Acting Presidents: 100 Years of Plays about the Presidency (Evolving American Presidency)

The Evolving American Presidency Series Series Foreword The American presidency touches virtually every aspect of American and world politics. And the presidency has become, for better or worse, the vital center of the American and global political systems. The framers of the American government would be dismayed at such a result. As invented at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in 1787, the presidency was to have been a part of a government with shared and overlapping powers, embedded within a separation-of-powers system. If there was a vital center, it was the Congress; the presidency was to be a part, but by no means, the centerpiece of that system. Over time, the presidency has evolved and grown in power, expectations, responsibilities, and authority. Wars, crises, depressions, industrialization, all served to add to the power of the presidency. As the United States grew into a world power, presidential power also grew. And as the United States became the world’s leading superpower, the presidency rose in prominence and power, not only in the U.S., but on the world stage. It is the clash between the presidency as invented and the presidency as it has developed that inspired this series. And it is the importance and power of the modern American presidency that makes understanding the office so vital. Like it or not, the American presidency stands at the vortex of power both within the United States and around the globe. This Palgrave series recognizes that the presidency is and has been an evolving institution, going from its original constitutional design as that of Chief Clerk, to today where the president is the center of the American political constellation. This has caused several key dilemmas in our political system, not the least of which is that presidents face high expectations with limited constitutional resources. This causes presidents to find extra-constitutional means of governing. Thus, presidents must find ways to bridge the expectations/power gap while operating within the confines of a separation-of-powers system designed to limit presidential authority. How presidents resolve these challenges and paradoxes is the central issue in modern governance. It is also the central theme of this book series. Michael A. Genovese Loyola Chair of Leadership Loyola Marymount University Palgrave’s The Evolving American Presidency, Series Editor The Second Term of George W. Bush edited by Robert Maranto, Douglas M. Brattebo, and Tom Lansford The Presidency and the Challenge of Democracy edited by Michael A. Genovese and Lori Cox Han Religion and the American Presidency edited by Mark J. Rozell and Gleaves Whitney

Religion and the Bush Presidency edited by Mark J. Rozell and Gleaves Whitney Test by Fire: The War Presidency of George W. Bush by Robert Swansbrough American Royalty: The Bush and Clinton Families and the Danger to the American Presidency by Matthew T. Corrigan Accidental Presidents: Death, Assassination, Resignation, and Democratic Succession by Philip Abbott Presidential Power in Action: Implementing Supreme Court Detainee Decisions by Darren A. Wheeler President George W. Bush’s Influence over Bureaucracy and Policy: Extraordinary Times, Extraordinary Powers edited by Colin Provost and Paul Teske Assessing George W. Bush’s Legacy: The Right Man? edited by Iwan Morgan and Philip John Davies Acting Presidents: 100 Years of Plays about the Presidency by Bruce E. Altschuler

Acting Presidents 100 Years of Plays about the Presidency Bruce E. Altschuler

ACTING PRESIDENTS

Copyright © Bruce E. Altschuler, 2010. All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–11017–5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Altschuler, Bruce E. Acting presidents : 100 years of plays about the presidency / Bruce E. Altschuler. p. cm.—(Evolving American presidency series) ISBN 978–0–230–11017–5 (alk. paper) 1. American drama—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Presidents in literature. 3. Political plays, American—History and criticism. 4. Theater—Political aspects—United States—20th century. I. Title. PS338.P6A58 2011 812⬘.50935873—dc22

2010023841

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: December 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

Contents Acknowledgments

vii

Poster 1

ix

Poster 2

x

Introduction

xi

1

Plays about Abraham Lincoln

1

2

Other Heroic Presidents

35

3

The President as Anti-Hero

61

4

Fictional Presidents

103

5

Musical Presidents

119

Conclusions

155

Appendix: Plays Discussed in This Book

159

Notes

163

Index

189

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Acknowledgments Without the substantial assistance of others, this book would still be under construction. SUNY Oswego provided me with a SCAC grant to finance research and, once most of that research was completed, a sabbatical to give me the time to write this book. The wonderful librarians at Penfield Library were able to locate many of the items used in that research. When I had to find information at a variety of collections around the country, I benefited greatly from the expertise of archivists who often went out of their way to help me find what I was looking for and, in some cases, showing me material I had not realized existed. Among these archives are the New York Public Library’s Theatre on Film and Tape Archive and Billy Rose Theatre Collections, the Paley Center, the Library of Congress, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Syracuse University’s Special Collections Research Center, and the E. P. Conkle Theater Collection at George Mason University. The book has benefited from the suggestions of Michael Genovese, Justin Vaughan, and Palgrave Macmillan’s anonymous reader. Unsung heroes are my friends who politely asked about the progress of my work, only to hear a disquisition on whatever plays I was writing about at the time. If they did not find this as exciting as I did, they were kind enough to pretend to find it fascinating. Parts of chapter 3 are reprinted from “From Hero to Anti-Hero: The Transformation of the American Presidency On Stage,” by Bruce E. Altschuler, White House Studies, Vol. 10, Issue 3 (2010), 18 pages, with permission from Nova Science Publishers Inc.

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Poster 1 “Prologue to glory” by E. P. Conkle. Work Projects Administration Poster Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZC2–5319.

Poster 2 Wm. Harris, Jr. presents John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln. Posters: Performing Arts Posters, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZC4–13448 and LC-USZC4–12775.

Introduction Although films about the presidency have been a popular subject for political scientists,1 there is no equivalent literature about plays that portray real and fictional chief executives. More than a decade ago, one of the few scholarly studies of individual plays stated that, “there is at present no comprehensive study of the dramatic depiction of the American Presidency.”2 Theatrical performances vanish once a play closes, while films are preserved. Movies reach a larger audience than does theater, not only in their original versions, but through television and video which makes it easier for scholars to gain access to them. This book seeks to begin filling the gap by examining more than 40 plays written since 1900. It will discuss the nature of their presidential portraits, the themes the playwrights sought to get across, how successful they have been, and how all of these have changed during the past century. Sources will include the scripts of the plays discussed, original, and recorded performances, film and television adaptations, reviews and other commentaries, and manuscript collections that include material from playwrights, producers, and others involved in the productions. Often, by depicting past presidents, the authors hope to teach a lesson to contemporary audiences. As a recent work on historical theater puts it, “worthy historical drama always lets the present speak through the past.”3 The familiarity of audiences with the material gives the playwright a few advantages. The background of the major characters does not have to be explained. The context of the events depicted is already known. People come to the theater with a previously developed interest in the subject. However, the disadvantages are far greater. The public expects characters such as Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt to look and act in a certain way. Too much attention to such superficial resemblances can make a play more an impersonation than a real drama. Although audiences may be alienated when the play departs from their expectations, especially if a revered historical figure is criticized, making a president uncomplicatedly heroic can turn a play into a dull civics class. Historical events are messy and complex, often defying the format of a two-to-three hour play. To create dramatic and entertaining theater, playwrights will frequently tinker with history by altering or even inventing characters and events.

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How will authors choose between historical accuracy and dramatic effect? If audience appeal demands romance or conflicts that are tepid or nonexistent in the actual events, what should the playwright do? If he or she is trying to get a contemporary message across, how can this be done without making the play a history lesson? Finally, the very familiarity of their events generally means these plays are of little interest to subsequent generations. The fear of controversy caused nineteenth-century playwrights to shy away from portraying presidents in their plays. As late as 1927, Arthur Hobson Quinn wrote that in the theater, “we have not had many serious studies of our politics, largely because of managerial dread of controversial subjects.”4 Another cause of this, according to Casper Nannes, was “the widespread political immaturity of the audience.”5 As new media, first popular newspapers featuring yellow journalism, then muckraking magazine articles, newsreels, and radio developed, they whetted the public’s appetite for political theater at the same time that they provided the information necessary to understand it. Plays about fictional presidents raise another set of problems. How realistic should they be? If they are merely thinly disguised representations of actual events, why bother? If they are more imaginative, how relevant are they for audiences? If the purpose of the play is simply to make a point about contemporary politics, will such plays last any longer than the specific issue addressed? Conversely, it is easier to satirize a fictional president rather than an actual one without offending audiences. Despite this, plays about imagined presidents that have been produced on Broadway have primarily been gentle comedies rather than more pointed satires. Each of these plays reflects the public’s perception of the presidency during the time it was performed. What made some of them relevant enough to warrant revival? How, if at all, were they reinterpreted to reflect changing times? By analyzing the content of the plays, critical and audience reaction, and later revivals and revisions, we can better comprehend the public’s understanding of the presidency as well as see how that understanding colors the plays themselves. As we shall see, there are trends regarding what types of plays are likely to be successful depending upon the underlying public conception of what constitutes a successful president and how that compares with more recent incumbents. Surveys of both historians and the public show which presidents have been most highly ranked. For the most part, those presidents were the most likely to appear on stage during the first half of the

Introduction

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twentieth century. The first two chapters examine plays depicting these heroic presidents. Because Lincoln was by far the most popular subject for playwrights during that period, the first chapter is devoted entirely to dramas about him. More surprisingly, appearances on stage by President Washington have been a rarity. We will therefore begin by analyzing the theatrical disparity between our two greatest presidents. This will be followed by a detailed discussion of Lincoln plays in which the historical Lincoln will be compared to his theatrical counterpart. We will then determine the common elements in the theatrical portraits of the heroic president, as well as how they have changed over time. Chapter 2 will shift the focus to other admirable presidents, using a similar method. There we will further refine the model of the heroic president. Chapter 3 finds a virtual reversal in both the type of presidents who dominate the stage and how they are portrayed. Beginning in the late 1960s, the great presidents were replaced by their antiheroic counterparts, most notably and unexpectedly Richard Nixon and Warren Harding. By analyzing public opinion data, we will investigate the relationship between changing theatrical tastes and popular attitudes about trust in the institutions of government. We will then move to a detailed examination of each play to develop a model of the antiheroic president. Chapter 4 asks whether the few plays depicting fictional presidents or presidential candidates have shown a similar trend. The quintessential American theatrical genre, the musical, is examined in chapter 5. There we will find a comparable pattern, albeit with a few interesting twists. The concluding chapter seeks to unite these threads into a larger argument in order to better explain the relationship between the stage presidency and contemporary politics. It will also offer some tentative suggestions about what the future may bring.

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Chapter 1 Plays about Abraham Lincoln Lincoln v. Washington It is unlikely to surprise anyone that Abraham Lincoln is the president who has most often been portrayed in movies and plays. According to Merrill Peterson, he has been a character in 133 films, more than three times as many as any other chief executive.1 This chapter will examine both the most important and some of the less consequential plays that portray President Lincoln as we begin to develop models of how presidents are depicted in the theater. Lincoln’s rating as a great president would seem to be the reason for his frequent portrayal on stage. However, this explanation is contradicted by the absence of similar depictions of President George Washington. Why is Lincoln so favored by playwrights while Washington is so neglected? Fifty years ago, Marcus Cunliffe asserted that “Washington has become not merely a mythical figure, but a myth of suffocating dullness.”2 Even when a writer as great as William Thackeray dared to include Washington as a character in his 1859 novel The Virginians, one reviewer complained that “Washington was not like other men; and to bring his lofty character down to the level of the vulgar passions of common life, is to give the lie to the grandest chapter in the uninspired annals of the human race.”3 Unlike Washington, Cunliffe argued, “Lincoln is still human, time-bound and even time-stained.”4 Garry Wills believes that Washington has become so much a symbol of the Republic that often “the superhuman aspect of the man has endangered his humanity instead of enhancing it.”5 Moe, Parker, and McCalmon also find Washington “a vexing figure to dramatize” because he has become more a symbolic figure without flaws than a real person so that “the myth overcomes the man.”6 To supply tension and conflict, rather than merely depicting his presidency, plays about Washington have generally been set during

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the American Revolution, in which he can be shown overcoming great adversity. Maxwell Anderson’s 1934drama Valley Forge, demonstrates how even one of America’s most accomplished playwrights found this not to be enough for convincing drama. In the opening scene, a group of bedraggled soldiers complains about the failure of the Continental Congress to provide even the most rudimentary supplies while praising Washington’s efforts to improve the situation. When one of the men suggests going home for the winter in order to return, having provided for himself and his family, to fight in the spring, Washington replies with a stirring oration that he is fighting for “the right of freeborn men to govern themselves in their own way” which “has never existed and will never exist unless we can make it and put it here.” Deserters may not be caught, but if their actions lose the war, “the men we’ve left lying on our battlefields died for nothing whatever—for a dream that came too early—and may never come true.”7 Anderson contrasts Valley Forge with the luxurious British headquarters in Philadelphia by having Washington dispatch one of his soldiers, Spad, to return General Howe’s dog which, at least in this play, has wandered into the rebel camp. Spad’s arrival interrupts a skit ridiculing Washington. After decking the actor portraying the general, Spad returns the dog but proudly refuses the British offer of food. However, it seems that Anderson did not believe that the battle against the British with its hardships, as well as a bit of comic relief, provided enough material to sustain his play. He sought to inject romance with a fictionalized scene in which a woman once courted by Washington disguises herself as a man in order to urge him to make peace with the British. Unfortunately, the romance fizzles when Washington curtly dismisses her because “a war’s not quite a game of blind man’s buff, nor am I a figure in grand opera with love affairs between battles.”8 Another invented scene depicts a meeting between a discouraged Washington and General Howe to negotiate surrender terms. The discussion has barely begun when a group of soldiers arrives. Among them are Washington’s aide, Colonel Tench, now mortally wounded, and the man who had earlier sought to desert. Having successfully raided Howe’s supplies, they urge him to continue the fight. A suddenly revitalized Washington reconsiders, declaring, “And now I change my answer! Let one ragged thousand of them pledge them to this with me, and we’ll see it through.”9 Thus was Anderson’s thesis made manifest: democracy can only succeed through the commitment of ordinary people.

Plays about Abraham Lincoln

3

Largely because of its devices, Joseph Wood Krutch found the play “romantic historical drama” relying on “the same passages of purple sentiment placed at strategic points, the same sure-fire appeal of ragged loyalty, and the same soul-satisfying little wrangle between pompous dignity and the impulsive backwoodsman which have delighted the ears of every generation since Dunlap founded the American drama.”10 In a somewhat more favorable review, Brooks Atkinson concluded that “with some studious difficulty” Anderson has taken exciting ideas and “beaten them into dramatic shape.”11 As history, the play veered too far from actual events to be taken seriously. Even fictionalized scenes and other devices were not enough to elevate it beyond the sentimental and didactic. Valley Forge was one of Anderson’s least successful plays. Its 58-performance run on Broadway was just long enough to allow all of the Theatre Guild’s subscribers the opportunity to attend. Lincoln’s life provides far more dramatic material than does Washington’s, most notably in its tragic ending. According to David Turley, after Lincoln’s death, accounts of his life were dominated by depictions of him as a man of the people and an instrument of American history. Ultimately these themes were synthesized, uniting Lincoln with the destiny of the United States and its universal values. Particularly notable is Carl Sandburg’s multivolume biography, published in the 1920s and 30s, which related Lincoln’s life to the growth of the country. Turley writes that Sandburg “felt licensed to make use of folkloric and legendary material in pursuit of ‘the spirit of Lincoln.’ ” That has made his biography a congenial source for playwrights who could also rely on the audience’s knowledge of Lincoln’s life to make apparently inconsequential episodes significant.12 Merrill Peterson identifies five interrelated images of Lincoln that have echoed through American history: Savior of the Union, Great Emancipator, Man of the People, First American, and Self-Made Man. Lincoln has remained so important to the American identity due to his rise from poverty, the belief that his character and politics represent the democratic ideal, the complexity and paradoxes of his character, the central place of the Civil War in American history, and his eloquence.13 We will find these aspects of Lincoln portrayed in the plays discussed in this chapter, but will also see confirmation in them of Peterson’s belief that popular recollections of Lincoln are “concerned less with establishing than with appropriating [his legacy] for the present.”14 Nearly all of these plays have a subtext that, often quite explicitly, uses the events of Lincoln’s life to comment on those of the contemporary world.

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Early Twentieth Century After touring the country with a one-man show about Lincoln, Benjamin Chapin turned it into a play, Lincoln at the White House, which he took to Broadway in 1906. According to Chapin, when he first conceived the idea of depicting Lincoln on stage, his friends warned him that doing so would flout “the affection and reverence of the American people for the great martyr.” His first presentation was a two-hour monologue in which, made up as Lincoln, Chapin told stories, then simulated a cabinet meeting and a scene of Lincoln at home. Believing that “the absolute, literal Lincoln of the White House would appear extremely unnatural to the audiences,” he instead chose to “portray the people’s idea or ideal of Lincoln.”15 In this way Chapin avoided the pitfalls that had prevented actors from portraying presidents on stage. There would be no danger of offending audiences if the president they saw was an idealized version of the actual man. Thus, early twentieth-century plays about presidents often resembled uncritical civics lessons more than they did the kind of drama that presents complex characters in morally difficult situations. Unfortunately, the results were frequently dull and, by hewing to the stereotypes of the time, of little lasting interest. The Broadway version of Chapin’s play focused on the fall of Fort Sumter, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Emancipation Proclamation, with all seen from the perspective of the White House. To add romance and intrigue, Chapin invented a story in which Mary Lincoln’s niece is courted by a Confederate spy. The play ends as Lincoln departs for an evening at Ford’s Theatre. Unlike Chapin’s monologues, the play includes a number of other characters, each of whom, as Chapin told an interviewer, represents “a significant force in the life and history of the time, without disturbing the pre-eminence of the central figure.”16 The New York Times described the play as “wholesome entertainment” suitable even for children “by the very simplicity, unpretentiousness, and apparent artlessness of its setting forth.”17 Although the play only lasted for 21 performances, it was revived for the 1909 bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth with an even briefer run of 17 performances. One critic found the revival “a simple little play.” “As an object lesson for school children,” he wrote, “it may be heartily commended.”18 Chapin sought to expand his audience with a series of 30-minute silent films covering Lincoln’s entire life, but was only able to complete eight of the projected ten by the time of his death in 1918.

Plays about Abraham Lincoln

5

Chapin’s uncanny resemblance to Lincoln was praised by many who had known the president personally. However, Peterson believes that Chapin “seemed never to get under the surface of the makeup.”19 Nevertheless, he notes that the play was praised at the time for its contrast to such racist works as The Clansman. That novel, written by Thomas Dixon Jr., was adapted for the stage and later became the source for D. W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation. Peterson suggests that the racist literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries presented two versions of Lincoln. The critical version paints him as an abolitionist determined to mix the races, but an alternate view, championed by Dixon in his preaching and writing, claims he was a white supremacist seeking to deport blacks back to Africa because the two races could never live together as equals. 20 Dixon’s 1903 speech to the American Booksellers’ Association is a good example of these views. “Race prejudice,” he declared, “is of two kinds.” Prejudice due to fear of another race’s greater abilities, such as anti-Semitism, is wrong. In contrast, “prejudice against the Negro is the instinct of self-preservation.” Pointing out what he saw as Lincoln’s belief that the physical differences between the races prevent them from living together equally, he claimed that because of the likely growth of the black population in the United States, “the Negro is the menace, therefore, to one element of America’s strength—his race integrity.”21 Dixon’s play about Lincoln, A Man of the People, opened on Broadway in September 1920 after a summer run in Chicago. A note preceding the published play suggests his basic thesis about Lincoln who was “the savior, if not the real creator, of the American Union of free Democratic States. His proclamation of emancipation was purely an incident of war. The first policy of his administration was to save the Union.”22 After a prologue depicting the death of Lincoln’s mother, the play moves to the White House on August 24, 1864 as the president meets with members of the public. When told by his secretary that officials of the Republican National Committee are waiting to see him, he replies that “they are all distinguished men. They can wait while the humbler people have their turn.”23 Most of these ordinary citizens are seeking relief for family members serving in the military. Lincoln agrees to pardon one woman’s brother who has been sentenced to death for desertion. Because his actions were inspired by “Why Should Brothers Fight?” by the (fictional) Copperhead Richard Vaughan, it is Vaughan who should be hanged. “Copperhead” was the derogatory term used by Republicans to describe Democrats who

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sought to negotiate a compromise with the South to end the Civil War. In contrast, War Democrats such as Lincoln’s opponent in the presidential election, George McClellan, while critical of many aspects of Lincoln’s conduct of the war, fully supported efforts to defeat the Confederacy. The only appearance of blacks in the play utilizes the grossest of stereotypes. Lincoln has summoned a delegation of black leaders, described in the stage directions as “typical Africans,” to gain support for his plan to send freed slaves to foreign colonies. The script notes that “the ebony faces with their cream white teeth showing in smiles and their wide rolling eyes make a striking contrast to the rugged face and poise of the President.” Their dialogue consists entirely of brief exclamations of support such as “Yes, sir,” “Let our great leader show us the way,” and “We’ll do our best.”24 Finally, the Republican Party leaders are admitted. Fearing that the election will be lost, they urge Lincoln to withdraw from the ticket in favor of a new candidate. They believe the president has not been forceful enough, citing his failure to free slaves in the Union states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri; his colonization plan; and his generosity toward those parts of the South that have been or will be occupied by the Union army. Lincoln defends these actions as necessary to save the Union. “I have always held that the happiness and progress of this Union of Free Democratic States will be secure only in the separation of the white and black races.” Radical leader Thaddeus Stevens demands “that the Negro be given the ballot and made the ruler of the South,” with the property of Southern whites confiscated and given to blacks. He rebuts Lincoln’s defense that “the good sense of our people will never consent to your scheme of vengeance” by declaring “the people have no sense! And a new fool is born every second.”25 Before leaving, the party leaders inform Lincoln that he will be given ten days to decide before the National Committee takes further action. The second act begins that evening with Lincoln having secretly summoned General McClellan to the White House for a private meeting. He offers to withdraw his candidacy immediately if McClellan pledges a public denunciation of the Copperheads in the Democratic Party. Offended by Lincoln’s offer and certain of his own election victory, McClellan firmly declines. Lincoln then turns to his alternate plan which requires someone to infiltrate the inner council of Copperhead conspirators. Coincidentally, Mary Lincoln has arranged for a wounded Union captain, the lover of a young friend of hers, to see the president. The captain pleads for a civilian trial for his father,

Plays about Abraham Lincoln

7

who turns out to be Richard Vaughan, but Lincoln counters that “to preserve the Constitution of the Republic I must in this crisis strain some of its provisions.”26 When Lincoln shows Captain Vaughan the seditious pamphlet, and then tells him his father will be imprisoned for the duration of the war rather than executed, Vaughan, who had planned to assassinate the president, is won over and asks for a chance to prove it. He agrees to go on a secret mission to gain evidence that peace without dividing the union is impossible, and also to obtain information about Confederate defenses of Atlanta to deliver to General Sherman. In a melodramatic final scene, a telegram from General Sherman announcing his victory arrives in the White House just as Lincoln has finished telling a joke as his final stalling tactic before he must answer the visiting Republican Party delegation’s demands for his withdrawal from the ticket. Led by Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton, everyone present begins singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” All but Stevens then chant “Lincoln! Lincoln! Lincoln!” agreeing that his election is assured. An epilogue shows the concluding sentences of his second inaugural address. Although the New York Times critic found the play “an always interesting, generally well-written and only slightly theatrical treatment,” most other critics compared it unfavorably to John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln, whose run had begun several months earlier. 27 The audience seemed to agree with the latter view, since A Man of the People ended its run after only 15 performances. Dixon’s portrayal of Lincoln as a racist had an ironic echo during the Civil Rights era when some advocates of racial equality also saw Lincoln in this light. In 1968, Lerone Bennett, Jr. wrote an article asking the question “Was Abe Lincoln a White Supremacist?”28 Lincoln, he argued, specifically supported white supremacy in his debates with Stephen Douglas, was more interested in preventing the extension of slavery than abolishing it, demonstrated more concern for his white constituents than for the needs of oppressed blacks and supported a policy of colonization. Those who disagreed believed Bennett was judging Lincoln unfairly by his use of twentieth-century standards. If we evaluate Lincoln by the standards of his own time, he was, if not a radical, clearly a liberal on racial issues. 29 After its brief run, A Man of the People seemed destined to be no more than a minor footnote in the history of political theater. Not surprisingly, there have been no attempts at revival. In his 1974 biography of Dixon, Raymond Cook dismissively wrote that “there is little in the play to distinguish it as dramatic art.”30 However, in 2008,

