complex subject — the doting woman who raised two reasonably well-adjusted children, the intelligent woman with a passion for books, and the fun, often-hilarious woman desperate to escape the public eye.
"Judith

Judith Leblein (right) interviews Andrea Reese as Jackie O on Conversations with Judith Leblein, an East Brunswick TV talk show.


   "She made raunchy jokes, and used to imitate the heads of state after state dinners and have everybody cracking up," says Ms. Reese, spirited and funny in her own right. "She had a sort of edge to her and a quirkiness that you didn’t see publicly. She was goofy. One time she hid behind a bush to tease the security people. She got so sick of being followed around that she hid from them, got them in a total panic, and then popped out."
   The first-time playwright premiered Cirque Jacqueline (literally "Jackie’s Circus") at the Bank Street Theatre in Manhattan in March 2002. Originally scheduled to run four performances, the show connected with critics and audiences and was extended for a month. The New Brunswick date marks Ms. Reese’s first pairing with producer Jim Davison, with plans for future stagings up and down the East Coast.
   Cirque Jacqueline is a series of non-narrative theatrical monologues, jumping off from the final day of Jackie’s life (dying of cancer at age 64) and returning to her unhappy childhood. The play moves through a series of other pivotal events, including her relationship with Aristotle Onassis, feelings about Jack’s womanizing, and the fallout of Nov. 22, 1963, in particular.
   "She was able to really gather herself together and be the image of strength for the whole country," says Ms. Reese, "but it was so horrendous what happened. She had him right in her arms dying, but she was able to come out in public. She insisted on wearing the pink Jackie suit covered with blood for the remainder of the day. A couple of people said, ‘Don’t you want to change your clothes?’ and she said, ‘No, I want people to see what happened.’ She had this way of being really honest and up front, and extremely courageous."
   Cirque Jacqueline features an array of historically accurate costumes, including a custom-designed replica of one of Jackie’s pink dresses, and quite a few thrift-store finds. Some of the other trappings of the show, however, are less expected — including a bit of incidental punk music.
   "Charles (Messina), the director, he’s a really rebellious soul," Ms. Reese says. "He always goes against the grain. I thought, ‘I have to get a director who understands that, who’s not going to make it cute and comfy.’ I’m not saying that it’s just a dis of Jackie, it definitely isn’t. People say it makes them feel more affection for her because it shows her heart and soul in a way. But it’s definitely not cutesy."
   Ultimately, some of the mystery that surrounded Jackie was her own creation, using advice her father relayed to her when she was young.
   "He always said to her, ‘Don’t show your whole self. Always be mysterious, always leave everybody wondering,’" Ms. Reese says. "So, ironically, here she was saying she didn’t want all the publicity and it was driving her crazy but, because she was mysterious, people wanted even more to know what was underneath."
Cirque Jacqueline, starring Andrea Reese and directed by Charles Messina, plays at the Crossroads Theatre, 7 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, May 16, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $40. For information, call the State Theatre box office at (732) 246-7469. On the Web: www.statetheatrenj.org. Andrea Reese on the Web: www.jackieoshow.com