Asked if his ”one-woman” revue, ”It`s Still My Turn,” unabashedly exploits the outrageous publicity garnered by Kitty Kelley`s book on Nancy Reagan, performer Terry Sweeney brightens.
”Of course,” he replies without hesitation.
”Actually, Kelley`s book has made public all the things about Nancy that I`ve been saying and implying over the years, and that makes for a better audience. Because what I do is a kind of high-camp satire, and your audience has to `get` it and be with me.”
Sweeney, 40, who began impersonating Mrs. Reagan in 1985 on TV`s
”Saturday Night Live,” revived his routine last year after the publication of her autobiography, ”My Turn.” The show played to enthusiastic crowds in Los Angeles and New York, and is now playing at the Halsted Theatre Center through June 9.
During the hour or so, Sweeney`s character discusses everything from poverty (”This homeless thing-when did it start?”) to her new perfume, Nancy (”Finally, the fragrance that says, `I`m better than you` ”).
”Her book was so petty and mealy-mouthed, and `What a martyr I am,` and
`Everybody was so mean to me and I was so nice,` ” he says. ”I decided to do the show because I thought, `God, she`s not going away.` I mean, if she had made a graceful, elegant exit from the White House, that would have been the end of it.”
”My show in New York was extended until the Persian Gulf war started, and I thought that the mood for political satire was over. But the war ended … and then the Kelley book came out, which, for me, was like a smart bomb. Of course, my phone started ringing off the hook, and I had my little red Adolfo on standby.”
Before each performance, Sweeney does his own makeup, which takes about an hour, and dons the light-brown wig and the Adolfo suit (a knock-off).
An important element in the impersonation is his rendition of what became known in Washington as The Look: a slightly-cross-eyed glaziness. ”It`s an unfocused, dreamy kind of thing. And it`s a mask. Nancy`s face is a mask, and in the show I let you look behind it.”
As for capturing Mrs. Reagan`s voice, he doesn`t even try. ”Hers is very nondescript, unlike Diana Ross, whom I also do, so I just do a soft voice, and then make it hard. But as a satirist, it`s not the voice alone. You have to have a reason for doing the person. The thing about Nancy is that beneath that simpy surface, there`s a tough warrior. I mean, she made it in Hollywood with her talent; this person had to have true grit to get through. That fluttery image has to be totally false, so I play her like everything is repressed: the sexuality, the passion . . . the pettiness.”
Sweeney was raised in Massapequa on Long Island, and later attended Middlebury College, majoring in foreign languages. He was hired for ”Saturday Night Live” after the producers saw him perform in an Off-Broadway show in which he played Connie Chutzpah (”a low-rent gossip columnist”).
Shortly before the ”Saturday Night” season began, he told the press he was homosexual, becoming the first admittedly gay person on network TV.
”I had to make a choice over whether to give interview answers like,
`I`m too busy to find time to date,` or `I just haven`t met the right girl.` I felt it was important that I told the truth. I couldn`t be mocking these characters with their insincerity, and in my own life pretend I was a straight person. And I was raised to tell the truth.”
”Although my parents may have regretted that. I kept telling my father, an Irish Catholic butcher, that I wasn`t a `female impersonator` but a
`character actress.”`
Besides his Nancy bit, Sweeney has written film scripts (including the 1989 release ”Shag,” starring Phoebe Cates and Bridget Fonda), published
”It`s Still My Turn: A Satirical Collection of Nancy Reaganesque Poetry”
(and books, 63 pages, $6.95) and zoomed in on other personalities. ”I`ve done everyone from Patti LaBelle to Teddy Kennedy. If I weren`t busy doing Nancy, I probably would have taken on Ivana Trump and Marla Maples.”
Sweeney said people often tell him how much they dislike Mrs. Reagan.
”They have much stronger feelings about her than I do. If I hated her, I couldn`t do her on stage. Actually, I like the character, and I think I make her likable. The audience sees her demented, twisted little world, and sees that she`s happy in it. And I`ve given Nancy something that even God forgot to give her: a sense of humor.”