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Brook Thomas published a detailed analysis of the play, arguing not only that it sought to legitimize Dixon’s racial views by attaching them to Lincoln, but also that it was a justification for an expansive interpretation of presidential power even if at the expense of civil liberties.31 According to Thomas, Dixon believed that in a time of danger the only salvation was to put all our faith in a leader who was a man of the people. Dixon had taken much of the play’s plot from his novel The Southerner, which he dedicated to his Johns Hopkins classmate and friend, Woodrow Wilson. By defending Lincoln’s limitations on civil liberties, Dixon was also justifying Wilson’s World War I restrictions. To do so, the play exaggerates the domestic threats from Copperhead conspirators as well as inventing evidence that their writings inspired Union soldiers to desert. Lincoln’s mercy in pardoning those soldiers helps justify his dictatorial actions. For Thomas, these arguments about sacrificing civil liberties to preserve the nation make the play relevant during the current War on Terror. Finding a similarity between Dixon’s position on these issues and those of some of today’s leading political scientists and legal scholars, he concludes that “knowledge of how Lincoln’s arbitrary actions served Thomas Dixon’s view of the moral progress of history should, I hope, make people think twice before evoking Lincoln’s monumental reputation on issues of civil liberties.”32 In essence, Thomas is hoping that Dixon’s discredited reputation can serve as a balance to Lincoln’s prestige when both are attached to the same side of the argument over executive power. English poet John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln proved far more successful and influential than A Man of the People. At first this seemed unlikely since London theaters in the West End were so uninterested in putting on the play that Drinkwater had to take it to Hammersmith, where it was performed in what St. John Ervine described as “an obscure and ugly theatre in a distant suburb by an unknown management with a cast which did not contain the name of a single player of reputation.”33 Despite this inauspicious beginning, the play soon became a sensation, running for more than 400 performances. Even King George and Queen Mary attended. Peterson calls it “the first successful dramatization of Lincoln’s life for the stage.”34 In line with Lincoln dramas of the period, this one presents him as an unalloyed hero. Drinkwater told an interviewer, “to me he has always been one of the finest characters in history. . . . If Carlyle had written another chapter in his book on heroes, it must inevitably have been on Lincoln, the great public official. Of that he was the apotheosis.”35 Simultaneous with the play’s American run,

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Drinkwater’s book, Lincoln, the World Emancipator, was published. Its opening paragraph stated that “among all men in the modern history of the world there is none who has so persuasively that magnetic union of mastery and sympathy that fills our minds when we think of the spiritual liberator.”36 Fortunately for the playwright even if not for Lincoln or the United States, the president’s assassination provided an ideal tragic conclusion. As Drinkwater put it, “nothing could have been more perfect than the time and manner of his death. The great work done, the swift taking away—the curtain of Lincoln’s life fell at exactly the right moment for the purposes of art.”37 Nevertheless, as with the other plays we have discussed, the author had to make major alterations to historical fact to achieve his dramatic purposes. Each of the play’s six scenes depicts an episode in Lincoln’s life. Knowing that his audiences, especially in England, might not be fully cognizant of the historical events recounted in the play, Drinkwater relies on two devices to provide background. Between scenes, two poetry-reciting chroniclers serve much as a Greek chorus. Before the first scene, for example, they compare the situation facing Lincoln to the English Civil War “when a peril touched the days / of freedom in our English ways.”38 He also invents characters, each representing more a type than an actual person, to explain what is about to happen. Thus, in the first scene, farmer Stone and storekeeper Cuffney explain to Lincoln’s maid that a delegation is coming from the Republican Convention to offer her employer its presidential nomination. They then provide information about Lincoln’s views on the Constitution, slavery, and even John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. When Mary Lincoln enters, she, Stone and Cuffney discuss the politics of the upcoming election, explaining why Lincoln is nearly certain to win. After the party delegation makes its offer, Lincoln briefly excuses himself, providing the opportunity for them to describe his leadership qualities. He returns and accepts, ending the scene, after which the chroniclers speak of Lincoln’s courage and the loneliness he will face. These artificial devices bring the action to a dead stop, especially in this scene where the audience’s knowledge of Lincoln’s acceptance eliminates any possibility of dramatic tension. In scene two, Lincoln’s unexpected arrival interrupts a secret meeting between Secretary of State Seward and two Confederate commissioners who are urging the withdrawal of federal troops from Fort Sumter in order to avoid civil war. Lincoln tells them that withdrawal will tell the South that “you’ll be able to get your own way about the slave business by threats.”39 After they leave, using language taken

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from his first inaugural address, Lincoln further explains his reasoning to a hesitant Seward, despite a message that without help Fort Sumter can only resist for another three days. Lincoln demonstrates his intellectual superiority by quoting from Shakespeare, eliciting a confession that Seward has never read that great playwright. When the cabinet enters, Burnet Hook, its only fictional member, argues in favor of withdrawal to allow time for compromise. However, a cabinet vote in favor of this position is overruled by the president. Hook exists only to provide an opponent for Lincoln, but is too overmatched to offer much of a dramatic counterweight. Set two years into the war, the third scene consists entirely of fictional exposition showing Lincoln rejecting extreme opinions for and against the war. First he meets with Mrs. Otherly, who believes that no circumstances ever justify war, and Mrs. Blow, who fears Lincoln will end the war prematurely. In an imperfect world, the president tells Mrs. Otherly, aggression sometimes can only be met with force. In contrast, Mrs. Blow’s rejection of a commission for her husband because his contract work makes him too valuable to spare elicits a lecture criticizing her hypocrisy. Because Mrs. Otherly’s son is in the military, Lincoln honors her despite their disagreement, while he is ashamed of Mrs. Blow’s “babble about destroying the South while other people conquer it.”40 Following their departure, black preacher William Custis, awaiting his audience with the president, has a chance to discuss the differences between being a servant and a slave with the maid. Lincoln then explains to Custis why revenge on Southern whites must be rejected. The fourth scene occurs the same day. Awaiting Lincoln’s arrival for a cabinet meeting, Hook expresses the fear that the president will seek to issue an emancipation proclamation prematurely. By now, however, Seward has become a staunch Lincoln supporter, telling his colleagues “we’ve learnt that the President is the best man among us.”41 Lincoln does tell his cabinet that now is the time for such a proclamation, effective in three months, rejecting Hook’s argument that it should be postponed until the war is won. After all but Hook and Lincoln exit, the president accuses Hook of conspiring against him. Hook’s resignation ends his part in the play. The scene ends with a passage from Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” In scene five, the day before Lee’s surrender, Lincoln meets with soldier William Scott who is due to be shot for falling asleep on guard duty. Because Scott had volunteered for a double shift, Lincoln instantly pardons the soldier then allows him to return to his unit.

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Ironically, in the brief time left in the war, Scott is killed. Although the real Scott did die in battle after being pardoned, Drinkwater greatly altered the circumstances for dramatic effect. Lincoln never met the real Scott, whose pardon occurred early in the Civil War. At the end of the scene, Ulysses Grant adds to the chorus of those praising Lincoln, telling General Meade that the president “kept us a great cause clean to fight for.”42 The final scene has Lincoln addressing the Ford’s Theatre audience with part of what was actually his second inaugural address, after which he is assassinated. The play ends with the chroniclers reminding us of its theme of Lincoln’s greatness: “presiding everywhere / upon event was one man’s character. / And that endures; it is the token sent / always to man for man’s government.”43 The reaction of audiences and most of the critics was rapturous. The play ran for 193 performances from December 1919 until May of the following year with Burns Mantle characterizing it as “easily the most inspiring dramatic success of our time.”44 Kenneth McGowan of the Globe believed it “betrays not a trace of artifice” while, somewhat contradictorily, the Tribune’s critic found nearly all of Drinkwater’s departures from history “a wise dramatic prerogative.”45 F. Abraham Hackett thought Drinkwater “has given his actors a great opportunity to say what the fidelity, the equality, the fraternity of Lincoln really were.”46 The drama “proved to be a beautiful and a stirring thing,” wrote Alexander Woolcott, who told his readers they must see “one of the great adventures of the theatre.”47 For Edmund Wilson, what distinguished Abraham Lincoln was its dramatization of an idea, that of refusing to seek revenge on your enemies. This made the play a great success “in spite of its rather undistinguished style and the puppet-like quality of its characters.”48 The few dissenters stressed the oversimplification of Drinkwater’s portrait, which reduced such strong characters as Seward and Stanton to submissive role players while magnifying Lincoln’s heroism and morality. As Harriet Monroe expressed it, “his play uses with a certain effectiveness, the primer method.”49 Even Woolcott found the published play “like a dramatized Child’s History of Lincoln.”50 One of the main purposes of the play and book was to cement the Anglo-American union and extend its influence in other parts of the world. “Lincoln is becoming a universal figure,” Drinkwater wrote, “at the same time he stands in sharp definition as a distinctive ideal of the English-speaking race.”51 It was the author’s hope that the common characteristics of the United States and England would work powerfully for good. Drinkwater’s support for Woodrow Wilson’s

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policy of greater American involvement in the world was so apparent to contemporary audiences that, as one critic put it, “we have a welldefined suspicion that if one were to pull the beard from Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln he would find Woodrow Wilson.”52 Modern readers and audiences will probably find the play’s onedimensional heroic Lincoln too simple and inadequately dramatic to be appealing. As we shall see, playwrights would eventually utilize Lincoln’s contradictions and complexities for greater dramatic impact. This may explain why, even as early as 1929, a Broadway revival of Abraham Lincoln with the same leading actor lasted only for a week. Nevertheless, the play has had a significant afterlife. In 1940, when a British revival announced its closing after a brief run, the king and queen quickly chose to attend the show and then told the manager how much they had enjoyed it. The resulting doubling of ticket sales extended the play’s run into the next season.53 Perhaps the purpose of the royal visit was the same as Drinkwater’s, to strengthen the AngloAmerican union. An even more didactic use of the play occurred in Japan after World War II. The production’s purpose was to educate the Japanese about American democracy. Despite Time’s belief that “the stilted, undramatic play is nothing in itself to warm audiences up,” it pointed out that many of the Japanese in the audience went backstage after the show to tell the actors how much they admired Lincoln’s speeches.54 The heroic Lincoln had some appeal to the newly developing mass media. During its first season, Orson Welles’ Columbia Broadcasting System radio network program included a production of Abraham Lincoln. In 1952 CBS television presented a live broadcast of the play, eliminating the chroniclers, deleting Lincoln’s conversation with William Custis, and replacing the final scene depicting Lincoln’s assassination with one showing him and Mary preparing to depart for the theater.55 Since then productions have been so rare that when the Kentucky Repertory Theatre staged a revival as part of the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, its press release incorrectly stated that “after a successful run in London and New York City, the play has remained unperformed until the Theatre’s revival.”

Depression-Era Lincoln With the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922, more and more sectors of American society began to develop their own versions of

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Lincoln. Soon after, as Sandburg’s multi-volume biography began to appear, playwrights were supplied with additional raw material. The Great Depression, followed by World War II, would provide the opportunity for turning Lincoln into a vessel for expressing a variety of viewpoints about pressing issues of the day. According to an author’s note, Arthur Goodman’s If Booth Had Missed “is an imaginary presentation of what might have happened if Lincoln had lived to carry out his program of reconstruction which Johnson willingly shouldered and which brought this loyal successor to impeachment and eventual trial.”56 From this note, we can see Goodman’s sympathy with Johnson’s policies rather than those of his opponents. Like Philip Roth’s 2004 novel, The Plot Against America, the play is an example of a popular genre, counterfactual history. Compared to the more or less factual plays we have examined so far, counterfactual works retain the audience’s familiarity with the characters and situations while allowing freer rein to the playwright’s imagination. They require an author who is able to write in the voices of real characters in unreal situations, which is no easy task. To succeed, they not only have to meet normal dramatic criteria but also to pass the test of plausibility. Because the situation presented is in the form of an alternative incident replacing the one that actually occurred, resulting in certain other events, audiences must find both the alternative incident and the consequent events to be reasonable. Martin Bunzl argues that such claims are better evaluated by the presentation of indirect evidence than imagination.57 However, as we have seen, presenting detailed evidence in a play is a certain formula for inert drama. A better strategy for theatrical success is to make the drama and characters so compelling that the audience willingly suspends its disbelief, saving skepticism for postplay discussion. This play was the first of Goodman’s to be produced. A 34-yearold freelance writer who had been a student at Columbia University before serving in World War I, he entered his play, performed by Columbia’s Morningside Players, in the Second National Long Play Tournament, resulting in a single performance at the Craig Theatre on May 13, 1931. After winning, it opened on Broadway the following February. The conceit of the play is that black porter Sambo Rutherford wrestles John Wilkes Booth’s pistol away, saving Lincoln from assassination. When the president rejects calls for the death penalty against the leaders of the Confederacy by the Radical Republicans, they plan to impeach him, after which they will deal with the South. Thaddeus Stevens indicates their vindictive motives by telling his coconspirators

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(“diabolically,” according to the stage directions) “we will ruin them and then let the niggers rule them.”58 The second act takes place nearly two years later, after Lincoln’s veto of Stevens’ reconstruction bill has been overridden. A variety of White House vignettes provides illustrations of Lincoln’s mercy, including the familiar story of his pardoning a soldier who fell asleep and his suggesting to Mrs. Jefferson Davis a way of freeing her husband from prison. Although the White House has received 180,000 letters of support, Lincoln asks that they be kept secret as quite a few suggest a willingness to use violence if necessary. Unfortunately, his wife sneaks three of them out, foolishly hoping to help her husband by giving them to Secretary of War Stanton. The grounds for impeachment are essentially the same as those that were actually used against Andrew Johnson. However, at the last minute another article is added charging Lincoln with treason. Act two ends sensationally with General Grant arresting the president as riots are taking place in major Northern cities. The final act is set three months later. Skipping over the testimony in the Senate trial, it begins with the final summations. Although the threats of violence in the letters are the main evidence of Lincoln’s involvement in a treasonous conspiracy, they are only briefly referred to in Benjamin Butler’s speech. Coupled with Mary’s disappearance from the play after she makes off with the letters, this attenuates the dramatic effect of the revelation. To increase the tension, the playwright has Lincoln himself summarize the defense case. A roll-call vote on the treason charge results in acquittal by the same one-vote margin that saved Andrew Johnson in the actual trial. Goodman tries to add suspense to the lengthy roll call of 54 senators by making the final and decisive vote that of Senator James Grimes who has arrived late due to a stroke he had suffered two days earlier. In the Johnson trial, the decisive vote was by Senator Edmund Ross. The play concludes with final ironic twist when, before the vote on the remaining articles can take place, a shot from a spectator kills Lincoln, thereby restoring the play’s world more or less back to the real one. In an epilogue, “Taps” is played after which the curtain rises to reveal a silhouetted statue of Lincoln while “America” is sung. Critical reaction was generally positive. Praising “an extraordinarily fine play,” Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times thought that while “holding Lincoln in the highest esteem, it is also profoundly moving.” Time was excited by the last act, believing that “your scalp is indeed a tough one if it fails to tingle when the deciding vote is about to be cast.” Only Joseph Wood Krutch was dissatisfied with the

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play’s “tepid quality,” because the original idea behind the play was weakened by its conclusion that little would have changed. However reasonable that may be, “it seems hardly worthwhile to change history at all if one is merely going to change it into something so much like its original self.”59 Despite the critical praise, the play failed at the box office, closing after only 21 performances. It seems to have since disappeared from the repertory. Krutch’s review suggests the major problem that Goodman proved unable to solve. If Lincoln was so great a president, how could his actions have been virtually identical to those of Andrew Johnson, ranked near the bottom in every survey of historians, even to the firing of Stanton and failed attempts to replace him with Generals Grant and Sherman? Despite the failure of Goodman’s play, some version of the question its title asks still fascinates the public. In a recent article, historian Eric Foner writes that whenever he delivers a lecture about this time period, an audience member will ask what would have happened had Lincoln lived. The impossibility of answering this has not prevented historians, Foner included, from trying to do so. Foner’s answer reflects a changed consensus among scholars, although not necessarily the general public, about Reconstruction. At the time Goodman (as well as the other playwrights we have examined so far) wrote, the predominant view among historians and the public was supportive of Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction as advocated by Andrew Johnson. This would have returned the Southern states to the Union quickly through a policy of leniency as opposed to that of the revenge-seeking Radicals who achieved their goal by turning over the government of the former Confederate states to incompetent former slaves, unscrupulous carpetbaggers, and a few whites willing to cooperate with them. Today, argues Foner, many historians view Reconstruction as a well-intentioned albeit flawed experiment whose failure postponed resolution of the issue of racial injustice. Unlike Johnson, however, a politician whose stubbornness and racism alienated Republicans of all viewpoints, Lincoln had demonstrated a capacity for intellectual growth. For example, by April 1865, he had publicly supported giving the vote to educated, property-owning blacks, as well as to those who had served in the Union army. Unfortunately, an assassin’s bullet removed the possibility of Lincoln’s finding a way to work with the Radicals, replacing him with a president unable to rise to the challenge of Reconstruction.60 Whatever speculation we might have about this subject, we can see considerable consistency in the picture of Lincoln presented in the plays examined so far. All depict a heroic, merciful Lincoln, virtually

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without flaws, opposed by a vengeful or cowardly opposition. Thaddeus Stevens is particularly singled out as a villainous opponent, yet even his portrait has been modified during the past 50 years. Hans Trefousse’s biography of Stevens argues that the Radicals protected Lincoln from attacks by conservatives when he did end slavery by presenting him as a moderate. Like Foner, Trefousse believes Lincoln’s position was constantly evolving with “Stevens always ahead, demanding further progress, Lincoln behind, but catching up in the end.” Even the view of Stevens as maliciously vindictive was exaggerated by his critics. As for his advocacy of strong measures against the South, “this was not vindictiveness, it was a matter of democratic principle.”61 The plays also depict their black characters in stereotypes common to the period. Those used by Dixon have already been discussed. Drinkwater’s use of dialect for William Custis was perhaps one reason the television adaptation omitted that character At first, Goodman’s portrayal of him as Lincoln’s savior seems enlightened, but the character’s name, Sambo Rutherford, suggests otherwise. Unlike the white characters, whose dialogue in the script is indicated by their surnames, only Rutherford’s given name is used. When ordered to leave Lincoln’s box in the opening scene, “with the expression of a hurt child [he] shuffles off.” After the porter saves Lincoln’s life, his reply to the president’s question of what he likes least is “ha’d work.”62 The plays are also united in their negative portrayals of Mary Lincoln and their advocacy of a strong presidency to combat a Congress that is either ineffective or malicious. Would these interpretations change during the New Deal? Ellsworth P. Conkle’s Prologue to Glory is a direct result of theNew Deal’s Federal Theatre Project. Rather than setting the play during Lincoln’s presidency, Conkle uses eight scenes from Lincoln’s youth to show his development from an intellectually curious but aimless 22-year-old working odd jobs into a budding politician. Instead of showing the success and tragic ending of a great president, the play attempts to locate the source of that greatness. In the opening scene, Abe’s reading is discouraged by his father who tells him “you ain’t goin’ t’ git nowhere in this world reading.”63 A visiting stranger named Denton Offut then offers Abe a job setting up a store in New Salem. Although Tom Lincoln urges his son to stay and learn carpentry instead, Abe heeds his stepmother’s advice to be more ambitious and take the job. The day of his arrival, Abe immediately wins over New Salem’s residents with his storytelling and by outwrestling local champion Jack Armstrong who then declares Abe

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“officially natcherlized.”64 Ann Rutledge then rushes in, accidentally bumping into Abe. As the two quickly develop an attraction, she asks him to participate in a debate about whether the bee or ant is more valuable. At first he resists her ambitions for him due to his satisfaction with being a clerk, a position “two notches higher’n any situation my pa ever had.”65 After Ann points out that his lack of income (the store is deeply in debt) means that no girl will marry him, he agrees to speak. At the debate, he counters his opponent’s serious arguments for the bee with humor, followed by an appealing if irrelevant plea to improve transportation and commerce on the Sangamon River. When he then impetuously announces his candidacy for the state legislature, Ann is won over, allowing Abe to walk her home. As the second act begins, Offut has skipped town, leaving Abe to pay the store’s debts. Despite this, Ann accepts his proposal of marriage. On the campaign trail, he is gaining support by contrasting his humble origins and concern for the average voter with the indifference of his out-of-touch opponent. During a campaign stop, he is informed that Ann is seriously ill and rushes home. She dies with Abe at her bedside, leaving him distraught. Having lost the election as well, he decides to return home to his family. At the urging of his friend, Bowling Green, however, he instead goes to Springfield to study the law, ending the play. Because the point of the Federal Theatre Project was to give the public access to live theater during the Depression, the Broadway run had a top ticket price of one dollar, which may have contributed to its successful 21-week run. This was followed by a multi-city tour. Even though Brooks Atkinson wrote that Prologue to Glory “has much to recommend it,” New York critics were generally dismissive. Atkinson’s modest praise was followed by comments such as “Conkle’s Lincoln has been sentimentalized in the easy manner of folk-drama.” For Time, “the story of Lincoln’s youth is not dramatic, that Lincoln is sentimentalized.”66 Reaction on the road, however, was quite positive. A critic in New Orleans, noting the numerous curtain calls prompted by the enthusiastic audience, thought the play “the best thing the Federal Players have yet done.” Even more enthusiastic was Burns Mantle who praised it in the Chicago Daily Tribune as “one of the finest, because one of the simplest and truest and most reasonable, of our biographical dramas.”67 He liked the play so much that he included it in his yearly best play series, the only Federal Theatre Project work so honored. The most unusual critic was J. Parnell Thomas, a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee, who wrote an article

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denouncing the play because its depiction of Lincoln’s disagreements with established office-holders indicated to him that “this is simply a propaganda play to prove that all politicians are crooked.”68 One might wonder how such a comment could be made about a play so focused on Lincoln’s personal life that it is nearly devoid of political content. The answer is that Thomas’s committee was staunchly opposed to the very idea of a government-run theater. His criticism was part of what would become a successful campaign to end the theater project. It again demonstrates the pressures on playwrights to avoid departing from conventional views of presidents. Lincoln’s romance with Ann Rutledge was becoming an important theme in plays and films. It had been used in D. W. Griffith’s movie, Abraham Lincoln, and would be essential to the plots of both the play and film versions of Abe Lincoln in Illinois, as well as John Ford’s movie, Young Mr. Lincoln. The reasons for its appeal are apparent. A tragic love story is very attractive to audiences. It is easier for most people to identify with this Lincoln than with the heroic president. Ann is a far more sympathetic character than the aristocratic and difficult Mary Todd. Finally, the fact that so little is known about the actual relationship between the two gives considerable license to an author’s imagination. In Conkle’s view, it is Ann who is responsible for starting Lincoln’s political career. It is only at her urging that he runs for the state legislature, almost in spite of himself. As one of the characters puts it just after her death, “he was out after that ’lection mainly to shine bright in her eyes.”69 Unfortunately, the play is forced to do violence to the actual chronology of events in order to make this point. In fact, Lincoln’s unsuccessful run for the state legislature took place in 1832. After that, he continued to be active in politics, and soon after the store failed in 1833, he was named village postmaster. The next year he ran again for the state legislature, this time successfully. It was not until 1835 that he had courted Ann Rutledge, who died that same year.70 Thus, Conkle’s story that an unambitious Lincoln would have been satisfied to remain a store clerk, but for his desire to marry Ann is a gross mischaracterization of the politically ambitious future president. Nevertheless, this picture of a reluctant Lincoln would continue to be a staple of plays about him. It fits in very well with the image of Lincoln as a man of the people. Although Prologue to Glory is largely forgotten today, it had a significant afterlife with numerous community theater productions, several radio versions and at least four television adaptations, most notably one on General Electric Theater in 1956.

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Of all the Lincoln plays, the most durable has been Robert Sherwood’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois, which covers the 30 years before Lincoln left Springfield to assume the presidency. This length of time allows as much as 20 years to pass between scenes. The audience’s familiarity with Lincoln’s life permits Sherwood to do this without having to explain everything that occurred during the gap. Sherwood’s interest in Lincoln went back to when he was thirteen and entered an essay contest commemorating the centennial of Lincoln’s birth. So determined was he to get to the essence of Lincoln, that the published play included a 61-page essay, “The Substance of Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” that described the historical basis for each scene and explained and justified every deviation from actual events. Because the play is “about the solidification of Lincoln himself,” all the other characters “had to be used, for dramatic purposes, not as people important in themselves but as sources of light, each one being present only for the purpose of casting a beam” to illuminate Lincoln’s development.71 The opening scene introduces the young shopkeeper and raises the issues that will face him throughout the play. During a late-night lesson from schoolteacher Mentor Graham, Abe awkwardly reads from the debate between John Calhoun and Daniel Webster about whether states have a right to secede from the Union. Then turning to Lincoln’s lack of prospects due to his debt-ridden store, Graham tells him that he can only succeed by leaving New Salem. Abe demurs due to his fear of crowds and cities. He ends the scene by reading Keats’ “On Death,” revealing a preoccupation with mortality. Recommendations from Abe’s friends convince the governor’s son, Ninian Edwards, to travel to New Salem to ask him to run for the state legislature. After Abe’s intervention saves Ninian from a beating at the hands of Jack Armstrong and the Clary’s Grove Boys, he convinces a reluctant Lincoln to become a candidate. When he leaves, Abe seeks to comfort Ann Rutledge, whose fiancé, having left town some time ago, has written that he will not soon return. Abe declares his love for her. Surprised, Ann seems receptive, but asks for time to consider the changed circumstances. Sherwood concedes in his essay that there is no evidence that Lincoln’s love for Ann influenced his decision to seek office. Nevertheless, he writes, “I don’t think I’m stretching my license too far by suggesting this.” For him, “all that really matters is that she died.”72 In the play, her death is kept offstage; we only see a despairing Abe returning home to tell his friends. Five years later, a still-dispirited Lincoln is practicing law in Springfield. He declines an invitation to speak at an abolitionist rally

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because his fear of war is even greater than his opposition to slavery. How he overcomes this paralyzing internal struggle is the play’s main theme, which Abe states directly to his friends: “You talk about civil war—there seems to be one going on inside me all the time. Both sides are right and both are wrong and equal in strength.”73 Sherwood himself was going through a similar internal crisis at this time, having written an antiwar play, Idiot’s Delight, just two years prior to Abe Lincoln in Illinois. The onset of the Second World War so changed his thinking that he later joined the Roosevelt administration as a speechwriter, playing an important role in the formation of the Office of War Information and the Voice of America. Six months later, Ninian Edwards’ wife Elizabeth is trying to convince her sister, Mary Todd, of the unsuitability of Lincoln as a possible husband, because of his humble background and lack of substantial income. Nevertheless, Mary intends to accept the proposal she expects that evening, believing that Abe will go far “if I am strong enough to make him go on. . . . I want the chance to shape a new life, for myself, and for my husband.”74 Abe then arrives, but, just as the audience saw none of the couple’s courtship, they see nothing of his proposal and her acceptance, which take place in between scenes. However, on the day of both his scheduled wedding and the funeral of his oldest friend, Bowling Green, Lincoln is so paralyzed by internal conflict that he is unable to deliver the eulogy. Unaware that Abe is planning to cancel the wedding, Ninian tells him that the marriage will be a success as long as Mary’s ambitions, including one that her husband will become president, can be kept in check. “Don’t let her talk you into any gallant crusades or wild-goose chases.”75 After Ninian’s departure, Abe engages in a debate with law clerk Billy Herndon over what to do about slavery, in what Sherwood called “an imaginary interlude” that serves to dramatize Lincoln’s own inner turmoil.76 As with many of the play’s crucial events, the breakup scene between Abe and Mary is left to our imagination. To supply an epiphany resolving Abe’s internal conflict, Sherwood invents an encounter with fictional friend Seth Gale on the prairie near New Salem as Lincoln aimlessly wanders in the hope of finding inner peace. Gale is traveling to the Oregon territory with his wife, son, and a black man who was freed by Seth’s father 20 years earlier. If slavery is extended to Oregon, Seth will fight for its independence and freedom. Fearing that their seriously ill son will soon die, the Gales ask Lincoln to say a prayer for him. Inspired, he does so, then rushes off to locate the local doctor. In a neat stage trick, Sherwood says nothing at this point of the fate of the Gales, leaving the audience

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to fear the worst as the scene ends. Set several days later, the next scene shows Abe apologizing to Mary and promising to be steadfast should she agree to marriage. Renouncing the temptation to escape, he now realizes that “the way I must go is the way you have always wanted me to go.”77 She accepts, declaring her love. With Lincoln’s transformation from dispirited, indecisive young man to heroic, aspiring politician complete, the play is able to skip to his 1858 debates against Stephen A. Douglas. In order to make the relatively brief excerpts more dramatic, Sherwood took some of the words he put in Douglas’s mouth from more extreme partisans. For Lincoln, he added language from a variety of speeches and letters. In a crucial line Lincoln denounces the policy of leaving slavery alone. “This is the complacent policy of indifference to evil, and that policy I cannot but hate.”78 The 1938 audience would have had no difficulty realizing that these words could just as easily be applied to Nazism and Fascism as to slavery. All is now ready for Lincoln’s presidential candidacy. Telling the story of Seth Gale to his sons, he reveals that the doctor did reach the family in time to save their son, who grew into a man with a large farm and his own family. Now ambitious enough to seek the presidency, Lincoln has not told his wife that a delegation is about to arrive to assess his suitability. She is insulted, but they are impressed enough with him to conclude that he is their man. On election night, the Lincolns, along with friends and campaign aides, anxiously await the results. Mary is so on edge that she throws a tantrum, leading Abe to curse at her for embarrassing them both. Despite apologizing, he sends her home, after which she declares that the day she dreamed about since childhood has now been ruined. As Abe’s victory becomes apparent, the looming threat of Southern secession casts a pall on the celebration. In his essay, Sherwood concedes that there was in fact little suspense about the election’s outcome. The nation’s uncertainty was over the likelihood of civil war. The play comes to a stirring conclusion with Lincoln’s speech to a cheering crowd as he departs from Springfield to assume the presidency amid fears of assassination. As in the debates, Sherwood blends material from other speeches into the actual words used that day, transforming what was a largely personal address into one that ends with a restatement of the issues thematic to the play. “I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return,” he tells those gathered, but stresses more the gravity of the nation’s plight with the very ideals of the Declaration of Independence being threatened. The train departs to the strains of “Glory, Glory Hallelujah.”79

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Running for 472 performances and winning the Pulitzer Prize, Abe Lincoln in Illiniois was a great success. For Richard Watts it was “one of the most stirring of American plays.” Comparing it to Drinkwater and Conkle’s depictions of Lincoln’s life, Brooks Atkinson believed that “neither has imparted to it the high purpose that Mr. Sherwood gives it by underscoring its current significance.” Sidney Whipple called it “the most searching, the most human, the most compelling stage picture of the Great Emancipator of our time.”80 A few critics expressed reservations. In an otherwise favorable review, Joseph Wood Krutch wrote that the play’s “forward march is sometimes slow, and if the didacticism is never fatuous, the stateliness does not always escape a certain ponderosity.” John Mason Brown quipped that the use of so many of Lincoln’s own words should have given him a credit as co-author. Heywood Broun backhandedly complimented “the finest piece of propaganda ever to come into our theater.” Unlike the Pulitzer jury, the New York Drama Critics Circle was so divided between Abe Lincoln in Illinois and The Little Foxes that it failed to give an award.81 The message critics such as Atkinson referred to is the play’s advocacy by analogy of American involvement in the fight against Hitler and Mussolini. The year the play opened, 1938, was also the year of Hitler’s annexation of Austria and the Munich agreement. According to Raymond Massey, the actor for whom the play was written, “If you substitute the word dictatorship for the word slavery throughout Sherwood’s script, it becomes electric for our time.” Sherwood told Archibald MacLeish that the play was written “primarily for the purpose of expressing (in your words), ‘the conviction that there are final things for which democracy will fight.’ ”82 The illness of Seth Gale’s son can be seen as a metaphor for the dilemma facing the country at the time Sherwood wrote the play. By agreeing, after some initial reluctance, to say a prayer for the boy and then searching for a doctor, Abe accepts the responsibility of saving a sick nation. In its depiction of Lincoln as a complex character with flaws to overcome, the play is a considerable advance over its predecessors, yet is able to retain the heroic president by ending just as he assumes office. However, because the focus of the play is on Abe’s internal struggle, Sherwood is forced to find ways of dramatizing it through external events even if they must be invented. This is more difficult because he keeps key moments such as Ann’s death, Abe’s proposal to Mary, and the Republican nominating convention offstage. To heighten dramatic interest, he retains the mythic image of Lincoln as politically unambitious until inspired by Ann Rutledge and urged

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on by Mary Todd, thus exaggerating their roles considerably. Mary continues to be portrayed negatively, evento the extent of an invented scene in which she behaves embarrassingly on election night. Abe’s internal struggle is resolved in a single stroke by the fictional prairie encounter with the Gale family. Although Sherwood adapted his play for the screen, again starring Raymond Massey, significant changes were made, primarily to make the movie more entertaining to audiences. Rather than opening with a depressed Lincoln discussing his future with Mentor Graham and reading “On Death,” that scene is truncated and moved to a later place in the movie. Instead, the film begins in a log cabin as Thomas Lincoln derides his son’s reading Shakespeare. After his father leaves for a job, Abe tells his stepmother that he is moving away. En route to New Orleans, Abe’s boat capsizes in New Salem. There, in a comic scene that has him chasing escaped pigs, he literally runs into Ann Rutledge, who so charms him that he accepts an offer to manage a store in town. In another added scene, he holds hands with Ann on her deathbed as the two declare their love for each other. Most disappointing to Sherwood was the elimination of the critical scene with Seth Gale.83 Perhaps due to its competition with the successful John Ford film, Young Mr. Lincoln, the movie version failed to make a profit. In 1945, NBC broadcast a three-part television version of the play live. Raymond Massey starred in a 60-minute version on ABC in 1950. Unfortunately, neither was recorded. An 80-minute television production starring Jason Robards was broadcast on Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1964 and is available at the Paley Center. Because the play’s underlying question—When does a cause justify going to war or risking one’s life—is a timeless one, Abe Lincoln in Illinois remains relevant enough to be revived. It is likely no coincidence that the first major revival, scheduled for the play’s twenty-fifth anniversary in 1963, occurred during the civil rights struggle. In his review, Howard Taubman pointed out “the remarkable pertinence of Lincoln’s impassioned appeal for the rights of all people, including the Negro, then enslaved and now fighting for equality of opportunity.” However, the play itself was beginning to seem outdated to critics less enamored of heroic presidents, even those as obviously great as Lincoln. Despite his praise, Taubman thought the play as a whole “just a little too sentimental and worshipful.” The most dismissive verdict was pronounced by Richard Gilman who wondered “what a race of children we must have been to have once admired and to tolerate now this thoroughgoing insult to intelligence.”84 The revival closed after 40 performances.

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By the time of Lincoln Center’s 1993 version, the play was seen by many as little more than a historical curiosity. Although some shared Carol Gelderman’s view that important parallels remained between the issues presented by Sherwood and “today’s America, a country grappling with its international role in the post—cold war era and unsolved social issues at home,” even the play’s lead actor, Sam Waterston, thought before taking the part that “we can’t do this creaky old high school pageant.” After some reconsideration, however, he decided that “it’s a magnificent play that knows Lincoln very, very deeply.”85 Critics generally agreed with Waterston’s original opinion. Despite his admiration of the play’s spectacular ending, David Richards found what preceded it “earnest but plodding.” Because Lincoln’s greatness is assumed from the start, his doubts and moodiness are merely minor blemishes on an unsurprising path to greatness. Vincent Canby likewise found Sherwood’s Lincoln more myth than man, concealing the more serious contradictions and complexity of the real person. “Sherwood’s Lincoln is a grand variation on the figure that can be seen at Disney World,” Michael Kuchwara concurred, observing that rather than probing deeply into Lincoln’s character, the play was a standard biography, with Lincoln’s psychological problems more hinted at than elucidated. The Christian Science Monitor’s favorable review concluding that the play “is perfect for families” hardly contradicts the majority opinion.86 This revival also ran for only 40 performances. While Abe Lincoln in Illinois is far more complex in its portrayal of Lincoln than any of the earlier plays about him, it is still too worshipful for today’s more skeptical audiences. Even on the occasion of the 2009 bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, there was no New York production. One reviewer wrote of the most prominent 2009 revival, by Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, that the cast “struggles under the weight of Sherwood’s earnest, pedagogical script.”87 Have more recent playwrights been able to present more complex versions of Lincoln in order to make their plays of more than passing interest? We turn next to the years since the end of World War II to find out.

Lincoln in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century No new play about Lincoln followed Abe Lincoln in Illinois to Broadway until Norman Corwin’s The Rivalry in 1959. About six

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years earlier, Corwin had conceived the idea of adapting the Lincoln— Douglas debates for the theater. Because most of the words would come from the actual debates, he resisted the obvious label, but, unable to think of anything better than “a new work,” ultimately gave in to the producer’s desire to call it a play.88 He hoped to show “not the Lincoln sitting majestically in a memorial, but the man working in front of the people,” as seen by his contemporaries, as well as demonstrating that “the greatness of Douglas has been underestimated.”89 At first titled Tonight! Lincoln vs. Douglas, it began with readings in homes, then opened in Hollywood in 1955. A tour of 72 cities began two years later with Raymond Massey and Martin Gabel playing Lincoln and Douglas. When the play was scheduled for Broadway, with Corwin directing, Massey was unable to agree to terms and was replaced by Richard Boone. As the play toured, the intensification of the battle over school desegregation gave it a more contemporary interest. Its first stop in Vancouver, British Columbia, for example, coincided with headlines of the crisis in Little Rock. By using a debate format, The Rivalry also had a built-in dramatic conflict missing from many of the other Lincoln plays. Corwin’s justification can be found in his notes on the play: “No other platform in history pitted against each other a protagonist so gifted with vision, humor, and broad sympathy, as Lincoln or an opponent more polished, resourceful, adroit, and skilled in debate than Douglas. Their personalities, language and styles of speech, as well as their ideas, are in constant conflict: their arguments are constantly rebutted, renewed, attacked and counter-attacked from fresh angles. The text is not just a series of speeches, but a battle of world importance.”90 For the first time, reporters from major newspapers around the country had converged to cover a senatorial election. Although Douglas won the seat, the debates gave Lincoln a national reputation. However, the length and format presented significant problems for any would-be theatrical adapter. Seven three-hour debates had to be condensed into a theatrically manageable amount of time. Rather than the statements and rebuttals of a minute or two of modern political debates, the 1858 events began with an hour’s opening statement, followed by a 90-minute rebuttal and a half-hour reply by the first speaker. Despite the ability of each to ask questions of the other, the debates more resembled 21 speeches than the give-andtake expected today or even in the 1950s. Corwin found the questions asked so lengthy and undramatic that he omitted them entirely. Long speeches had to be rearranged into far shorter attacks and

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counterattacks. He self-deprecatingly described writing the play as “merely condensing, arranging, adapting and dramatizing a big fat stenographic record.”91 To help the audience understand the context of the debates, Douglas’s wife Adele acts as its surrogate. In conversations with her husband and asides to the audience, she provides information likely to be unfamiliar to mid-twentieth-century audiences. Considerable background is provided in the play’s opening scene, with a long conversation between Stephen and Adele, which also reveals a major problem for the playwright. Because Lincoln’s views have clearly prevailed, contemporary audiences can only see the debates as an unequal contest with a predetermined winner. For example, after praising Lincoln as “the ablest and most honest” of the Republicans, Douglas denounces that party for wanting to turn Illinois “into a Negro-worshipping, Negro-equality community.” Douglas’s opposition to racial equality is stressed throughout the play. One of his speeches concludes, “the signers of the Declaration of Independence never supposed it possible that their language would be used in an attempt to make this a mixed nation of Indians, Negroes, Whites and Mongrels,” to which Lincoln replies that such a reading is likely to lead to one stating “all men are created equal except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.”92 Making Douglas even less sympathetic, during a break between debates, he defends himself against Adele’s warning of the poor public image he presents by traveling in a private railroad car. At the start of the second act, Adele quotes from partisan newspapers, wishing for “some neutral ground, where an impartial critic would say how it looks to him.”93 She has several conversations with Lincoln, admiring the aptness of his stories and wondering how he can be so calm in the face of personal attacks in the press. As the play progresses, her original view of Lincoln as merely an ambitious local politician evolves into respect and even admiration when she finds herself unable to rebut his arguments. At the conclusion of the debates, her recounting to the audience of events leading up to the 1860 presidential election is interrupted by her husband’s news that divisions in the Democratic Party have made Lincoln’s victory a certainty. Stephen’s acceptance of slavery and inequality in the debates is redeemed by his courageous campaigning against secession in the South even though it will destroy any electoral support he might have there. When the newly elected president asks an ailing Douglas to return to Illinois to fight secession, he agrees but dies in the effort. Adele remembers discounting Lincoln’s arguments

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“when it seemed to me that denying one man’s rights couldn’t possibly lead to trouble, so long as that man was inferior to others.” The play ends with Lincoln, “now in a dim ghostly light,” stating “whether it is right or wrong to trample on the rights of others—that is the real issue . . . the issue that will continue in this country long after the poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent.”94 Most reviewers, while expressing the reservation that this was not a play in the conventional sense, found that it made history come alive. Brooks Atkinson was the play’s foremost proponent, writing that “in every respect, The Rivalry is a stirring piece of work.” Harold Clurman was pleased to discover that Lincoln and Douglas’s “lines” were better than those written by contemporary dramatists. Kenneth Tynan enjoyed the depiction of history despite the lack of suspense and Corwin’s failure to remind the audience that Lincoln was a shrewd enough politician to have been less than consistent in his arguments. Although Richard Watts found the play’s appeal “more historical than dramatic,” he too enjoyed the play. It proved, despite the impossibility of taking Douglas’s arguments seriously anymore, that “America did produce some giants in those days.” Expressing the dissenting view was Time, which thought the play “too static to suggest history in the making.” The ideas debated were certainly important, but the “great protagonists seem a little like daguerreotypes of themselves.”95 Audiences seemed to agree more with this last opinion, since the play closed after a disappointing 81 performances and a loss of sixty-five thousand dollars. In its image of Lincoln, The Rivalry is no departure from the heroic president portrayed previously on stage despite Corwin’s expressed wish to avoid the majestic Lincoln of the Memorial. The original casting of Raymond Massey, whose starring roles in the theatrical and film versions of Abe Lincoln in Illinois had transformed him into the very personification of Lincoln to much of the public, shows how closely this play was tied to already existing myths. Richard Boone clarified his characterization of Lincoln, telling an interviewer that “people know him primarily as the man on the penny or as the statue. My problem is to make Lincoln a living, breathing man.”96 Lincoln is shown to be both the advocate against slavery and the folksy, storytelling Man of the People. Should anyone doubt his heroism, it is underlined in the play’s conclusion in which he is framed “in a dim ghostly light.” As for flaws, the audience will not find any of consequence. Columnist Max Lerner’s critique was particularly incisive. He wished Corwin had included Lincoln’s opposition to blacks and whites living

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together under conditions of social and political equality, or his belief in white superiority, cited by supporters of segregation at the time of the play’s run, “because it is better to have the whole Lincoln than only part of him. For in his own day the whole Lincoln was pretty good.”97 It is not difficult to find examples in the debates of Lincoln reflecting the racism of his time. In the first debate he stated, “I have no disposition to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together on terms of respect, social and political equality.” In Quincy, he quoted from one of his own speeches, which argued, “I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races: that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office.”98 As a result, a contest, already stacked by history in Lincoln’s favor, becomes even more so. Just how stacked can be seen from the audience reaction during the play’s pre-Broadway tour. After beginning on the West Coast, it moved to Lubbock and then to San Angelo, Texas. “For the first time,” wrote Corwin from San Angelo, “there was applause following Douglas’s momentous line, ‘Well let me make this clear—I am opposed to Negro equality!’ It was from only one person, and when nobody followed his lead, he quickly fell silent. As in Lubbock there was general and loud applause when Lincoln made his most powerful attacks against racism.”99 With the debates unable to demonstrate Douglas’s greatness, that is left to an epilogue that describes his valiant efforts to preserve the Union after he has lost the presidential election. Because The Rivalry is an effectively dramatized history lesson with good parts for actors, it has become the most revived of all the Lincoln plays. Hallmark Hall of Fame presented a televised adaptation starring Arthur Hill and Charles Durning in 1975. A 2008 limitedrun revival by L. A. Theatre Works, featuring David Strathairn and Paul Giamatti, was timed to coincide with the presidential campaign, even including a pre-performance live viewing of the third Barack Obama—John McCain debate. It was also revived off Broadway in 2009, and at Washington, DC’s Ford’s Theatre in 2010. Mark Van Doren originally conceived what was to become The Last Days of Lincoln as a long narrative poem. After several years of consideration, however, he decided that what most mattered was Lincoln’s tragic death, which would best be presented as a drama. During a weeklong trip in 1954, without books or notes available,

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he wrote the play in a burst of inspiration. With all the characters except Lincoln speaking in verse, the play starts and ends at his deathbed, returning in between to the preceding weeks. Its six scenes focus on conflict between Lincoln and the Radical Republicans over Reconstruction. In his autobiography, Van Doren summarizes his theme: “The entire reference of the play was to the time after the war, the time Lincoln did not live to see. The irony and the pity were in that.” He hoped to depict Lincoln as the Man of the People, “the common man whom no other man resembles.”100 As Lincoln lies dying, the audience is made privy to a conversation between Radical Senator Charles Sumner and Supreme Court Justice David Davis. Seeing the assassin as an agent of the Confederacy, Sumner seeks “vengeance / twice bloodier than theirs.” In response, Davis asks “what Southerner in his senses / would have removed the one man among us / he could most count on to remain his friend.”101 The second scene flashes back three weeks to the White House where another Radical, Senator Benjamin Wade, warns Lincoln that he and Sumner are worried that General Grant will be too lenient after Confederate General Lee surrenders. He then quotes Lincoln’s second inaugural address (“sarcastically intoning,” according to the stage directions), “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” Lincoln replies that although he needed the Radicals’ “fanaticism” to win the war, unless Southerners can regain self-government, “there will be no sense in this war.”102 Lincoln visits Grant in the third scene, asking, “Am I soft, General? And if so, dangerous,” to which Grant responds, “No softer, sir, than I am.” To the general, Lincoln is merely sensible, “and sensible men, I think, cannot be dangerous.”103 Grant intends to allow the Confederate army to return home after Lee surrenders. Secretary of War Stanton is appalled by these terms, sarcastically wondering “who surrendered to who [sic] at Appomattox.” He believes that the damage inflicted by the rebels deserves immediate retribution. “Now is the time / to break them into bits. You leave them whole.”104 One might expect the tension to build when three prominent Radical senators confront Lincoln over the contents of his speech from the balcony of Ford’s Theatre. Instead, a climactic confrontation is attenuated as the president evades the question, then escorts them out. Instead he describes his position to his friend, Joshua Speed, who is there by Van Doren’s use of poetic license for him “to be there as Horatio has to be in Hamlet.”105 Lincoln explains that “I must try to save the Negroes from Sumner and his friends,” whose desire to give them the vote immediately conflicts with Lincoln’s opinion that they must first be educated, however long that may take, before receiving

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voting rights. When the final scene returns to Lincoln’s deathbed, Speed praises Lincoln’s genius and strength in what is effectively a eulogy. Lincoln had the strength to disappoint those expecting triumphant rhetoric. Instead, “he was strongest / in his last words he spoke there on the lawn / to the bloodthirsty crowd.”106 Van Doren’s play picks up the themes common to so many of its predecessors. Lincoln is portrayed as the Man of the People and the merciful leader opposed to the revenge-minded Radicals. The unfavorable picture of his wife demonstrates his infinite patience as he forgives her irrational jealous that in one scene publicly embarrasses him. He notes the hardships she has undergone, including the death of their son Willie, and the unfair public criticism she has received. The Last Days of Lincoln has had very little performance history, partly due to bad luck. In 1959, producer Alexander Cohen optioned the play, scheduling an opening for the following year. However, the play was a casualty of a labor dispute that canceled much of the Broadway season, and did not debut until an October 1961 performance at Florida State University. Ironically, in a play about Lincoln that included a black actor for the first time at the then-segregated university, only whites were admitted during the campus run.107 It was not until a single performance as part of an off—Broadway matinee series that the play made its New York debut. Because the play seems designed more to be read than performed, there has not been a major revival since. The published version was more prominently received, with Charles Poore’s review praising the “glowing clarity” of its “six tense scenes.” The play was included in published anthologies prior to its appearance on the New York stage.108 In 1972, V. J. Longhi’s The Lincoln Mask had a run of nineteen previews followed by eight performances on Broadway. It begins with Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre the night of his assassination, even including excerpts from Our American Cousin, then flashes back to tell the story of Abe and Mary Lincoln. Longhi hoped to change the predominant view of Lincoln’s wife, whom he felt to be “the most maligned woman in American history,” to one of a charming high-strung “pioneer for women’s rights.”109 Reviews, however, were brutal, finding the play overly preachy, historically inaccurate, and so poorly written that the dialogue was unintentionally funny. Clive Barnes described the play as recapping “a few mildly inaccurate historical vignettes,” while failing to illuminate any aspect of Lincoln who is portrayed as having “all the virtues except credibility.” Brendan Gill was equally scathing, noting such historical inaccuracies as Mary Todd quoting lines from Browning 15 years before they were written, and dialogue that

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included Lincoln telling Mary as they departed for Ford’s Theatre, “I’ve always loved to go to the theatre with you.”110 The play, which was never published, seems to have been entirely forgotten.

One-Man Plays Since 1972, new plays about Lincoln have been quite infrequent. In New York, only two one-man shows have debuted. In 1976, Fritz Weaver starred in Saul Levitt’s Lincoln, an off—Broadway production that ran for less than two weeks. Covering Lincoln’s life from the start of his legal career through his presidency, the play sought to enliven the one-person format with such techniques as screen projections and having Lincoln comment on his Gettysburg Address as the speech played on tape. Critics thought the play covered too much ground with too-brief snippets. Mel Gussow called it “a halfhearted attempt at crossbreeding monodrama and multidrama.”111 Although its Broadway run was little longer, Herbert Mitgang’s Mister Lincoln has proven more lasting than Levitt’s work. Mitgang sought to avoid the main pitfall of the genre, “a play with a lectern at dead center for high minded speeches.” Those he particularly admired were the “most dramatized, most theatrical.”112 Like so many of the other authors of plays about Lincoln, he hoped to take his subject off the pedestal, portraying him not “as a larger-than-life president in granite but as a human being.”113 In the play, he walks around, uses props, and engages in conversation with unseen others. The audience first sees Lincoln’s life flashing before him just as he is about to be shot. This beginning was particularly dramatic at Ford’s Theatre, where the play had its American premiere after first opening in Canada, and where a version for television would be taped. The remainder of the first act depicts Lincoln’s pre-presidential life in Illinois. Reminiscing about his early adulthood with folksy anecdotes, Lincoln switches to a more serious tone to explain how his witnessing of slave auctions was the root of his abolitionist views. The tale’s emotional impact is softened when it ends with the winning bidder proving to be an abolitionist minister who immediately frees the purchased slave. Dominating the first act, this storytelling Lincoln is very much the Man of the People of the plays previously examined. However, Mitgang’s portrait is different in a number of important details. Because he believed that recent research had “totally disproved” the Ann Rutledge romance, there is no mention of it in Mister Lincoln.114 Nor is there any

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suggestion that Lincoln so lacked ambition that he had to be prodded into running for office. With the Rutledge love interest eliminated, Mitgang substituted a far more mutual courtship between Mary and Abe than that depicted by predecessors such as Sherwood. In order to make it more romantic, however, he rearranged historical fact by attributing Lincoln’s cancellation of their engagement to a duel challenge in which he defends Mary for her anonymous letters criticizing state auditor James Shields. In fact, both the breakup and the resumption of their courtship took place prior to this incident. The second act, titled “The Liberator,” includes more speech texts than the first, including excerpts from the first and second inaugural addresses, the entire Gettysburg Address and a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Although not delivered from a lectern, this significantly sabotages Mitgang’s intention to avoid being imprisoned by “high minded speeches.” As the play concludes, Abe describes a dream in which he is assassinated to Mary. He then tells her of his love for her by reading from a Robert Burns poem. He speaks of his hopes of eventually returning to Springfield, where they can live the rest of their lives in peace. Finally, explaining how he has learned his limitations, Lincoln expresses his belief that “men weave in their own lives the garment which they must wear in the world to come.” He then dies as the music of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” plays.115 Most of the material would be familiar to the reader of a good Lincoln biography, or even to someone who had seen previous plays on the subject. The short excerpts from the debates seem a very abridged version of The Rivalry. Lincoln’s words upon departing from Springfield to assume the presidency are identical to the first few sentences used on that occasion by Sherwood. Many of the stories are recycled, such as one joke, previously used by Sherwood, about a single letter “d” being enough for the Lord but not the Todds. The president pardons some young soldiers. Although the play does discuss Lincoln’s occasional depression and his conflicts with Union generals, overall the Lincoln depicted is still the heroic president—the Man of the People, the Great Emancipator, and the Savior of the Union we have become accustomed to, with no mention of more serious flaws. Despite the limits of the genre, critics found quite a bit to like in the play. For example, Mel Gussow described it as “largely two hours of wit and common sense, jokes as well as political sagacity.” For John Beaufort, the play was “thoughtful,” but “more notable for its sense of documentary authenticity than for its dramatic structure.”116

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A Lincoln’s Birthday performance at Ford’s Theatre was taped for airing on public television, thus preserving British actor Roy Dotrice’s performance. Because the extensive use of Lincoln’s own words makes the play a good (and at 90 minutes, concise) history lesson for audiences, it is periodically revived. In 1995, New York’s Irish Arts Center presented a limited run, but the most unusual productions were by amateur actor John Brantingham, whose 50 performances over 15 years were staged not only in a variety of American cities but also in Shanghai, Taipei, Manila, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Whither Lincoln? Although there have been revivals of these plays, significant new plays about Abraham Lincoln stopped after Mr. Lincoln closed. Perhaps not coincidentally, there has also not been a major theatrical film on the subject since the movie version of Abe Lincoln in Illinois in 1940. This does not seem due to a decline in Lincoln’s presidential reputation among experts. A 2009 C-SPAN survey of leading historians rated Lincoln first among all presidents, well ahead of Washington and Franklin Roosevelt.117 President Barack Obama has regularly demonstrated his reverence for Lincoln, from the declaration of his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois, to his use of Lincoln’s Bible to be sworn into office. Books on Lincoln continue to be published in large numbers, and, as Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals proved, can even rise to the top of the best-seller list. Barry Schwartz believes that the public today has a “post—heroic mentality,” citing surveys showing significant declines in the popularity of all presidents. In the early twentieth century, Americans worshipped Lincoln excessively; today’s public has become disenchanted and cynical as debunking by the media blurs the line between the great and the ordinary. Schwartz notes the paradox: “Lincoln’s historical achievements are beyond question, but has not the egalitarianism that reduced Lincoln’s prestige also made our society more just and decent than ever before? . . . Merely to ask the question is to affirm Abraham Lincoln’s ironic place at the millennium.”118 The 2009 bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth raised the possibility of a rekindling of theatrical interest. The Rivalry had a successful limitedrun revival off Broadway. A newly renovated Ford’s Theatre reopened with a world premiere of The Heavens Are Hung in Black, a play by David Selby focusing on the five months between the death of Lincoln’s son Willie and the Emancipation Proclamation. However,

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one local publication’s annual round-up declared the play one of the year’s theatrical “lowlights.”119 After premiering in San Francisco in 2008, Abe Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party, a satire depicting a fictional trial of a teacher charged with discussing in class the possibility that Lincoln was gay, ran in the New York International Fringe Festival during the summer of 2009. Abe the Musical opened in February 2009 with two performances in Quincy, Illinois, the site of one of the Lincoln—Douglas debates and was due to reopen in New Salem the following summer.Despite a six week off-Broadway run for Abe Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party in 2010, the prospects for theatrical rejuvenation are uncertain at best. Will we finally see a more complex Lincoln in the future? What about other presidents? Is Lincoln simply being replaced with portrayals of other heroic presidents, or is something different happening? To understand how public perception of the presidency, as reflected in the theater, is changing, we need to turn to plays about other presidents.

Chapter 2 Other Heroic Presidents “A nation reveals a lot about itself by the leaders it remembers and honors, by those it rates as great and by those it forgets,” write Thomas Cronin and Michael Genovese.1 In this chapter, we will examine presidents portrayed on stage as praiseworthy. Although or perhaps because judging the quality of presidents is not something that can be done objectively, Americans have long debated which presidents to rank highly. More formal surveys of historians began with one conducted for Life magazine by Arthur Schlesinger Sr. in 1948. Despite some reputational changes, subsequent versions have shown considerable consistency in the overall rankings. Polls of the general public have varied more over time, revealing a bias in favor of recent officeholders. For example, when a 2009 Gallup Poll asked which of five presidents respondents would “regard as the greatest,” Ronald Reagan led with 24% followed by John Kennedy and Lincoln 22%, Franklin Roosevelt 18%, and Washington well behind at 9%. In comparison, a C-SPAN survey of historians taken at about the same time ranked Lincoln, Washington, and Franklin Roosevelt as its top three, with Kennedy sixth and Reagan tenth. 2 Because the plays in this chapter cover a considerably longer period than these surveys, which presidents are considered admirable enough to portray on stage will likely vary both because of new information and changes in the criteria used for evaluation. In addition, the conclusions of the previous chapter suggest that we should expect the number of plays portraying heroic presidents to decline in the late twentieth century. Which presidents are portrayed in what ways will tell us quite a bit about how Americans have perceived their leaders during the past hundred years.

Heroes of the Early Twentieth Century Although historians have generally ranked James Madison as little more than an average president3, his role in the writing and adoption

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of the Constitution make him an illustrious figure in American history. Charles Nirdlinger’s 1911 comedy The First Lady of the Land recounts his courtship of the young Quaker widow, Dolly Payne Todd4 who runs a boarding house in Philadelphia, then the nation’s capital. Because she prefers to maintain her independence rather than to depend upon the support of relatives after having been left with debts from her marriage, Dolly risks the disapproval of polite society, including that of Martha Washington, for the way she earns her living, running a boarding house. As the play begins, the House of Representatives has taken 36 ballots to decide the 1800 presidential election after an Electoral College tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Burr, Dolly’s most generous boarder, has proposed to her, but she puts him off on the grounds that his “proposal of marriage is a polite ceremonial, a mere courtesy” that has been offered to quite a few other women. 5 Nevertheless, she defends Burr against gossip, believing that “he’s never betrayed a friend, abused a foe, nor harmed a woman,” and enjoys a flirtatious friendship with him.6 After the Congress elects Jefferson, Burr laments that the new president’s excellent health and likely re-election mean “eight years of obscurity for A. Burr.” In contrast, he is so grateful to Madison for defending him in Congress that he agrees to introduce the shy representative to Mrs. Todd. He sees no reason to fear Madison as a romantic rival, noting to Dolly that “Madison never wrote anything ‘passionate’—except the Constitution.”7 At his first opportunity, however, Madison reveals that he has long admired Mrs. Todd from afar and proposes. Unable to decide between the charming Burr and the promise of a peaceful life with the dependable Madison, she puts him off as well. Her boarders suggest that she marry Madison who has been designated as the new secretary of state. Because both Jefferson and Burr are widowers, she would then be “the First Lady of the Land.” They neglect to point out that this would also be the case should she marry Vice President Burr.However, Burr’s challenge of Alexander Hamilton to a duel makes it difficult for Dolly to continue to delay her choice. When Burr renews his proposal, adding that he hopes to launch an expedition that will soon make him emperor of Mexico, Dolly replies that if he goes through with the duel, she will marry Madison. Although Burr tells her that he will shoot to miss, Hamilton is killed in the duel. His later explanation that this was an accident fails to mollify Dolly. Six months later, Jefferson’s first official dinner at the White House in the new capital of Washington, DC, provides an opportunity for

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comedic contrast between the old and new worlds. As the European guests complain about the inconveniences of the unfinished capital, they learn that Jefferson has ignored protocol in favor of a democratically informal dinner with all those invited, including the de facto hostess, Dolly Todd, equally ranked. The British minister is so offended that he storms out, vowing to “smash their tuppeny Republic.”8 He now believes the insult has freed him to openly support Burr’s scheme to take Mexico from the Spanish. What he fails to realize is that Jefferson, having obtained his correspondence with Burr, has deliberately provoked the quarrel. When Burr unexpectedly arrives, he laughingly tells the minister, “You have sacrificed an empire for a ceremony.”9 After Burr’s departure, Jefferson reads the incriminating letters to Dolly offstage. However, he forbids her from revealing this knowledge to Burr out of fear that if Burr then fled, it would be blamed on Madison. When Burr, hoping to avoid arrest for treason, is unable to see the president, he instead visits the secretary of state’s office, where he denies seeking to detach western states from the United States as part of his proposed Mexican empire. As soon as Burr exits, facing arrest and trial, Madison assures Dolly he will withhold the letters, now in his possession, thereby making conviction for treason impossible. Dolly then accepts his marriage proposal, warning him, “Don’t try to follow the twists and turns of a woman’s heart.”10 Critics generally praised what they considered an enjoyable albeit fairly lightweight show. As the New York Times critic put it, “Thin as the plot may seem the play is nevertheless an agreeable comedy, with lines of considerable brilliancy.” Clayton Hamilton similarly believed that “this slender but graceful story sustains a consistent and convincing picture of an interesting period.”11 The Broadway run was a modestly successful 64 performances. The play was popular enough that a novelization was quickly published.12 In order to make the play more appealing to audiences, Nirdlinger took events that actually occurred over a period of more than a dozen years and condensed them into about six months. Dolly Todd actually married James Madison in 1794. The House of Representatives did not choose Jefferson over Burr until 1801 and did so in Washington, not Philadelphia. Burr killed Hamilton in an 1804 duel. Finally, it was not until Jefferson’s second term in 1807 that Burr, no longer vice president, was arrested and tried for treason. As for Dolly’s acceptance of James’s proposal, it came not in person but in a letter she sent to him in Philadelphia while visiting relatives in Virginia.13 Dolly’s son by her first marriage is absent

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from the play, no doubt to avoid diverting the audience’s attention from the romantic triangle. Despite its historical inaccuracies, The First Lady of the Land is worth attention, particularly for its depiction of the influence of social relationships and norms on national politics. Its contrast between the stuffy aristocratic Europeans and the more egalitarian Americans shows how early-twentieth-century Americans wished to see themselves. One reason that Dolly was forced to make her own living was that her father had suffered financial reverses as a result of his principled decision that the Declaration of Independence required him to free the family’s slaves. Dolly’s independence and virtue are constantly stressed in the play, as is future-resident Madison’s devotion to the nation’s good, colorfully described by Burr’s dismissive remark that James’s greatest passion is for the Constitution. Madison’s serious faults, most notably his owning of slaves, are never mentioned. The play’s most enduring contribution was its popularization of the phrase “First Lady.” That is particularly apt as Dolly Madison is given credit by historians for creating the role of the First Lady. According to Catherine Allgor, she “took the opportunity to transform the president’s wife into a figure of national importance, expanding the role into an office. The position would remain unchanged until the twentieth century; even to the present, certain key aspects of the job that she invented still stand.”14 Nevertheless, there are limits to the play’s depiction of Dolly as an independent woman. Her decision to earn her own living is only a temporary expedient until she remarries. When Madison tells her he will ignore Burr’s schemes out of love for her as long as there is no damage to the nation, she replies, “A woman doesn’t think in ‘nations’! Her nation, her world, her universe is one man.”15 Also undermining the play’s overall message is its depiction of the charmingly roguish Burr as far more interesting than the dependably stolid Madison, which may explain why reviewers praised Frederick Perry’s portrayal of the vice president more than even the performance of the lead actress.16 Another play stressing both social relationships and the role of women was Stephen Vincent Benét and John Farrar’s That Awful Mrs. Eaton, which Benét later described as “an American romance of the days of Andrew Jackson.”17 Based partly on Alfred Henry Lewis’s 1903 novel, Peggy O’Neal, the 1924 play is about the wife of Andrew Jackson’s secretary of the navy, John Henry Eaton, who was disdained by Washington society because of her premarital occupation of tavernkeeper. For plot reasons, this was changed. The actual couple had been the secretary of war and the daughter of a tavernkeeper. In

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real life, while her husband was away at sea, she was frequently seen in the company of Eaton from the time he was elected to the Senate in 1818 until her husband committed suicide ten years later. In the face of rumors that the suicide was a result of her alleged infidelity, Jackson successfully convinced John Eaton to marry Peggy, but Floride Calhoun, wife of the vice president, led administration wives to snub Mrs. Eaton. Jackson had previously lodged in her father’s inn, where, according to historian Sean Wilentz, he “knew Margaret well and doted on her.”18 In the play, determined to force these haughty society women to accept Mrs. Eaton, the president, himself a widower, has her host a ball. One of the guests is Dolly Madison who, consistent with her portrait in The First Lady of the Land, treats Peggy quite kindly. After charming everyone with her wit and beauty, Peggy is then led to the dance floor by Jackson as the curtain falls. Dolly’s presence would have been quite unlikely as she and James had by then retired to Montpelier. She returned to Washington only after James died in 1836. However, she did follow the controversy from a distance, writing to her sister with some sympathy for Peggy Eaton, “I’m affraid the licence people take with their tongues & pens, will blast the good of the country.”19 While the ball itself seems a dramatic device, Jackson did devote great effort to gaining societal acceptance for Mrs. Eaton, even going so far as making it the only subject of a cabinet meeting in which he shouted, “She is chaste as a virgin!”20 However, this failed to end the boycott. Eventually Calhoun’s chief rival to succeed Jackson, Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, organized receptions and dinners for the Eatons. This loyalty created a personal bond between Jackson and Van Buren, who eventually succeeded Calhoun as vice president and Jackson as president. Despite a successful run in Detroit, the play lasted on Broadway for only 16 performances. Critics believed that the young authors had tried to include too much material. Although Time’s reviewer thought that three of the six scenes could have been deleted, he nevertheless found the play “a significant commentary on the masks and manners of an earlier generation.” Stark Young was less kind, describing it as “literary rather than theatrical.” Benét himself came to believe that this play taught him to include less local color and confusing historical detail in his later work. 21 Despite Benét’s later literary fame, the play has remained no more than a footnote in his career. Like The First Lady of the Land, Benét and Farrar’s work depicts the conflict between the privileged establishment and those with more egalitarian views, although this time both groups are predominantly

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American. Andrew Jackson is shown as retaining his common touch, much as Lincoln does in plays depicted in the previous chapter, despite holding the nation’s highest office. In one notable scene, for example, he conducts a meeting with the British ambassador (the British seem particularly vulnerable to being lampooned as supercilious) while being shaved. We also see the importance of the self-made person, whether Mrs. Eaton, who like Dolly Madison had to earn her own living (at least in the play), or President Jackson.

World War II World War II presented new opportunities for writing plays about heroic presidents, largely because so serious a crisis demanded strong leadership. As we saw in Sherwood’s use of Abe Lincoln in Illinois to argue in favor of American involvement in the conflict between dictatorship and democracy, the situation was ripe to convey important messages by analogy. This was particularly true of Howard Koch and John Huston’s play about Woodrow Wilson, In Time to Come. Written not long before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it used Wilson’s fight for the League of Nations to make an argument similar to that made by Sherwood several years earlier. After a prologue showing the president’s speech to Congress seeking a declaration of war against Germany, the scene shifts to the White House where he is impatiently awaiting news of the armistice that will end World War I. This opening scene contains considerable static exposition to help the audience understand the political background both at home and abroad. Discussing plans for negotiating a peace treaty that will include a League of Nations, Wilson resists his aide Colonel Edward House’s suggestion of making concessions to at least blunt Senator Lodge’s opposition, believing that “politicians regard concessions as a sign of weakness. So far our policies have stood on their merit not on political support.”22 When House later reports Lodge’s proposal for German reparations, an incensed Wilson discounts supporters of this proposal as “a selfish minority.”23 Before departing for Europe to prepare negotiations, House cautions Wilson against the politically dangerous act of personally negotiating, and urges the selection of a prominent Republican as part of the delegation. Ignoring this advice, Wilson states his preference for a non-politician, after which House, “very simply . . . quietly,” according to the stage directions, reasserts his opposition to the president’s going to Europe to negotiate. 24 Much of the play contrasts the

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practical House with his idealistic boss. Wilson believes that, if he can only meet with other national leaders, the strength of his arguments will carry the day. As he tells his aide, “I find most men are inclined to be reasonable if you can talk face to face with them.”25 However, Wilson’s impatience and the ability of his wily opponents to outwait him, force him to make concessions. When his ship is within 12 hours of arriving in France, the British send a cable threatening to refuse to participate in the peace conference unless the freedom of the seas provision is removed. Wilson agrees without informing his own delegation. His rationalization for dropping one of his 14 points is that, since its purpose was to protect neutral nations, that will no longer be necessary in a world where the League of Nations will ensure that there be no neutrals in future wars. House warns him that they will “be negotiating with self-interested men, without your high intentions.” Sensing growing opposition to the League within the United States Senate which will have to approve any treaty, he unsuccessfully urges Wilson to return home to shore up support while he remains in Europe to negotiate a temporary peace agreement. That would allow the president to blame House for any failures which he could then disavow. In order to both humanize Wilson and make the issues less abstract and remote, the playwrights introduce Mrs. Treadwell, whose son had been a student of Wilson’s at Princeton but was killed late in the war. Trying to comfort the grieving mother, Wilson learns that the source of her distress is that her son was executed for refusing to fight. His explanation that her son died for peace, just as did the other casualties of war, considerably improves Mrs. Treadwell’s mood. When he tells her that he will “correct” the “error” in her son’s records, she shakes Wilson’s hand and thanks him.26 The fourth scene, depicting the late stages of the negotiations, illustrates the dramatic difficulties faced by the playwrights. Dominated by speechifying, it contrasts Wilson’s view that he represents the people of all nations to that of the European leaders who are determined to protect their national self-interests. Wilson’s urging of his colleagues to make history by looking forward to a time “when conquest is to end and good will among all peoples to begin” only leads to namecalling as Georges Clemenceau of France accuses him of pro-German sentiments. A worn and angry Wilson returns the insult, terming his antagonist “a thief,” then walking out. 27 Ultimately, Wilson is forced to accept most of the European demands in order to preserve the League of Nations. He hopes, as House tells a member of the American delegation, that the flaws of the peace treaty

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“will eventually be corrected by the League of Nations.”28 However, when House suggests that, having made so many concessions, a few more should be offered to gain Senator Lodge’s support before submitting the treaty for ratification, Wilson refuses on the grounds that he will “have no more haggling with politicians.”29 The climactic scene is a confrontation between Wilson and Lodge, who expresses his offense at not being directly consulted by the president prior to the negotiations. As each of the antagonists expresses his arguments, the discussion becomes angrier and more personal with Lodge ultimately pointing out, “We’re beginning to make speeches to each other.”30 The meeting breaks up when Lodge, after listing numerous concessions made by Wilson in order to retain the League of Nations, asserts “they forced a vicious treaty down your throat in exchange for the League of Nations.”31 Wilson then plans to take his argument that enlightened governments must use force to preserve freedom on a national tour to promote the treaty. However, the audience sees neither the exhausting tour, after which Wilson suffers a stroke, nor the Senate defeat of the treaty, reducing the play’s dramatic impact. Instead the final scene is an epilogue showing the ill and enfeebled president on his final day in office preparing an article arguing that peace can only be secured if nations unite against aggression. After he leaves, the play ends with the reading of a fictional letter from Colonel House, whom the departing president has refused to see, declaring that despite the treaty’s defeat, it is the idealistic Wilson who will be proven right by history rather than the practical men, “those whose creed it is to avoid their responsibility to the world.” Giving the play its title, he concludes that “in time to come they and their kind will be found impractical, and yours will be the final victory.”32 Typical of critical reaction was John Gassner’s opinion that the play “constitutes absorbing drama . . . due less to the quality of the writing, which is not particularly remarkable, but to the theme and its timeliness, and to the excellent portrait of President Wilson.” Brooks Atkinson praised the play’s willingness to show the defects of its hero, resulting in a drama that is “profoundly sobering and impressive.” Richard Watts wrote that although the play “eschewed dramatic pyrotechnics of any sort,” it was “a dignified, arresting and remarkably convincing historical document.”33 Such mixed reactions may explain why the vote by the New York drama critics for their annual award was four for In Time to Come, two for Steinbeck’s The Moon Is Down, and a decisive 11 for no endorsement.

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By the time the play opened on December 28, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had made its argument for greater involvement in support of democracy against the Axis powers unnecessary. After 40 performances it closed. Several regional theaters produced In Time to Come during the next few years, and, when the 1944 film biography Wilson proved a box office success, there was talk of a revival, but nothing came of it. 34 Even though the dramatic weaknesses of the play explain why it has disappeared from the repertory, its portrait of Wilson is far more nuanced than that of any president in the plays examined so far. Wilson’s praiseworthy idealism is balanced by his impatience and naïveté. At the end of the play, the eminently practical House concludes that only such naive idealism can eventually unite the nations of the world in pursuit of peace and freedom. Fifteen years after the play’s run, Alexander and Juliette George delivered a more mixed verdict on Wilson’s battle for the League of Nations: “For advocating his great ideal in the face of isolationist opposition, history has vindicated him. For keeping the United States out of the League of Nations for a whole generation because of the Lodge reservations, he has not been vindicated. Very probably, he never can be.”35 In light of debates over military interventions in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the issues presented by the play remain relevant today, even if more morally ambiguous than they seemed in the middle of the twentieth century. Perhaps because of the unpopularity of the Iraq War, Wilson’s reputation has declined in recent years. His rating of ninth overall in the 2009 C-SPAN survey of historians was significantly lower than his ranking of sixth in 2000. Nevertheless, most such surveys continue to place him in the “near great” or a similar category. When Pulitzer Prize—winning playwright Sidney Kingsley was about to enter the army during World War II, he asked himself, “What is the country which I might be called upon to die for? What is its essential nature?” Although at first intending to write a play addressing that issue in contemporary terms, he soon decided that his answer lay in the origins of American government and wrote The Patriots, “a play about Jefferson and Washington and Hamilton struggling to make a new world.”36 To solve the common problem of humanizing his protagonist, Kingsley begins with a prologue showing Thomas Jefferson and his daughter Patsy returning from Paris in 1790. On the ship’s deck, they discuss his decision to decline George Washington’s offer of a Cabinet

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position, arrangements for her upcoming wedding, and how he only chose to become Ambassador to France because he needed a change of environment after his wife’s death. After Patsy leaves, Jefferson has a vision of his wedding night when his wife told him she fell in love not only with him, but “with the possibilities of the whole race of man.”37 A second vision shows his dismay at the elimination of a clause condemning the slave trade from the final version of the Declaration of Independence. As he fought for his principles, his wife lay dying at Monticello. Asking her ghost for forgiveness, he confesses, “I wanted a happy world—for us; and, reaching for it, I lost you.” The ghost “smiles sadly and shakes her head.”38 Even more difficult, as discussed in the previous chapter, would be transforming George Washington from myth to man. Seeing the predominant portrait of Washington as “severe, cold, distant, forbidding,” Kingsley felt the need “to make the man somehow live and move again” as “a fascinating challenge to a playwright.”39 In the first scene, the audience sees a tired Washington, mediating between Representative Madison and Treasury Secretary Hamilton over the defeat of the latter’s bill to honor state-issued paper currency at face value, then declining ostentatious displays of office more suited to a king than a president. He is revived by the appearance of Jefferson whom he has not seen for six years. Arguing against Jefferson’s wish to return home to Monticello to finally complete building his house, the president tells him how badly he is needed to help navigate between the extremes of anarchy and monarchy. Because Washington believes that “we’ve yet to see how large a dose of freedom men can be trusted with,” Jefferson’s understanding of the public is indispensable. This convinces Jefferson to accept. When Washington briefly exits, Hamilton introduces himself, warning Jefferson that if his bill fails, the country will likely split up. If Madison can be convinced to agree, he promises to support placing the nation’s permanent capital in the South, rather than in Philadelphia. Hamilton then leaves and Washington returns. Ignoring aides’ pleas to go to the theater in a six-horse carriage, he and Jefferson instead put on old clothes, remove their wigs, and go fishing. Jefferson soon regrets helping Hamilton when a conversation with a group of working men shows how speculators were able to profit by using their inside knowledge of the bill to buy currency at a fraction of its face value. He is appalled by Hamilton’s defense that the country’s “only hope lies in a moneyed aristocracy to protect it from the indiscretions of the people.” Hamilton’s conviction that the constitutional regime will soon fail, but “while it lasts it will be an

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aristocratic republic,” sets up the play’s central conflict between this belief and Jefferson’s faith in the people.40 Unlike Madison, however, Jefferson refuses to make personal or political attacks on Hamilton. When confronted about charges of misuse of government funds, Hamilton successfully defends himself by reluctantly admitting, at great damage to his relationship with his wife, that it was his own money and was used to pay blackmail to prevent public knowledge of an extramarital affair. Incorrectly believing that Jefferson is behind this accusation, he declares that “there’s no longer any room in this country—in this world, for both me and that—fanatic.”41 The French Revolution further widens the gulf between the two even as it exacerbates tensions already existing within the United States. By 1793 Jefferson is so discouraged by the pettiness of politics and slanderous newspaper attacks on him that when his daughter urges him to return home to save Monticello from ruin, he decides to resign. However, Washington’s plea that a nation in crisis needs him convinces him that he needs to stay to extend the right to vote and to educate the public because “only an enlightened people can really be free . . . we must make war on ignorance and poverty.” Although he hates political parties, he will create an alternative to the Federalists, “a people’s party.” Hamilton counters that “we who really own America are quite prepared to take it back for ourselves.”42 Skipping over the presidency of John Adams, during which Jefferson was vice president, the climactic scene is set in the new capital of Washington, DC, in 1801 as 27 votes in Congress have failed to break the deadlock between Jefferson and Aaron Burr in the presidential election. The negotiations between Hamilton and Jefferson actually took place by correspondence through intermediaries because the two were not on speaking terms. However, Kingsley used his dramatic license to avoid ending his play in so unstageworthy a fashion. Instead, Hamilton enters Jefferson’s rooms with an offer to use his influence in exchange for some considerations. Although his negative opinion of Jefferson has not changed, he fears Burr is dangerously unprincipled. Despite Jefferson’s refusal to agree to any concessions, Hamilton still will support him for the good of the country which he loves “above every small, selfish, personal desire” and wants to see “prosperous and strong.”43 Showing how great a sacrifice this is, he states his belief that Burr will challenge him to a duel and kill him.44 Jefferson points out that he too has sacrificed his personal life as his absence from Monticello will likely result in his bankruptcy. The play concludes on a more positive note with excerpts from Jefferson’s inaugural address, finishing with

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a statement as relevant to the World War II audience as to that of 1801, that “this government is the world’s best hope.”45 Critical reaction was strongly positive, with Lewis Nichols of The New York Times calling it “one of the best dramas in a long while.” Expressing a common reservation about historical plays, John Gassner found it “a frequently stirring play despite its lengthy speeches.” For George Jean Nathan, The Patriots was “one of the most skillful historical-biographical plays our American theatre has shown.” A rare dissent for this “worthy enterprise” came from Wolcott Gibbs, who “didn’t believe for a minute that the founders of our country looked or spoke or behaved even remotely like anybody on stage.”46 Kingsley was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle prize for the 1942–43 season’s best play but lost the Pulitzer to Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth. It ran on Broadway for a fairly successful 173 performances. Although Warner Brothers paid a quarter of a million dollars for the film rights,47 the movie was never made. However, the stage version followed the Broadway run with a successful North American tour. The movie script was used for a 1963 Hallmark Hall of Fame television version. In 1976, public television presented the Asolo State Theatre Company’s production which was later released on DVD. The play’s two major themes related strongly to the situation facing the United States at the time the play debuted. The conflict between Jefferson’s view of popular democracy and Hamilton’s of an aristocratic republic in some ways mirrors the battle between democracy and fascism that was at the heart of World War II. This results in an unequal contest between the play’s antagonists. Jefferson sacrifices his personal happiness for public service and abhors partisan politics until forced to develop a second party. Hamilton is not only ambitious and vengeful, he pays blackmail to conceal his marital infidelity, while Jefferson remains true to his dead wife for life even though Washington and others suggest he remarry. It is the second theme, the need for national unity at a time of crisis, that provides Hamilton’s redemption and justifies the plural title of the play. The characteristics of Jefferson and Washington are similar to those of the previous chapter’s heroic Lincoln. All three are shown as reluctant politicians, either pushed into high office by others or by a sense of duty. All, as well as Wilson, act out of idealistic motives rather than partisanship or personal motives. Finally, each, even Washington, is a man of the people. Washington consistently resists the entreaties of his aide, Colonel Humphreys (described in the stage

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directions as “foppish and affected”48), to embrace the sort of privileges to which a monarch would be entitled. Instead, he and Jefferson remove their wigs and change clothes in order to sneak out for an afternoon of fishing. Jefferson is the only character in the play who actually has conversations with working people and is interested in their opinions. Even his slave Jupiter is so devoted that he engages in a fight with white men who criticize his master. Seeing the wound, Jefferson gently bandages Jupiter’s hand, then explains that “Some day, Jupiter. It’s written in the book of fate. Your people will be free.”49 Such descriptions are exaggerated to fit the perception of the admirable president. For example, Kingsley depicts Hamilton as behind partisan newspaper attacks on Jefferson who is unwilling to respond in kind. In fact, three days after President Washington signed Hamilton’s bill, Jefferson offered Philip Freneau a clerkship in the State Department which was actually a way to bring him to Philadelphia to edit the National Gazette, a newspaper that would be a counterweight to the Federalist Gazette of the United States, the source of the attacks on Jefferson shown in the play. And, had Jefferson wished to see Jupiter and his family freed, he had the power to do so without anyone else’s permission.

Postwar Plays The only twentieth-century president consistently rated by historians at the same level as Lincoln and Washington has been Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1957, Dore Schary decided to write a play about Roosevelt’s fight against polio in the three years from the diagnosis to his speech nominating Al Smith at the 1924 Democratic Convention. When Sunrise at Campobello was completed, the playwright stated his goals in a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt: “What I propose to tell is the story of a man and the people around him who, after an ordeal, emerged strong and triumphant. I hope to write a tribute that will do justice to this phase of his life.”50 In 1921, Franklin was practicing law after having been the vicepresidential candidate on the losing Democratic ticket the previous year. As the play opens, we see the Roosevelt family at their summer home in Campobello, New Brunswick. After a day of swimming and sailing with his children, Franklin suddenly feels pain in his back serious enough for him to accept his wife Eleanor’s suggestion he go to

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bed rather than join the family for dinner and an evening reading of Julius Caesar. During the next few weeks, as Franklin becomes more and more paralyzed, the illness is diagnosed as polio. How he will fight to function well enough to resume his political career is the subject of the play. Schary, however, cannot simply show Roosevelt undergoing therapy, crawling and learning to walk with crutches. Nor, since the audience knows the outcome, can he supply much suspense. To personalize the drama, he focuses on the conflict between Franklin, supported by Eleanor and his devoted friend, Louis Howe, and his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, who wants her son to recuperate at Hyde Park where he can tend to the estate, write, and avoid politics. The still-ambitious Franklin, however, is anxious to resume his political career. Confronting his mother, he tells her that his two choices are to “lie on my back, be a country squire and write books—or—get up and become President of the United States.” He has “no intention of retiring to Hyde Park and rusticating.”51 As he works to regain as much mobility as possible, Franklin is named chairman of Al Smith’s 1924 presidential nomination campaign. When the man scheduled to give the speech placing Smith’s name in nomination at the party convention dies, Franklin is asked to replace him. There are two physical obstacles to a successful speech. Because it will last for about 45 minutes, Franklin will have to stand at the lectern for that time. More difficult will be walking the 20 feet from his seat to the lectern. When they calculate this will take ten steps, Howe, more for the benefit of the audience than for Franklin’s edification, tells him “they are liable to be the ten biggest steps you ever took in your life.” To ease the tension, Franklin replies, “Perhaps—or, to be clinical—I may fall smack on my gluteus maximus.”52 In the climactic scene, Franklin negotiates the ten steps “slowly, but strongly and surely” then waves to the crowd after which the curtain falls and the play ends. 53 Although an earlier conversation between Smith and Roosevelt suggested the possibility of a convention deadlock between Smith and his main rival, William Gibbs McAdoo, the play ends without telling the audience that it took the convention nine days and 103 ballots to nominate compromise candidate John W. Davis, who subsequently lost the election to incumbent Calvin Coolidge. As James MacGregor Burns wrote two years before the play was performed, “the convention was a disaster for the Democratic party and a setback for Smith, but it was a personal victory for Roosevelt.”54 Even though Smith recovered

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well enough to be nominated in 1928, it was Franklin Roosevelt who would become the next Democratic president in 1933. Of all the plays about heroic presidents, Sunrise at Campobello would prove to be the most successful, with a Broadway run of 556 performances and Tony awards for best play, best actor in a play (Ralph Bellamy), best director (Vincent J. Donohue) and best featured actor (Henry Jones as Louis Howe). Six of the seven daily newspaper critics praised the play without reservation, with Brooks Atkinson concluding that “what happens to the head of a lively family in Mr. Schary’s play has become part of the national heritage.” Even Walter Kerr, the one daily critic not entirely won over, wrote that “as drama Sunrise at Campobello is much too stately stuff. But the genuineness of the central performance makes it give off, finally, a wonderful glow.”55 With more time to reflect, magazine critics saw the play’s dramatic weaknesses. Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. found it “a surprisingly gallant and touching effort” even if “it does not offer a set of fully realized characters.” For Wolcott Gibbs, the play’s virtues and defects were “very closely balanced.” While praising Schary’s good taste in avoiding gratuitous shock, he thought the entire story was contained in the first of the play’s three acts. The most negative review came from Robert Hatch who criticized the play as “an exercise in hagiology” which failed to penetrate the conventional legend to understand the man. More common, however, were views like those of Henry Hewes, who argued that despite the play’s dramatic shortcomings “it is a good job, and is enjoyable and instructive, no matter what your political affiliations may be.”56 A successful film adaptation won an Academy Award for Greer Garson’s portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt. Because both film and play contained a scene in which Franklin condemns prejudice against Catholic Al Smith, the movie’s September 1960 opening made it particularly relevant for a presidential election in which John Kennedy was the Democratic nominee. Although Sunrise at Campobello has not had a Broadway revival, it is periodically produced by regional theaters. A recent example is a 2008 run at the Willows Theater Company in Concord, California. Sunrise at Campobello is almost entirely about Franklin’s personal life, with little discussion of substantive politics. Like several of the plays we have examined, it shows a future president overcoming obstacles to become a better person. Franklin tells Eleanor that his illness has taught him patience. “Patience, I think, gives me a better

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sense of when to try for the brass ring—or when to enjoy the ride without grasping for anything.”57 One way in which Schary does challenge the conventional image is his avoidance of the pretense that his protagonist lacks ambition. Franklin Roosevelt’s overriding goal throughout the play is to eventually get elected president. The other characters are, as a number of critics noted, primarily devices to advance the plot, provide dramatic conflict, or help the audience understand the protagonist. Because of his wealth Franklin is unlikely to be seen as a man of the people, but, by contrasting him to his imperious mother, Schary shows Franklin’s identification with those far less well off. He rejects her idea of noblesse oblige. “The poor will always be with us” he sees as an excuse for indifference. When, at Madison Square Garden for the convention, Sara complains that “the howling mob outside is frightening,” her son replies “that howling mob consists of ladies and gentlemen conducting the business of democracy.”58 In contrast to Sara, Eleanor is the devoted wife who is content to play an entirely supportive role. However, Franklin’s illness forces her to overcome her reticence and substitute as a speaker for her husband. Her success prefigures the ways in which she will later transform the traditional role of first lady. The play quickly drops this, concentrating on her role as wife and mother. Perhaps this is why, after seeing the premiere, she qualified her evaluation of “an excellent play,” by declaring that “I have no feeling of reality about it. It had no more to do with me than the man in the moon.”59 Overall, despite reflecting incremental changes in the popular image, the basic picture of the heroic president remained constant. Although, as anyone would be, Roosevelt is occasionally discouraged by the magnitude of the task ahead of him and by periodic setbacks, his determination to succeed is nearly superhuman. He is presented as without serious fault—able to keep a sense of humor about his situation, devoted to his family, a fighter against prejudice and poverty, and willing to make sacrifices to serve the public. Minor faults such as impatience are cured as he overcomes the obstacles in front of him. More serious failings are overlooked in order to present an idealized picture of Roosevelt family life. Although, as Blanche Wiesen Cook has written, “by the end of the campaign of 1920, ER [Eleanor Roosevelt] seemed resigned to the antics of her womanizing husband, who was seen by many as a knight-errant and a ‘playboy,’ ” Schary never even hints at infidelity. Missy LeHand, portrayed only as Franklin’s loyal secretary, was clearly more than that. In the play, the family is always together, except for an occasional speech given by

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Eleanor, but, according to Cook, “in fact, Eleanor and Franklin were infrequently together after 1923.”60

More One-Man Plays Since Sunrise at Campobello, new plays about heroic presidents have been primarily one-man shows. Many serve as showcases for the actor portraying the president who can easily take the play on a multi-city tour. The best example is James Whitmore, who has played two presidents, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, as well as Will Rogers and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. With a single actor and no need for elaborate sets, these plays are relatively inexpensive to produce and even to tape for television and home video. The tour can be taken to college campuses where the reliance on the actual words of their subjects provides an entertaining history class. Conversely, the one-person historical play presents serious challenges. Delivering presidential speeches from behind a lectern, or even walking around the stage picking up a few props, makes for weak drama. A good play must be more than a civics lesson. Nor are the words of presidents necessarily dramatic or entertaining. Presidential speeches, even with the assistance of speechwriters, are generally meant to gain support for a position or justify actions planned or previously taken, as are their memoirs and interviews. Most are about subjects and people with little relevance to current audiences. On the other hand, the images of presidents are so well set that the actor has to meet audience expectations without resorting to simple impersonation. Examining the remaining plays in this chapter will allow us to see how well they meet these challenges. It will also tell us whether the image of the heroic president has changed. No president has seen as dramatic an improvement in his standing as Harry Truman. In February 1952, as his second term was ending, Truman’s job approval rating in the Gallup Poll was 22%, lower even than Richard Nixon’s worst.61 Surveys of historians taken during the past 30 years, however, have rated him in the near-great category, generally about seventh or eighth. He recently reached a peak in the 2009 C-SPAN survey which placed him fifth, behind only Lincoln, Washington, and the two Roosevelts. Much of the popular revival occurred during the early1970s with the publication of Merle Miller’s Plain Speaking62 , an oral biography based on a series of interviews with the former president taped a dozen years earlier. The book sold two and a half million copies, no

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doubt aided by the comparison between the plainspoken Truman and the Nixon of Watergate. As Stefan Kanfer wrote at the time, “after the chilling scandals of the Nixon regime, the little ex-haberdasher from Missouri seems fit for Mount Rushmore.”63 Reacting to that distinction, Samuel Gallu wrote a one-character play about Truman that he submitted to James Whitmore. Asked by an interviewer whether Give ’em Hell, Harry! was a response to Watergate, Gallu replied, “Sure. I was so damned mad at that thing . . . but I never mentioned it in the play. I felt I didn’t have to hit it head on.”64 He and Whitmore then refined the script, after which the actor spent several weeks reading biographies and studying films of President Truman and recordings of his speeches.65 Give ’em Hell, Harry! previewed in Hershey, Pennsylvania, followed by a threeweek run at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. Truman’s daughter, Margaret Truman Daniel, hosted the April 17, 1975 premiere which included President Gerald Ford among the many dignitaries in attendance. In the play, Truman moves from his White House desk to another similar to those utilized in the United States Senate, to a lawn mower used to place him back home in Missouri. While doing so, he tells stories and reenacts meetings and conversations with only his part spoken. Gallu mixes Truman’s own words with others of his own invention, including an imagined conversation between Truman and the ghost of Franklin Roosevelt. The opening encapsulates the main themes of the play. Truman writes a letter to his daughter explaining that a president must be “a Machiavelli, Caesar, Borgia, an unctuous religio, a liar, a what-not, to be successful. So I probably won’t be, thanks be to God.”66 In an action that invariably gains an ovation from audiences, he takes a stamp from his wallet to pay the postage. The second act begins in similar fashion except that when Truman notices he has run out of stamps, he purchases one from his secretary, declining her suggestion that he use the president’s franking privilege. This depiction of Truman as an honest, unpretentious man of the people is, with little subtlety, regularly repeated throughout the play. For example, just a few pages later, Truman recounts responding to uncomplimentary remarks about his Midwestern accent made by the haughty Lady Astor with the gibe that, unlike her accent, his was genuine. Truman does merit the man-of-the-people label at least as much as any other president. In his biography of Truman (titled Man of the People), Alonzo Hamby concludes that the contemporary public sees “him as an ordinary man who fought for the interests of their own kind,

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made great decisions, cared about their welfare, and demonstrated their potential.”67 Late in the play, Gallu highlights the contrast between Truman and Nixon by having his protagonist utter the surefire applause line, “Richard Nixon is a no good lying bastard.”68 The play ends with a quote from Benjamin Franklin declaring that because “in a free society the rulers are the servants, and the people are their superiors and sovereigns,” leaving office should be considered a promotion. “My promotion,” concludes Truman, “is to be one of you.”69 Although the reliance in Give ’em Hell, Harry! on Truman’s own words has led some observers to conclude that it is largely historically accurate,70 many of his recollections exaggerate even his real accomplishments, while the play omits serious flaws. The resulting portrait is more hagiographical than biographical. For example, after the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional his seizure of the steel mills to settle a labor dispute during the Korean War, the play’s Truman comments that “war or no war, the Constitution prevailed. And that’s as it should be. The law is for everybody in this country!”71 In fact, Truman was angry enough at the decision to draft a letter to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas attacking “that crazy decision that has tied up the country.” He took the decision so personally that the draft continued, “I don’t see how a court made up of so-called ‘Liberals’ could do what the Court did to me.” Fortunately, rather than send the letter, he went to a reconciliation party thrown by Justice Hugo Black at which he remarked, “Hugo, I don’t much care for your law, but, by golly, this bourbon is good.”72 More egregious is the play’s account of Truman’s courageously traveling to a 1924 Ku Klux Klan meeting for a confrontation. While Truman did speak critically of the Klan, it was at a Democratic meeting covered by the press at which only part of the audience consisted of Klan members. Hamby describes Truman’s account as demonstrating “the Walter Mitty—like tendency of a man, keenly aware of his inadequacies, to rewrite his personal history in a way that demonstrated uncommon daring and command.”73 Further, Gallu omits Truman’s earlier flirtation with the Klan. By his own account, during his first political campaign Truman paid ten dollars for a Klan membership, but quickly asked for his money back when told that to gain Klan support, he would have to pledge never to hire Catholics.74 Gallu’s rendering of Truman’s meeting with General Douglas MacArthur on Wake Island shows similar exaggeration. As Truman’s plane approached, MacArthur was circling the island, claiming mechanical problems, but the president “knew what he was up to.

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He was play-acting.” Once MacArthur’s pilot was commanded “to get that damn plane on the ground,” these problems suddenly evaporated.75 Although this was the version given by Truman to Merle Miller, according to David McCullough, “it did not happen that way. MacArthur was not only on the ground, he had arrived the night before and was at the field half an hour early.”76 The play opened in the nation’s capital to great praise, especially for Whitmore’s performance, which Time’s T. E. Kalem called “as masterly as a fine portrait in oils.” In “this marvelously honed portrait,” wrote Richard Coe, “Harry’s Washington neighbors learn what he really must have been like at close quarters . . . this is a glorious evening.” Veteran political reporter Richard Strout thought that the play’s symbolism following the Watergate scandals and Richard Nixon’s resignation was “more important for a nation than historical exactitude.” The feeling among the public has grown, he believed, “shared by another accidental president, Gerald Ford, that what the country badly needs is a little bit of Harry.”77 The three-week run in Washington was followed by a six-city tour that generated sold out houses and largely favorable reviews. New York was not one of those cities, with Whitmore declaring “I’m more interested in what the folks in Kansas City think of it than what John Simon writes about it.”78 By mentioning one of New York’s most demanding critics, Whitmore may have been suggesting the fear that Give ’em Hell, Harry! would be rejected there as too unsophisticated. The Seattle performance was filmed and released as a motion picture. Whitmore was nominated for an Oscar, the only solo performance ever to receive this honor. The play has continued to tour with the role turned over first to Ed Nelson, then to Kevin McCarthy in 1978. For approximately 20 years, McCarthy continued to perform the play. In addition, the play has been regularly performed by regional theaters, Recent examples include the Kansas City Repertory in 2006, the Wheatfield (Maryland) Theatre Company in 2007, and the Midnight Company, which staged its version at the Misssouri History Museum in 2009. Give ’em Hell, Harry! finally reached New York City in July, 2008. Starring Bix Barnaba, it played off Broadway at the St. Luke’s Theatre. Barnaba saw Truman as very much the man of the people, stating in a press release that “Truman was an ordinary man who was thrust into the position of making extraordinary decisions.”79 Although the play was ignored by the major critics, those who did write about it noted contrasts between Truman and the most recent

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presidents. Rhetorically asking “Wouldn’t it be great to have a president willing to accept responsibility for his actions?” Andy Propst lamented that “it’s doubtful that we will find such a leader in the Oval Office any time soon.” For Robert Windeler, “the entertaining hope that another principled, plainspoken, damn-the-torpedoes man such as Truman might again rise to the American presidency” that was present in 1975 had largely evaporated by the time of the performance. As a result, “it’s painfully obvious what we’ve lost in our leaders.”80 This cynicism about presidents is a major reason that plays about heroic presidents have become such an endangered species. In 1977, Whitmore turned his attention to Bully!, Jerome Alden’s solo play portraying Theodore Roosevelt. Although Roosevelt has generally been rated in the near-great category in surveys of historians, reaching a high of fourth in the 2009 C-SPAN poll, that ranking masks considerable ambivalence. His ambition to be a great president was hampered by the lack of the kind of crisis faced by Lincoln or later by his cousin Franklin. As Theodore himself put it in 1910, “if there is not the great occasion, you don’t get the great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in times of peace no one would have known his name now.”81 Despite his limited opportunities, Roosevelt oversaw a domestic agenda of reform, the expansion of American influence internationally, and significant growth in the power of the presidency with enough success that he would be enshrined on Mount Rushmore alongside Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, yet these achievements have proven double-edged. Michael Genovese notes the dilemma that “the presidency TR left behind contained the capacity to do good, but the enlarged presidency could also be used for unsavory ends.”82 The familiarity of Theodore Roosevelt’s image—wire-rimmed eyeglasses, mustache, clenched teeth, and vigorous energy—makes him an obvious choice for a monodrama. The audience immediately expects the actor to charge forward and exuberantly shout “Bully!” Because so much of this image was self-invented, a playwright has a treasure trove of writing to select from. One of the primary reasons for Whitmore’s choosing this particular president was his sense that “he was very archetypical of America in terms of his brashness, in terms of his open friendliness and compassion.”83 In order to allow the actor to demonstrate Roosevelt’s physical activity, the set includes not only the usual desk, but also a table surrounded by two leopard-skin-covered chairs, a balustrade behind two giant elephant tusks, a rowboat, three logs which can be hacked at with an ax, stuffed animal heads hanging all around, and a Teddy bear. Dressed in Rough Rider gear, Roosevelt begins the show by

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charging down the aisle then onto the stage, accompanied by some of the “viewless companions” with whom he will converse throughout the play. Most of the first act is devoted to Roosevelt the person, starting with a hunting story in which he saves himself from a grizzly bear. After reenacting killing the bear, he exults, “Bully. By George, it . . . was . . . bully.”84 Balancing this aggression with tenderness, he then recounts how his refusal to kill a bear cub despite the urging of a fellow hunter led to the naming of the Teddy bear after him. Much of the portrayal of Roosevelt fits in with the characteristics of the heroic president now familiar to us. Despite being born to wealth, he is a man of the people, sharing their concerns. “I believe in the people,” he proclaims. “Given half a chance, they usually do the right thing, hand over power to the right person,” who should use it as strongly as necessary then return it to the people.85 Thus, at the same time he is asserting the public’s wisdom, he is also justifying expanding executive power. As in many of the other plays, the audience also sees the hero overcoming adversity. Describing himself as “a nervous timid youth, unable to hold my own when thrown into contact with other little boys,” he took up boxing, so determined was he to emulate the heroes of the stories he read.86 After his election to the New York State legislature at age 22, he traveled west where he exulted in “the glory of work and the joy of living” and met his future wife.87 Unfortunately, tragedy soon struck as she died after only three years of marriage, leaving him with a young daughter. Compounding Roosevelt’s heartbreak, his mother died the same day. Eventually, however, he resumed his political life, winning election as governor of New York. The play stresses his love of family, as his work in the White House is constantly interrupted by one of his six children or his second wife. When his daughter Alice is 19 years old, he affectionately says that “I can either be president of the United States or I can control Alice. I can’t possibly do both!”88 Also in line with the approved image, Roosevelt is depicted as a somewhat reluctant candidate for president, seeking to run only when convinced it is his duty rather than out of personal ambition. Early in the play, which does not present the events of Roosevelt’s life in sequence, he is asked to run against his successor William Howard Taft in 1912. Roosevelt’s answer is that he will refuse to break his promise not to seek a third term unless “the matter of my candidacy should appear in the guise of public duty.”89 Nor, he claims, was he interested in the vice presidency when that nomination was offered

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to him in 1900. In fact, he believes that as governor he achieved so much reform that powerful corporations and the wealthy wanted him out so “the machine rolled right over me, and I was nominated and elected, turned out to pasture” as vice president.90 While it is true that Roosevelt had to be persuaded to accept the vice-presidential nomination, as Kathleen Dalton has written, “he made it clear to his supporters, however, that he wanted the presidential nomination in 1904.”91 The second act begins in pedestrian fashion with a 1912 nomination campaign speech that consists largely of a list of Roosevelt’s presidential accomplishments. After losing the nomination to Taft at the Republican Convention despite winning 13 state primaries, Roosevelt complains that “the machine is stealing every one!” Feeling betrayed by the Republican leadership, he starts the Progressive Party, but loses the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. He then declares that “the country was not in a principled or heroic mood.”92 Avoiding an ending that would show his protagonist as a sore loser, Alden instead concludes poignantly with the death in World War I combat of Roosevelt’s son, Quentin. Celebrating Quentin’s service while mourning his death, a tearful Theodore kisses a Teddy bear, and tosses it into the audience as he tells them he is “passing the torch from one generation to the next,” then exits.93 The play is so focused on Roosevelt’s personal life that his substantive achievements as president are related cursorily, and his most serious failures ignored. For example, the play describes the building of the Panama Canal by having Roosevelt tell H. L. Mencken that he pushed it “right through the Isthmus, Henry—and right through the Congress. Because the world had to have it.”94 Roosevelt’s Nobel Prize—winning mediation of the Russo-Japanese War is reduced to the arrival of a Japanese delegation at the White House where, after telling the audience he will have to use his “good offices to try to stop this terrible war,” he briefly engages in small talk, then sends the Japanese out of the room to tour the White House.95 The only other mention of the subject comes later in the play when he explains how he settled a dispute over seating arrangements by cleverly scheduling a buffet dinner. Entirely omitted is the troubling issue of race. At the very beginning of his presidency, Roosevelt courageously invited Booker T. Washington to visit the White House to discuss possible patronage appointments. Five years later, however, his handling of the Brownsville raid destroyed the goodwill he had earned. In 1906 a group of gunmen had killed a bartender and seriously wounded a

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police officer. When white residents blamed the shooting on a black regiment stationed nearby, the army quickly decided the soldiers were guilty despite the dubious nature of most of the evidence against them. Without the benefit of a trial, Roosevelt ordered dishonorable discharges for 167 soldiers, later saying that “they ought to be hung.” It was not until 1972 that the army reversed Roosevelt’s decision, granting the men honorable discharges. By then there was only one survivor.96 The New York run of Bully! was not a success, lasting only for eight previews and eight regular performances. Typical of the critical reaction was Richard Eder’s view that Theodore Roosevelt lacked the relevance to contemporary politics and the pungent lines of Harry Truman. Even though Roosevelt “had a good mind, made some good speeches, and produced some vivid phrases,” Eder wrote, “his words are not remarkable enough to fight his old battles for us.”97 When the play went on tour, reviews were a bit kinder, although even those who praised the play found significant stretches less than fascinating, especially the use of the 22 invisible characters who serve as conversational foils.98 At the end of the tour, a film version was made. Since then, several other actors have taken the play on the road. Although in 1997 John Davidson hoped that with some trimming in the script, a 14-week tour would lead to Broadway, his expectations were dashed as most critics found the play, as Clifford Ridley wrote, “simplistic and one-dimensional.” Another reviewer blamed the nature of the one-person biographical play for his being forced to listen to Roosevelt “talk about himself incessantly and self-servingly.”99 Nevertheless, SUNY Brockport Theater Professor Richard St. George took a version trimmed to less than an hour to 20 cities during a 1999 sabbatical, then continued to perform it at libraries in New York and Pennsylvania the following year. In 2006, with William Walsh as Roosevelt, the play returned to Manhattan for two weeks at the Irish Arts Center. Following Bully! there have been two more solo shows featuring the same president. Laurence Luckinbill both wrote and starred in Teddy Tonight! He chats with the audience as he makes himself up to portray the 60-year-old Roosevelt about to deliver his last public speech. As Roosevelt, he criticizes Wilson for not going to war against Germany much earlier than he did. Roosevelt had to pay part of the price of that war, with the shooting down of his son’s airplane. In the play, he reminisces about his life, stressing how much he loves both his family and country.

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Because the play ran in late 2002, most critics related it to the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and the possibility of an American invasion of Iraq, asking whether there were lessons to be learned from Roosevelt’s support for a militarily assertive United States. Teddy Tonight! ran from October 18 until November 24 and was performed regularly by Luckinbill, primarily for single performances at colleges, for the next few years. Late in the 1980s, actor Michael O. Smith wrote a thirty-minute piece about Roosevelt that he performed in churches and schools. Titled Teddy Roosevelt: The Preacher of American Ideals, it stressed Roosevelt’s religious beliefs at a time when Smith himself was rediscovering his own religion. Typical of the Roosevelt quotes used was “It would be a great misfortune for our people if they ever lost the Bible as one of the habitual standards and guides in morality.”100 As he began to expand the work, Smith switched to more secular themes. After presenting a full-length version at colleges as well as Las Vegas conventions, he gave it an official premiere at the 2004 Florida Playwrights Festival. Four years later, he took it to off-Broadway. The play is set in Roosevelt’s home as he celebrates his sixtieth birthday, which would turn out to be his last. This provides the opportunity for him to tell his life story, culminating, much like the other two plays, in the death of his son. Smith uses a variety of devices to enliven his history lesson, what one reviewer termed “an extremely conventional bio-show.”101 The play starts with Roosevelt informally addressing the audience to explain he will be setting the record straight about his life. He periodically promises silver dollars to those in the audience who can correctly answer questions about his life. The first act ends with a gunshot, the one that elevated him to the presidency by assassinating President McKinley. A few lines are wrenched out of context to seemingly apply to contemporary situations, such as a reference to “the idiot who now inhabits the White House,” which amused the audience because it seemed to apply to President Bush until it was revealed Roosevelt was actually insulting Woodrow Wilson.102 After three weeks of previews, the play ran for an additional six weeks.

Whither the Heroic President? Despite small changes over time, the portrait of the heroic president remained relatively consistent. He prepared for the crises of the

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presidency by overcoming adversity, often the death of a loved one, earlier in life. Whatever his origins, he is a man of the people, lacking in personal ambition but devoted to public service. Lincoln would have been happy to stay first in New Salem then in Springfield had others not pushed him to seek higher office. Jefferson frequently sought to return home to Monticello, but was persuaded to remain in office by George Washington on the grounds that the public needed him. Heroic presidents prefer the company of working people to that of the high and mighty. They have great sympathy for underdogs who are disdained by polite society. It is to the masses that they look for inspiration. All are principled, fighting against selfish special interests and corruption. Most have an excellent sense of humor and are devoted to their families. Serious faults are rare while minor ones make them more human. Clearly such hero worship could not be sustained as American society became both more sophisticated and more cynical. By the midtwentieth century, portrayals of heroic presidents developed somewhat more complexity, but the change was incremental at best. Thus, except for solo shows which served as economical history lessons and vehicles for actors, plays about heroic presidents have largely disappeared. The 1993 revival of Abe Lincoln in Illinois proved unsuccessful. This does not mean that plays about presidents have disappeared from the stage. As we shall see in the next chapter, they have remained a staple of popular culture, but with a very different set of themes. We now turn to an examination of those themes and the societal changes that have accompanied them.

Chapter 3 The President as Anti-Hero In his 1960 book about American political drama, Casper Nannes concluded that despite exposing some flaws in the nation’s government, the plays he analyzed “express confidence in the inherent good of our country and of its government. The searching playwright lays bare the imperfections of our political figures, but he also points out the unsung heroes who fight the evil, and who, in the end, win. That is the encouraging conclusion to be drawn from these plays.”1 What Nannes could not realize was that he was witnessing the end of an era. Sunrise at Campobello, which he praised as “a memorable play about one of our country’s greatest presidents,”2 had recently completed its run and would not be followed by any comparable successors. A major reason for this change has been the public’s loss of faith in government and many of its institutions. In 1958, the University of Michigan’s American National Election Study asked voters, “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right—just about always, most of the time or only some of the time?” Sixteen percent answered “just about always,” while a majority of 57 percent responded “most of the time.” As can be in chart 1, the numbers remained high during Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 electoral landslide victory. However, as the Vietnam War continued, they began to decline. By 1972, the year of Richard Nixon’s reelection, they had been reduced to 5 and 48 percent. Watergate made matters worse as the shrinkage reached 2 and 34 percent in 1974, then continued to decline during the Carter administration to 2 and 23 in 1980. There was a rebound during Ronald Reagan’s first term, most of which was lost during the George H. W. Bush administration and the first of Bill Clinton’s two terms. The surge after the events of Sept. 11, 2001 to 5 and 51 percent has proven temporary. By 2004 trust had declined to 4 and 43 percent. In 2008, the two categories together totaled only 30 percent. A 2010 Pew survey showed a further decline to 22 percent.3 Although comparable survey questions about faith in the executive branch have not been asked for as long a period of time, and vary

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70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1940

1960

1980

2000

2020

Year Trust in Government, 1958–2008

Chart 1 Trust in Government, 1958–2008.

more depending upon the public’s support for the incumbent, there has been a similar decline. Since 1972 Gallup has periodically asked “How much trust and confidence do you have at this time in the executive branch headed by the president—a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?” The Watergate scandal led to a decline from 24 percent, itself not a very high number, responding a “great deal” in 1972 to 12 percent two years later. The percentage recovered to 24 percent by the end of Bill Clinton’s second term, increased to 28 percent for George W. Bush in 2002, and has steadily declined since, reaching only 12 percent by September 2008. Early in Barack Obama’s term there has been significant improvement. A February 2009 Harris Poll found 36 percent expressing a great deal of confidence in “the White House,” compared to 15 percent a year earlier. Whether this simply reflects the common “honeymoon” period or heralds a long-term trend remains to be seen as 50 percent expressed a great deal of confidence in the Bush White House in January 2002, a few months after the destruction of the World Trade Center. Obama’s own approval ratings declined from a high of 68 percent at the beginning of his term to 50 percent a year later.4 There has been significant debate over exactly what these questions measure, but similar results for surveys asking whether government wastes a lot of tax money; is run for the benefit of a few big interests; or has quite a few people running it who are “crooked,” confirm that

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there has been an overall increase in public cynicism over the last 40 years or so.5

Lyndon Johnson The theatrical turning point from hero to antihero was Barbara Garson’s MacBird! which premiered in New York in 1967, as the long-term decline in the public’s faith in government was beginning. It was also a time of cultural upheaval, described by Arthur Marwick as characterized by “new subcultures and movements, generally critical of, or in opposition to, one or more aspects of established society.” For John McWilliams, the events of the 1960s forced Americans to question their basic assumptions. Among the developments in popular culture he cites are television news coverage of theVietnam War; films that redefined moral standards in areas such as race, violence, drug use, and sexual behavior; and the change from “fluffy, sentimental, naive” music to rock and roll.”6 Unlike the presidents in plays discussed in the first two chapters, Garson’s titular character, a Lyndon Johnson so thinly disguised that no one in the audience could fail to realize who he was modeled on, was the opposite of an idealized hero. As a result, the play generated far greater controversy than any of those dramas, bringing it to the attention of a wider public than the typical theater audience. Nor was this the only significant difference. Rather than waiting for historical perspective, it depicted the incumbent president. Finally, the playwright, twenty-five years old when the play premiered, was a woman. The play had its origins in a slip of the tongue made by Garson while speaking at an antiwar rally on the Berkeley campus of the University of California. As she remembers, “I called Lady Bird Johnson Lady MacBird. Later, I thought about the slip and thought it would make a good skit.”7 Eventually she turned her idea first into a 15-minute sketch, then into a satirical play, but such sharp stage criticism was so unprecedented that she was unable to find either a publisher or a New York producer despite her success in California. Instead her husband founded the Grassy Knoll Press, alluding to the scene of John Kennedy’s assassination, and published the play himself. Its sales of 105,000 copies convinced Grove Press to reconsider its earlier rejection and take over publication. Despite some shouts of “treason” at a backers’ audition, enough investors were found to raise the $30,000

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needed to fund an off-Broadway production. After the Theater De Lys declined the play as “an inferior script . . . and a delicate subject,” the Village Gate, better known as a cabaret than a theater, agreed to provide a site.8 Writing largely in iambic pentameter, Garson transformed the leading politicians of the day into the characters of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Lines were also borrowed or adapted from other Shakespearean dramas, including Hamlet, Julius Caeser, Richard II, Richard III, and even Romeo and Juliet. Garson believes that this helped her, “an inexperienced playwright, to shape things in the play.”9 The main characters are MacBird and Lady MacBird (corresponding to Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson); Ken, Robert, and Teddy O’Dunc (John, Robert, and Edward Kennedy); the Egg of Head (Adlai Stevenson); the Wayne of Morse (Senator Morse); the Earl of Warren, and Lord MacNamara (Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara). A prologue, similar to that of Henry V, simultaneously informs the audience of these resemblances and warns against taking them too seriously. “Seek no silly suppositions,” cautions a man dressed in a business suit, wearing a plumed hat, and carrying a toy sword, “disdain to note what likenesses may show; / accept our words, ignore your intuitions.”10 The three male witches who open the play at the 1960 Democratic convention are a beatnik student activist, a Black Muslim, and an old leftist. Following a scene showing the O’Duncs scheming to elect the three brothers president for two terms each, the witches predict to a skeptical MacBird that he will be elevated from senate leader to vice president to president. However, “MacBird shall be the mightiest of all, / But Ken O’Dunc alone shall leave an heir.” After, to Robert’s surprise, his offer of the vice presidency is instantly accepted, MacBird whispers in an aside, “Vice president— and president to be!”11 Rather than directly implicating MacBird in Ken O’Dunc’s assassination, Garson has him knowingly expose the president to danger by inviting him to visit MacBird’s ranch, then parade through the streets. That way the O’Duncs, MacBird’s crony tells him, “can feel the force of your supporters.” Similarly, Lady MacBird suggests, “expose him to the fury of his foes . . . just expose him. Nothing more.”12 The actual assassination occurs offstage, but a newspaper diagram of the scene is projected onstage. The play then strongly suggests that it is MacBird who kills the assassin. Once in office, MacBird tries to implement his “Smooth Society” program, but is diverted by a rebellion in Viet Land, a country he had been entirely unaware of. He demands that MacNamara “deploy

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whatever force you think we need! / Eradicate this noxious spreading weed!” That Lord replies, “Your word is my command. Your will is done / That land will be subdued ere set of sun.”13 Despite these words, the continuing war serves to unite the president’s foes around Robert. MacBird then turns to plotting against the remaining O’Duncs, inquiring of two members of his entourage, “Have I no friends will rid me of this living fear,” which they understand as referring to “of course, those brothers.”14 Soon Teddy’s plane crashes due to “a most peculiar failure in the engine,” but he only breaks some bones.15 A later explosion on Teddy’s boat causes similar nonlethal injury. As Robert aims his spear at MacBird during the final duel between the two, MacBird grabs his heart and expires. However, Garson reverses the meaning of Shakespeare’s ending. Where Malcolm’s final speech in Macbeth states his desire to reverse the policies and bring to trial “the cruel ministers / of this dead butcher and his fiendlike queen,” Robert lifts MacBird’s banner, declaring he will “follow my great predecessor’s path” as the standards of both wave side by side.16 This is consistent with the play’s portrayal of the O’Duncs as unprincipled power-seekers whose father replaced their human hearts with mechanical devices and their blood with antiseptic brine in order “to free his sons from paralyzing scruples.”17 Presented with two incompatible views of the war, Robert declares, “I basically agree with both positions.”18 Nor do other leading political figures escape ridicule. When Warren is asked to lead an inquiry into Ken O’Dunc’s murder that MacBird tells him will be a whitewash, he overcomes his scruples and agrees. In the play’s version of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, the indecisive Egg of Head is unable to choose whether “to see or not to see,” since “in speaking out one loses influence,” while “the chance to modify the devil’s deeds / as critic from within is still my hope.”19 Even religious leaders are complicit. To divert the public’s attention from the nation’s problems, MacBird declares a national day of prayer for which “we’ll get the biggest preacher in the country. / You know the one I mean—the guy’s got class.”20 And as Garson wrote when running as the Socialist Party candidate for vice president in 1992, “although MacBird! is often remembered as an attack on Lyndon Johnson, it in fact presented the scorned president and his glowing Kennedy rivals as all-too-similar top-down politicians. It urged New Leftists to forget about choosing between Democratic Party personalities and build a party of their own.”21 This lampooning of not only the president but so much of the political establishment, together with the play’s sometimes scatological

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language and scenes such as the witches entertaining MacBird with a racist minstrel show, guaranteed a strong reaction. Taking the play literally, the publisher of Showcard refused to print the program because of “the clear implication in the plot that President Johnson had engineered the assassination of President Kennedy.” However, Grove Press, having decided to publish the play, not only took over printing the program, it bought out Showcard a few months later. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover denounced MacBird! in his agency’s monthly Law Enforcement Bulletin as “a ‘satirical’ piece of trash which maliciously defames the President of our country and insinuates he murdered his predecessor.”22 Although more understanding of the play’s satirical intent, albeit sometimes only slightly more so, some critics were nearly as offended. In addition to his review, Walter Kerr wrote an article explaining why he thought “MacBird! is both tasteless and irresponsible.” Time considered it “an apolitical play in which all choices seem silly.” To Edith Oliver, “the cruelty and vulgarity are almost beyond description” because “the substance of MacBird! is not truth carried to absurdity—another component of satire—but a lie. Lyndon Johnson did not kill John Kennedy.” Attributing the play’s faults to “that feminine quality like which hell hath no fury,” Robert Graham Kemper quoted Shakespeare’s Macbeth to lament that “in the end ‘it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ ”23 In a 2003 article, Ryan Howe argued that one reason for the vehemence of the criticism was the playwright’s gender, citing specifically Kerr’s comment in his original review that called Garson “a woman who seems to have started talking and couldn’t be stopped because the talk kept coming out.”24 Staunchly defending the play were Robert Brustein and Dwight Macdonald. Brustein admired the satire’s “power to provoke, energize, and even upset its audiences,” the very characteristics he thought made it so tasteless to Kerr, “as if it were the theater’s function to cushion spectators from pain.” Macdonald too believed that “the impeccable bad taste that pervades MacBird! may be just what the subject calls for.”25 In retrospect, these opposing reactions demonstrate how much plays about presidents, perhaps even political plays in general, were undergoing a transition. On one side were advocates of dignified portrayals, with perhaps some criticism around the edges. Opposing them were those who believed that in a time of urban riots and disillusion over the Vietnam War, a far stronger critique of American political institutions was needed to reinvigorate the theater. As director Peter

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Brook wrote, criticism of the exaggeration and vulgarity of MacBird! “misses the whole point of a play which demystifies all Kennedys and all Johnsons with the same unfair ruthlessness.”26 Audiences did seem to get the point. In a month of previews the play’s ticket sales recovered nearly half its thirty-thousand dollar-cost. On the day of its opening, it took in another ten thousand. 27 From that opening day, MacBird! would run for 386 performances, with its lead actor, Stacy Keach, winning an Obie (off-Broadway) award for distinguished performance. Assessing the play’s impact four years later, Brustein concluded that “MacBird! had arguable value as a literary work, and no value at all as an interpretation of history, but it nevertheless marked a turning point for American theater” by opening up the stage to more critical, even if sometimes irresponsible or tasteless, works. The play itself was soon overtaken by such events as Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to run for reelection in 1968, followed by the assassination of Robert Kennedy. That its influence has proven more significant than its substance is confirmed by reaction to a 2006 revival in Washington, DC, where critics found it dated in age of Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show. 28 As we shall see in examining the play’s successors, the dominant presidential portrait on stage has changed dramatically from hero to antihero.

Warren G. Harding In the age of plays about heroic presidents, few presidents would have been less likely protagonists than Warren G. Harding. A U.S. News tally of five relatively recent surveys of historians rated Harding the second worst president, behind only James Buchanan. His ranking of 38 out of 42 in both C-SPAN’s 2000 and 2009 surveys was hardly better. Even Harding himself is reputed to have told an aide, “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.”29 Although Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s 1959 play, The Gang’s All Here, is about a president named Griffith P. Hastings, he is a very thinly disguised version of Warren G. Harding. Both were born in 1865, represented Ohio in the Senate, won the presidency in 1920 with a Massachusetts governor as running mate, and nicknamed their wives Duchess.30 Kenneth Tynan called the play a “drame à clef,” which “takes an easily recognizable episode from the past and bestows on it the freedom of fiction by the simple device of changing the characters’ names.”31 This freed the playwrights to

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imagine incidents and characters more dramatically interesting than their historical counterparts, while reducing the likelihood that audiences would be offended by seeing a negative portrait of an actual president in a drama that in its essence sought to be authentic, even if not literally so. When rebuked by a historian, Lawrence and Lee were able to reply that “if we put the actual Warren G. Harding on stage, audiences would throw rocks at the actor and jeer the authors who could dream up such outrageous fiction.” Yet they also believed that their play was “the first time, realistically, that playwrights have taken an audience into the White House, through the back door.”32 The opening scene is set in a proverbial smoke-filled room at an unnamed party’s convention in Chicago where the actual 1920 Republican nomination took place. After 16 ballots, both of the leading candidates for the nomination, a general and the governor of Massachusetts, have continued to fall well short of the necessary delegate majority. Walter Rafferty, the play’s equivalent of Harry Daugherty, has been planning to put forth Senator Hastings as a darkhorse candidate despite publicly campaigning for the governor. When Hastings, fearing he is ill-equipped to be president, declines Rafferty’s offer, he is talked into accepting it by his wife, Frances. As in several of the plays featuring Lincoln, we again see the ambitious woman urging on the reluctant man. Hastings, however, is no Abraham Lincoln. By trading the vice-presidential nomination and promises of presidential appointments in exchange for delegate support, Rafferty quickly gathers enough ballots for Hastings to be nominated. Lawrence and Lee altered the actual 1920 convention to make their scenario more dramatic. The deadlock between General Leonard Wood and Illinois Governor Frank Lowden lasted for not more than 16 ballots but only until Harding, who, although a dark horse, had declared his candidacy prior to the convention, was nominated on the tenth ballot. The smoke-filled-room scenario is a popular myth, abetted by Daugherty-inspired newspaper accounts of the day. According to Paul Boller, however, “there was no ‘smoke-filled room’ in Chicago.” Instead, the largely leaderless delegates chose Harding because he was generally liked and inoffensive enough to be the second or third choice of most.33 On his first day as president, the feckless Hastings invites his cronies to the White House to share illegal drinks and provide advice. He quickly names several of them to his cabinet, almost at random. When Rafferty shows little interest in serving as postmaster general, he is instead chosen for attorney general. With the promised Treasury Department unavailable, Senator Joshua Loomis, the play’s equivalent

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of Albert Fall, is instead offered Interior. Because they need an honest counterweight to oppose Hastings’s friends, the playwrights invent Bruce Bellingham, a civil servant in the Commerce Department. The new president is so taken with him that he selects him to join the White House staff. The following summer, as Hastings’s buddies await his arrival for a poker game, they plan the best way to convince him to approve an executive order giving away oil-rich land which they can profit from. If it is signed that evening, Bellingham, whom they hope to get fired, will not have a chance to review it. After giving the president a drink and playing a hand, they urge him to sign the document. There is no need to read it, says Loomis, since “I’ve been over it pretty careful.” When Rafferty agrees, telling Hastings, “I’ve read it. It’s all right,” the order is quickly signed.34 Bellingham then unexpectedly arrives in order to obtain presidential action on an urgent foreign policy matter. When he expresses disapproval of the women brought in as entertainment, Hastings discharges him. During a Christmas visit home, Frances Hastings has learned from a banker friend of an account containing more than a million dollars stolen from the Veterans’ Bureau. Together with Bellingham, now working for a Senate investigating committee looking into this and other scandals, she warns her husband of how corrupt his friends are. Once informed, Hastings rehires Bellingham and, in an entirely invented scene, confronts the attorney general who defends himself by declaring that while those outside of government are getting rich, “you’ve got the gall to scream because a few of your friends are smart enough to do what everybody else in the country is doing.”35 If exposed, he will reveal that Hastings is having an extramarital affair that has resulted in an illegitimate child. The play’s climax comes in a San Francisco hotel room the following summer as the president is threatened with impeachment. In another invented confrontation, Hastings fires Rafferty, whose parting words are “before you torpedo the boat, Griff, just remember: everybody sinks together.”36 After calling in a reporter to reveal what has just happened, the president takes an overdose of pills, then asks his wife to throw away the bottle and not to allow an autopsy. His dying words to Frances are, “Don’t spoil my chance to be on a two-cent stamp!” The final stage directions suggest that “there is a moment of peace; perhaps he has been able to save the dignity of the high office he never wanted.”37 Again, we can see the drama heightened by the playwrights’ dramatic license. Not only were the confrontations with the attorney

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general fictional, so too was the danger of impeachment as Harding remained quite popular at the time of his death. It was only after Calvin Coolidge was elevated to the presidency that investigations revealed such scandals as Teapot Dome. Coolidge, not Harding, fired the attorney general. While it is true that Florence Harding prevented an autopsy, most speculation has centered around the nature of the illness that killed Harding and whether it could have been caused by some sort of foul play. There is no evidence of suicide. Reaction from the newspaper critics was favorable. Recognizing that “the genial President is called Griffith P. Hastings, but no one expects us to abide by that subterfuge,” Brooks Atkinson praised “a provocative and absorbing theatrical experience.” Despite the play’s depiction of a corrupt administration, he placed it in the heroic tradition by noting how Lawrence and Lee showed that “even a man of indifferent moral standards has to recognize the standards of the office and judge his personal character and ability by the national tradition.” Walter Kerr concluded that “The Gang’s All Here is lively, interesting, colorful showmanship, however noble its motives, and I suggest you join the gang.”38 However, neither critical praise nor the presentation of a scene on television’s popular Ed Sullivan Show were enough to prevent the play from losing its entire $150,000 investment in a disappointing 132performance run. Since then, The Gang’s All Here has been occasionally revived, most notably in 1971, when a version directed by co-author Lee transformed the UCLA theater into a convention hall. Kenneth Tynan put his finger on the play’s main difficulty when he wrote that “one was left with the comforting impression that nothing was wrong with the Harding administration that could not have been cured if the President had been less self-indulgent and his associates less grasping.”39 Essentially, the playwrights are telling the audience to make sure it elects heroic presidents rather than nonentities. Lawrence and Lee seem to have been aware of this, as shown by how they answered a question from one of their colleagues, Herman Shumlin. According to their production notes, “He says: ‘All right, you’re opposed to the nomination and election of a Harding. Good, what’s your alternative suggestion?’ the answer is that good men exist in any age.” Later they wrote to the play’s star, Melvyn Douglas, “We want to show the tragedy of choosing ill-equipped men, the inevitable disaster of ‘government by crony.’ ”40 By ending the play with Hastings firing his cronies, revealing the scandal to the press, and making a grand gesture by killing himself, Lawrence and Lee continue the tradition of the heroic presidency.

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Hastings is the exception underlining the accomplishments of other presidents. In the final scene, Hastings pulls out a book titled A Boy’s Lives of the Presidents to show to Bellingham, who tells him hopefully that “I suppose if a President has five minutes of greatness in four years he’s doing fine.” After firing Rafferty and talking to the press, Hastings tells his wife that “for the first time, I felt like a President of the United States. For about forty-five seconds,” to which she answers, “I’m proud of you. I’m very proud of you.”41 Nannes cites Bellingham specifically as one of the unsung heroes who fight for the public interest and “in the end, win.”42 While their play modestly modified the presidential portrait of its predecessors, it would be up to MacBird! to overthrow that portrait. Some 35 years later, Harding reappeared on the New York stage. Mark St. Germain’s comedy, Camping With Henry and Tom, was presented at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in 1993, then off Broadway in 1995. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and naturalist John Burroughs took a camping trip each summer. When Burroughs died, the remaining three campers invited President Harding to join them. Lacking a record of what actually happened, St. Germain takes the opportunity to imagine his own version, eliminating Firestone. He recently explained that “Harding was this totally ineffectual president and human being. I couldn’t understand why they would want his company.” At the same time, he believed that “there are these three giants, but they are human, they have their weaknesses.”43 The play opens with a dark stage on which the sounds of a crash are heard. The three principals are then seen in a Model T that has hit a deer. In order to get away, Ford had sabotaged the Secret Service car that should have followed them, but now they are lost in the woods. The bulk of the play consists of conversations between the three while they await rescue. Despite his agreement that Harding was one of our worst presidents, St. Germain paints a relatively sympathetic portrait of Harding the person. “I think Edison is a lot of fun,” he told an interviewer. “My heart went out to Harding, but Ford was a very difficult man.”44 The play’s Harding is intimidated by Edison and Ford’s accomplishments, stating that his election as president is “the voters’ doing, not mine.”45 Harding may be lacking in substance, but he is a man of the people who leaves the White House each day at lunchtime to shake hands with the public. “It is the most pleasant part of the job,” he explains to his companions. “I love to meet people.”46 Harding knows that Ford invited him in order to gain his assistance in buying the Muscle Shoals Hydroelectric Plant for a low price. While

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those two spar, the 74-year-old Edison serves as a wryly cynical commentator, refusing to take sides. To break the monotony, they play “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” on Edison’s invention, the Vitaphone. Ford praises the song on the grounds that “the one thing these Germans know is how to write music,” until, informed that Irving Berlin is a Jewish American, he reveals his bigotry by changing the cylinder to “Turkey in the Straw” and defiantly declaring, “don’t tell me some Jew Boy wrote it!”47 Ford’s less-than-subtle allusions to rumors that Harding has black ancestry cause the president to take offense. However, he is mollified when Ford points out his own willingness to hire black employees, asserting respect for them as “good men and good workers and if you’re the first black President, hip hip hooray!”48 Harding returns to the subject of Muscle Shoals, for which Ford offers five million dollars, a ridiculously low offer considering that the government has already spent eighty million, and Ford’s requested pre-sale renovations would cost another fifty. Harding’s threat to walk away is met by a denunciation of corruption in the administration and an assertion that Harding has had a mistress since she was sixteen years old and that she now has a child who looks suspiciously like him. What Ford really wants, however, is to be president. Their conversation is interrupted by stirrings from the deer they believed had been killed in the crash. The first act ends as Ford and Harding grab a tire iron to use against the deer while Edison listens to a recording of I Pagliacci. Kicked at by the deer, Harding and Ford return to camp. Harding expresses his humanity by noting that as a boy he was no good at slaughtering livestock to provide food for winter due to his lack of a killer instinct. Ford then returns to his objectives. Claiming that he is the most popular man in the country, he wants Harding to push the sale of Muscle Shoals through Congress, then step aside in favor of him in the 1924 election. Because he has been a lifelong politician, Harding replies that “saying what I really think, well, that’s not a skill I’ve had to develop.”49 Nevertheless, he tells an amazed Ford to reveal all to the press because he never wanted to be president in the first place. He even volunteers information about another extramarital affair as well as his hospitalization for several nervous breakdowns. Interrupted again, he then chases two wolves away from the deer, hoping to send for a veterinarian when they are rescued. The plot is then put on hold while the three men engage in a fairly long philosophical discussion. Finally, Colonel Starling of the Secret Service arrives on foot, having run out of fuel in the car he borrowed from Ford’s son Edsel. After siphoning gas from Henry’s tank, he

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leaves to retrieve the working vehicle in order to drive everyone back to the main camp. During Starling’s absence, Ford outlines his presidential program, shocking both Edison and Harding by declaring that “the first thing we’ve got to do is get rid of the Jews.”50 Abandoning his neutrality, Edison uses his knowledge of Ford’s own sexual misdeeds to coerce him into abandoning his scheme to become president. Harding’s refusal to shoot the deer has suggested to Edison that the president at least has some compassion. Capably efficient civil servants like Starling can make up for Harding’s incompetence. In a democracy, Edison tells Ford, “we won’t get the best or the worst. Just something in the middle.”51 Meanwhile, having returned, Starling shoots the deer so that Harding will not have to explain the incident to the public, which is unaware of his absence from the main camp. With the status quo ante thus restored, the president will leave the next morning to dedicate Plymouth Rock which, for public convenience, has been moved to a location too far away from the water for the Pilgrims to have actually landed on it. Concludes Harding, “this way all the people who come to see it will be happier.”52 The ending shows just how much had changed during the time between these two plays about Harding. Lawrence and Lee’s heroic gesture was replaced by a futile one that ultimately changed nothing. Instead of seeking presidential greatness, the public is satisfied with mediocrity, which at least prevents greater evil. Nor, as the Plymouth Rock maneuver suggests, is the public interested in the truth. St. Germain’s Harding even takes a shot at great and ethical presidents by telling of how a month before the election, his fear of not being up to the presidency caused him to reveal his private misbehavior to a prominent Democrat, only to learn later that Woodrow Wilson prevented the information from being used in the campaign. “The man should never have been in politics,” he laments. When Harding told Daugherty he was no great man, the reply was, “Warren, greatness is a thing of the past. . . . There are no first-raters out there now, and you’re the best of the second rate.”53 Although Vincent Canby of the New York Times thought that Camping with Henry and Tom was “a perfunctory realization of a comedy that’s more interesting for its revisionism than for its historical perspective, portrayal of character or wit,” other critics were impressed enough to vote it the winner of the Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards for best off-Broadway play. 54 The play is regularly performed at regional theaters around the country with recent productions in 2007 at the Red Barn Theatre outside of Pittsburgh,

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2008 at the Northwest Indiana Theatre and 2009 at Tucson’s Invisible Theatre. An audio version is available from L. A. Theatre Works. Poker Night at the White House, presented in Chicago in 2007 by the Neo-Futurist troupe, indicates that cynicism about presidential greatness seems only to have grown still further. The press release announcing the play summarizes its point: “In America anyone can grow up to be president . . . and that’s not always a good thing. Sean Benjamin’s Poker Night at the White House examines what happens when a regular guy, Warren G. Harding, takes the office: oil scandals, affairs, illegitimate children, cabinet suicides, psychics, and lots of gambling.”55 The play is a burlesque consisting of short sketch-like scenes. Three actors play two parts each with the remaining characters portrayed by shadow puppets. The nature of the humor can be seen in the prologue, set during the 1920 Republican Convention, where, when asked by a senator which candidate to support, Harry Daugherty answers, “Since we can’t agree: Warren Gamaliel Harding. The women love him.” Another senator quips, “And he loves the women.” In discussing rumors that Harding has black ancestors, they decide that instead of labeling him a dark horse, a better term would be “a white horse. A poor, white struggling horse.”56 For most of the play, Harding’s mistress is literally hidden in the closet. When she is discovered, the scene ends as, according to the stage directions, “a Benny Hill chase ensues using the three doors.”57 Beneath this frivolity, Benjamin relates Harding’s presidency to what he sees as the failures of the contemporary executive. At the beginning of the play, the actor playing H. L. Mencken steps out of character, with tongue firmly in cheek, to inform the audience that because these events occurred long ago, there is no reason to be afraid. The play is set “in a time when politics were corrupt, and the Office of President was not so pure and dignified as it is now. Then, a man with money, friends in high places, and the ability to deliver a simple catch phrase to the simple people, could be elected president. But fear not, it was a long time ago, and we have learned from our mistakes. We’d have to be monkeys, or less, not to have learned.”58 Later in the play, Harding’s expression of doubt about his fitness for the presidency is met by Daugherty’s declaration that “greatness in the presidential chair is largely an illusion of the people.”59 One reviewer enjoyed the “whip-smart funny script which mimics the bombastic bloviating of its protagonist,” even though by the end of its 80-minute run the play “starts to wear thin.” Writing of its run in Atlanta a year later, another critic noted the resemblance of

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“W. G.” Harding to “G. W.” Bush. “A bumbling fool in the White House,” he concluded, “just imagine.”60

Richard Nixon Since the theatrical trend toward antiheroic presidents began, none has captured the attention of playwrights as much as Richard Nixon. According to David Greenberg, “there’s no getting around the fact that Nixon fascinates people because of his dark side. Just as the shining heroic face of Franklin Roosevelt dominated an earlier optimistic era of triumph through depression and war, Nixon’s dour and shadowy profile beclouded the years that followed.”61 Negative events such as the Watergate scandal which forced President Nixon out of office cannot by themselvesaccount for this attraction. Even Nixon’s critics concede that his presidency included accomplishments such as détente with the Soviet Union and opening of relations with China. He was popular enough with the voters to have won a landslide victory in 1972. Although U.S. News’ tally of historians’ surveys ranked Nixon tied for ninth worst, the C-SPAN 2009 historians’ poll better illustrates the dichotomy by breaking down presidential leadership into categories. Not surprisingly, he was rated next to last for moral authority, but on international relations he placed eleventh of fortytwo, helping to raise his overall ranking from the lowest group to an only slightly below average twenty-fifth. The paradox of a politician shrewd enough to have recovered from devastating defeats for the presidency in 1960 and governorship of California in 1962 and then win two presidential elections, yet selfdestruct during his second term, provides ideal raw material for playwrights. Nixon’s own fear of public introspection adds to the mystery while providing ample room for dramatic license. As the then vice president told Stewart Alsop in 1958, “If you let down your hair, you feel too naked . . . I can’t let my hair down with anyone . . . not even with my family.”62 At the same time, the historical record is voluminous, including not only a number of books by Nixon himself, others by members of his administration, numerous biographies, and, of course, the tapes of White House conversations. Stephen Ambrose, one of Nixon’s biographers, admits that despite all his research, “as to questions of motive, of why he did what he did, I confess that I do not understand this complex man.” Among the seemingly inexplicable contradictions, Ambrose notes that “if he was the ultimate cynic, a President without principle in domestic

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politics, he was also the ultimate realist, a President without peer in foreign affairs.” Nixon was “brilliant but deeply flawed. An innovative foreign policy strategist, but a small, hurtful, angry man,” writes Michael Genovese. He “remains an enigma and a paradox.” Particularly apt is Greenberg’s conclusion that “Nixon continues to attract interest, to confound simple images of him, and to invite reinterpretation precisely because he remains capable of exciting strong feelings.”63 As long he eludes simple characterizations while remaining too controversial for any consensus about his true meaning to emerge, Nixon will remain an ideal subject for playwrights. As early as Nixon’s first presidential term, he was the subject of Gore Vidal’s An Evening with Richard Nixon which relies largely on Nixon’s own words, although not always in context.64 In the published version, Nixon’s actual statements are printed in one sort of type, with specific sources listed at the back of the book, while invented dialogue is in another. Between the publication of the play and its Broadway run, a number of changes were made. One was the addition of Pro and Con, two commentators who are debating Nixon’s merits as the curtain rises. Vidal told Mel Gussow that “I may or may not be Con.” Gussow wrote in reply that “his nemesis, William F. Buckley, Jr., may or may not be Pro.”65 Pro and Con decide that only a panel of neutral judges can judge Nixon’s life. Since no one alive can be truly impartial, the ghosts of George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, and John Kennedy are summoned to, as Washington puts it, “explain Mr. Nixon in his own words to the people still living.”66 They bring in those involved in Nixon’s life to dramatize key points. When Washington walks onto the stage, the set has a choppeddown red, white, and blue cherry tree. He replies to the inevitable question about who took the axe to it by telling the audience, “I cannot tell a lie. Remember?”67 Holding a golf club, Eisenhower enters, mistaking Washington for Alexander Hamilton. Kennedy follows. As Washington narrates Nixon’s life, starting at birth, he is constantly interrupted by sniping between his fellow ghosts. Nixon’s words are periodically contradicted by projections of contrary facts or film on a screen at the back of the stage or by interruptions from one of the ghosts. However, Vidal’s satirical target is greater than Richard Nixon. As he told Gussow, he hoped to shock his audience by depicting America as “a predatory military power” as defended by John Kennedy.68 For example, Washington replies to Kennedy’s point “that great empires are complex matters beyond the understanding of that agrarian colony whose first President you were,” with the argument

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that “no democracy, no republic, can survive once it aspires to dominion over other people in other lands against their will.”69 Vidal’s critique goes to the heart of American democracy by putting ten faceless dummies on a wheeled trolley with a sign labeling them as “The American People.” This image ridicules the notion of presidents as men of the people by showing how easily they can manipulate public opinion as the trolley moves to and fro in response to Nixon’s campaign appeals. “You did nothing,” Washington upbraids Kennedy and Nixon, “either of you, but play to the passions of the mob.”70 A concluding echo of the play’s opening bluntly summarizes Vidal’s view of contemporary America. Washington’s indicting question, asking how many people “have been killed, wounded, made homeless in the name of the United States of America,” is met by silence. The voice-over again asks who chopped down the cherry tree. When it is not satisfied by Kennedy’s blaming Nixon, Eisenhower supplies the final words, “Now we gotta be fair about that one. We . . . uh, we all did!” In a final production number, the entire cast joins hands in order to dance to a jazzy version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” while, according to the stage directions, “we see bombs exploding in Asia, the flag in shreds, as the curtain falls.”71 Most reviews praised George Irving’s performance as Nixon, which would later win a Drama Desk award, while panning the play. Perhaps expecting a witty send-up of Nixon, many critics were uncomfortable with Vidal’s larger critique of American society. Walter Kerr thought that because of the play’s ending, it “is reduced to an apolitical dryness, a washing your hands of the whole business.” Similarly, Jack Kroll termed the play “hardly a satire on a small President but rather a dark but effete arraignment of a big system. The demoralization of an intelligent man like Vidal is the most significant thing about his play.” Henry Hewes had the unusual criticism that “Vidal proposes no solution. . . . As a result, his political circus depresses more than it amuses or provokes.” Harold Clurman, however, was able to see the direction political plays were beginning to take, writing that while Vidal was obviously unfair and cynical, he accurately reflected that “contemporary politics in general is a self-made mockery—to some a comedy, to others, a tragedy.”72 Audiences agreed with the critical consensus. After 14 previews followed by 16 performances, An Evening with Richard Nixon closed. Events subsequent to the play have dated it so much that there seem to have been no revivals. The satire’s primary weakness is its one-sidedness. Margit Peterfy believes that radical critiques of the

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political system will alienate audiences “if the attack comes across as too aggressive . . . as happened in the case of An Evening with Richard Nixon.”73 As we shall see, subsequent works have depicted a more complicated Nixon. Nevertheless, An Evening with Richard Nixon, like MacBird!, signaled a sharp change in the approach American theater would take in portraying presidents. Comparing it to Vidal’s earlier The Best Man, which will be analyzed in the next chapter, Daniel Frick maintains that, over time, critiques of Nixon grew “ever more despairing about finding any remedy.”74 As evidence of this trend, Frick singles out Donald Freed and Arnold Stone’s Secret Honor: The Last Testament of Richard M. Nixon: A Political Myth, which, after winning an award as the best play of the Los Angeles Actors’ Theatre’s Festival of Premieres in 1983, was produced off-Broadway later that year. In this monodrama, a disgraced post-resignation Nixon dictates his defense to a tape recorder. The imagined evening of revelation mixes fact and conjecture or, as the playwrights put it in an introductory note, “this is a play of ‘fact’ and of ‘cruelty.’ ”75 The filmed version of the play begins with a crawl describing it more directly as “a fictional meditation” and “not a work of history but of fiction.” To underline the irony of the taping, as the play begins, Nixon is fumbling with the tape recorder while ranting against his pardon as “a complete fake, because, you know, if there had been a trial and, uh, the rest of it . . . if I had gone to prison, well, then, you know, I’d be a free man today.” Being deprived of a trial has forced him “to carry the most terrible secrets of all locked up inside his breaking heart.” Now, however, he can reveal to the jury of the American people, the real explanation of Watergate which he calls “the reasons behind the reasons.”76 Occasionally waving a handgun, the play’s Nixon is profane and resentful as he weaves a conspiratorial tale to explain his disgrace. Fueled by alcohol, his mind races so quickly that he often seems unable to finish a thought without changing the subject to tell stories of his personal and political life. His involvement in the conspiracy began in 1945 when, after completing his wartime naval service, he answered an ad seeking a veteran interested in running for Congress. His sponsors were the Committee of 100, a group of “big men” who “showed him a vision of the riches and the power of this world.” They wanted to make California “a political laboratory . . . a kind of proving ground for later on.” With the aid of Murray Chotiner, Nixon would campaign on a platform attacking corruption and communists.77

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The real Nixon had been active in politics before the war, including serving as assistant city attorney in Whittier. When his military commitment ended, one of his mentors, banker Herman Perry, sent him a letter asking “if you would like to be a candidate for Congress on the Republican ticket in 1946.”78 The Committee of 100 which supported him hardly resembled the powerful conspiratorial organization imagined by the playwrights. In the play, the Alger Hiss case proved Nixon’s mettle to the committee. It recruited him to run for the senate in 1950 against Helen Gahagan Douglas because she was leading the opposition to removing offshore oil rights from the federal government, which would have allowed them to be leased by the state to private corporations. “The Committee wanted her dead and I was to be the hatchet man. Period.”79 In fact, this was a major issue as Douglas had been the only member of the California congressional delegation to take this unpopular position.80 As Nixon’s political career blossomed, the committee revealed that the key to their plans was China, which they would use to dominate the Asian markets. Nixon “knew that I either had to go all the way with the China Plan people or suffer the consequences . . . that I was signing a pact with the Devil.”81 When he won overwhelming reelection in 1972, the committee prepared a constitutional amendment ending term limits. Large sums of money, skimmed from American aid to Vietnam, were funneled to Nixon’s reelection committee through fronts set up in Asia. Keeping Nixon in office would mean huge profits through such corruption, domination of the Asian markets, and the heroin trade. The Committee of 100 demanded that Nixon continue the Vietnam War through at least 1976 “whatever the cost; that he accept a “draft” for a third term; and that he complete a deal with China to divide up the Asian markets.82 Nixon could only save the country from this conspiracy by destroying his 1972 election mandate. If he resigned, the committee could simply replace him. “They buy us and sell us every four years,” he dictates. “They’ve got a million guys down there. They can send down to Central Casting and get some dummy that looks good on the tube,”83 possibly alluding to Ronald Reagan. Instead, he hatched a self-destructive plot. “I got out to protect the system. To protect the presidency.” In order to defeat the conspiracy, “we had to invent ‘Deep Throat’ and use Watergate . . . to get out with a pardon.”84 Alexander Haig would take the role of “Deep Throat” to leak the tapes which Nixon had to preserve in order to ruin himself in a counterplot he

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calls “Secret Honor.” Dismissing the heroic presidency, he explains, “I did want to be Abe Lincoln. But I found out that the world is nothing more than a bunch of second-generation mobsters” and other profiteers.85 The best the antiheroic president can do is to prevent a scandal from turning into a catastrophe. In the end, Nixon stares down the barrel of his revolver, but refuses to shoot himself. “If they want me dead, they’ll have to do it,” he declares, ending the play with an expletive.86 The play’s conspiracy is clearly at odds with the facts. As revealed 25 years after the play, “Deep Throat” was W. Mark Felt, who was hardly acting as an agent of President Nixon, rather than Haig. However, “Deep Throat” never leaked any of the White House tapes. Instead, as historian Keith Olson has written, his main contribution to the published story was “reinforcement, more than specific information.” In essence, he either confirmed or debunked what Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein learned from other sources.87 One might also ask, if the Committee of 100 had an unending supply of candidates, why they needed to engage in duplicitous machinations to enable a third Nixon term rather than simply electing a different front man. Much as did Vidal, Freed and Stone, through their protagonist, place considerable blame for Nixon’s misdeeds at the feet of the public. “In the end,” asserts their Nixon, “I was just an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ just like everybody else in the United States of America.” Later, he tells us, “if the American people want truth and moral leadership, we’ll give ’em truth and moral leadership. But that’s not what they want.” Instead we preferred that he “lie, cheat, steal, kill . . . but win, for them.”88 The play received modest attention from critics. In the New York Times, Mel Gussow found that much to his surprise, “Secret Honor humanizes Richard Nixon” and that after hearing his confession, “we almost believe him.” For David Sterritt, the play was “fascinating to watch in a morbid kind of way.” Because of its historical fictions, however, he concluded that it “seems aimed more at the feelings than the intellect.”89 However, the audience during its 47 performances included movie director Robert Altman, who admired both the play and Philip Baker Hall’s acting enough to adapt it into a film. Altman sought to use Nixon’s story “as a way of taking a look at the office of the presidency.”90 While remaining faithful to the script, he expanded the set, allowing Nixon more freedom of movement, while adding four security video monitors and an ominous score, heightening the

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atmosphere of paranoia. The film made both the New York Times and Washington Post ten-best lists for 1984. Vincent Canby was fascinated by “one of the funniest, most unsettling, most imaginative and most surprisingly affecting movies of its very odd kind I’ve ever seen.” Despite knowing the film was fiction, Roger Ebert nevertheless thought it created “a deeper truth, an artistic truth” that in the end gave him “a deeper sympathy for Richard Nixon than I ever had before.” Similarly, Jay Carr concluded that “without making Nixon seem any more admirable or likable, Secret Honor humanizes him.”91 The play has been occasionally revived, most notably with the original production team, including actor Hall, in Washington, DC, in 1986. A different production, with Richard Kowollik as Nixon, ran in San Francisco two years later. Freed later wrote American Iliad, a play in which the ghosts of Nixon and Kennedy meet. It had a brief run in Burbank, California, in 2001. Another playwright fascinated by Nixon’s paradoxes was Russell Lees. Nixon’s electoral success came even though “his darkness and cynicism are in direct contrast to what we Americans like to think of as our national character,” Lees wrote in an author’s note to his 1994 play, Nixon’s Nixon. Lees took a known fact, that Nixon summoned Henry Kissinger to the White House the night before he announced his resignation, and imagined what may have happened.92 The title has a double meaning. It tells us that the play will give us Richard Nixon’s version of the story, but also can be read as describing Henry Kissinger’s role in the Nixon administration. The play is primarily a comedy because Lees saw Nixon as “someone who is so obsessed that he goes so far that he’s funny,” and therefore more a Molière character than a tragic figure.93 According to historian Stephen Ambrose, although Kissinger remembers the two spending nearly three hours together, White House logs indicate that Nixon telephoned him at 9:00 p.m., and made another call, after the secretary of state had departed, at 10:35. An emotional Nixon reminisced about foreign affairs and how the two had worked together. Kissinger later described himself as “the one associate about whom he was the most ambivalent, who made him uneasy even while counting on him to embody the continuity of his achievements.” As they drank brandy from the same bottle they had used to toast their invitation to Beijing, Nixon asked what history’s verdict would be. Assuring him that history would be kinder than their contemporaries, Kissinger told Nixon that should there be a criminal prosecution, he would resign from office in protest. As Kissinger left, Nixon asked him to kneel in prayer. Nixon’s call to

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Kissinger soon afterward to ask him not to discuss their meeting with anyone else proved fruitless as the secretary had already done so.94 Although Nixon was seated in an easy chair with his feet up and a pad in his lap when Kissinger arrived, Lees invented a more dramatic opening that had the president listening to Tchaikovsky at full volume while pretending to conduct. Nixon as conductor also serves as a metaphor for the way he expected his presidency to function as well as his intentions for the evening. Nixon’s often vulgar language; his frequent disparagement of leading political figures, including such heroic presidents as Jefferson, Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Kennedy; his suspicions of nearly everyone around him; and the constant wandering of his thoughts as his speech failed to keep up with his mind are similar to the characteristics of the protagonist of Secret Honor. Both Kissinger and Nixon bring self-serving agendas to this encounter. Seeking to convince the president to resign as quickly as possible but first to convince Gerald Ford to retain him as secretary of state, Kissinger informs Nixon that the certainty of impeachment and conviction makes the situation hopeless. Nixon, however, changes the subject, reminiscing about their international successes. He cajoles Kissinger into playing Mao, Brezhnev, and even Nixon himself as they reenact highlights of their triumphs. When asked how history will remember the Nixon administration, Kissinger returns to his own agenda, telling the president that history will remember their foreign policy achievements, but only if Kissinger remains secretary of state to protect them and complete unfinished work. Making clear his fear that the next president is considering replacing him with Alexander Haig, he reminds Nixon that the best course for him and the country “is for you to definitively step down and let me carry out our program.”95 Nixon has his own version of what makes him a man of the people, explaining his electoral victories with the ambiguous aphorism, “I appeal to the Richard Nixon in everybody.”96 He then begins to reveal his own agenda for the evening. Worried about the possibility of a trial and conviction that would cost him his pension, he is determined to continue to struggle to retain the presidency, citing the support of his family. In an interesting simile, he likens his fall to Satan’s from heaven. However, he has one last weapon to use to convince Kissinger to assist his fight. The FBI has sent him transcripts of wiretaps of Kissinger’s phone conversations that, if revealed, will be embarrassing or worse. Although Kissinger is obviously appalled when he reads the transcript, the audience never learns its content.

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Nixon points out that he can only keep this a secret if he remains in office, telling Kissinger, “I’m President, these tapes disappear.”97 Fueled by alcohol, the two work to develop a plan. With only six sure votes in the Senate, convincing the additional 28 needed to prevent conviction and removal from office is hopeless. Instead, they will have to create an international crisis. However, if Nixon is seen as provoking it, skepticism about his motives will doom the scheme. Only if the crisis is precipitated by a foreign leader, will public doubts be overcome. “Brezhnev, Chou, Hussein, they’re our friends,” explains Nixon. “They’re our base of support.”98 The two men breathlessly spin out a variety of scenarios. To bring the country together, Nixon will promise to resign once the crisis is resolved. Then, says Kissinger, because “the resignation becomes a heroic act,” no one would dare prosecute the departing president. Kissinger’s role in the success would force Ford to retain him. Perhaps realizing the futility of such a plan, Nixon uncharacteristically has an attack of conscience that seems the least plausible part of the play, asking Kissinger “how many did we kill?” Adding figures from around the world, the two calculate that a total of about 800,000 deaths resulted from their policies. Nixon thinks he should seek forgiveness even though he does not believe he has done anything wrong. Nor has he lost his cynicism about the public as he asks, if “they gave me so much power, why are they surprised I used it?” Kneeling in prayer, he decides that “sometimes, it takes more courage, more honor, to throw in the towel.”99 As in Secret Honor and the plays about Harding, the only heroism for these presidents is to act not to achieve something great, but to prevent a disaster of their own creation from becoming even worse. Nixon is then shown after his resignation, boarding a helicopter to depart from Washington. The play ends as Kissinger’s shouted plea, “Can you keep the tapes!? Mr. President!” is drowned out by the helicopter’s engine while Nixon waves to the public.100 Critics commended both the play and the performances of its two little-known actors, Gerry Bamman as Nixon and Steve Mellor as Kissinger. Vincent Canby termed Nixon’s Nixon “both a serious work of the imagination and a fully realized political satire of the sort that the American theater seldom sees,” asking how, at the time Nixon resigned, anyone “could have foreseen that he would become a figure of such fascination in fiction?” While noting that the play is fiction, Liz Trotta praised it as having “the ring of being closer to the truth than anyone so far has surmised. It is moving, and it is hilarious.”101

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Nixon’s Nixon began with a run of 70 performances that was successful enough to be moved to a larger theater for another 55. It won an Outer Critics Circle Award for best off-Broadway play and an Obie for Bamman’s performance as Nixon. Since then, it has been one of the most frequently performed American political plays both in the United States and abroad. In 2000–2001, a successful production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival toured Canada and Great Britain, including runs in Toronto and London’s West End. The same production traveled to Australia in 2003. A tenth-anniversary revival off Broadway in 2006 reunited the original actors and director. During the next two years, the play was presented in Cleveland, Chicago, Washington, and San Francisco. The subject of Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon is David Frost’s 1977 television interviews with Nixon. Because when Morgan began writing it in 1994, he saw his play as more an entertainment than a political drama, he deliberately minimized any parallels between Nixon and George W. Bush. Instead he sought to emphasize the personal stories of the two men. As he described it to an interviewer, “It felt like a boxing match, but where words were the weapons.” Although much of the dialogue comes from the actual interviews and historical record, some is either invented or rearranged. Morgan believes that “truth is an illusory notion.” His own discussions with real-life figures depicted in the play convinced him that, because there were so many different versions, “there’s no one truth about what happened in those interviews, so I feel very relaxed about bringing my imagination to the piece.” To make this clear, an author’s note preceding the published play states that “I feel most comfortable thinking of this as fiction—a creation . . . and I have on occasion, perhaps inevitably, been unable to resist using my imagination.”102 Since the interviews took place nearly 30 years before the play’s debut, Morgan had to find a way to provide the audience with adequate background information without bringing the action to a grinding halt. Because the play was first produced in London, the need to supply such context would be even greater. Morgan, who was born in London to parents originally from Germany and Poland, so needed to learn the basics himself that he hired an American politics tutor while conducting his research.103 The play provides some context by beginning more or less where Nixon’s Nixon ended, with the president’s resignation speech. Morgan then introduces his main explanatory device, James Reston Jr., who interrupts the television studio preparations to address the audience with a summary of the accomplishments and scandals of

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the administration that led up to this speech. As Nixon begins his address, Reston, who was Frost’s chief researcher for the interviews, again breaks in to express his anger at the lack of any admission of guilt or contrition. During the final part of the speech, Reston introduces the main theme of the play by explaining that he would be part of a group that would seek to remedy this omission, led by an unlikely champion whose advantage would be that “he understood television.”104 To balance Reston, Colonel Jack Brennan delivers similar asides to provide a perspective from the Nixon camp. These expositions so slowed the play’s action that the film version reduced the interruptions, relying more on television monitors (also used in the play) to provide background information. The second scene shows David Frost’s Australian television show which, coincidentally, aired at about the same time as Nixon’s speech. Having lost his British program, Frost was anxious to reestablish his previous success both in Britain and the United States. “Success in America,” he tells team member John Birt, “is unlike success anywhere else.”105 He hopes to make a huge splash by arranging lengthy interviews with Richard Nixon. Frost is so anxious to make a deal that he agrees to write a check for two hundred thousand dollars, largely from his own money, as a nonrefundable advance payment. Embarrassed by being reduced to delivering a speech to a group of dentists, Nixon realizes how badly he needs to find a way to at least partly rehabilitate his reputation. He becomes particularly amenable to Frost’s offer when he learns from his agent, Irving “Swifty” Lazar, that he will be paid over half a million dollars, far more than CBS had offered. Unlike CBS’s Mike Wallace, Lazar points out, Frost is an entertainer who “is so grateful to be getting this at all, he’ll pitch puffballs all night.”106 Ultimately, there is an agreement for 12 taping days totaling nearly 30 hours. Four 90-minute programs would cover the topics of foreign policy, domestic affairs, Nixon the man, and, finally, Watergate. Reston replies to Frost’s job offer by declaring “I’d like to give Richard Nixon the trial he never had.”107 Thus is set up the contest between the two. In order for Frost to succeed he will have to elicit some new admission from Nixon, whose rehabilitation will depend on the ability to accentuate his accomplishments while avoiding any such admissions. Frost would also have to overcome the skepticism of traditional media, which had criticized both paying an interview subject, especially one as notorious as Nixon, and Frost’s lack of journalistic credentials. “They were both desperate

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to be in the limelight,” as Morgan put it later, “and they both saw the interview as their last chance to assure their posterity.”108 Morgan uses the small talk prior to the taping sessions to reveal more about Nixon’s personality while also highlighting the play’s theme of the importance of how television portrays politicians to its audience. Discussing the 1960 presidential debates, Nixon explains to Frost how “television and the close-up—they create their own sets of meanings.” Before the second session, Nixon demonstrates his social awkwardness as well as his contrast to the socially freewheeling Frost in the way he asks about the previous evening. “Did you do any fornicating?”109 The first sessions go poorly for Frost as Nixon replies to his questions with long, detailed, and often discursive answers that use up much of the allotted time. Continuing the boxing metaphor, Brennan tells the audience that this is like the moment in a match when challengers “feel the power of the champ’s first jab.”110 Pessimism in Frost’s camp leads to infighting and second-guessing. Even the usually upbeat Frost, having lost his Australian talk show due to the time he has devoted to the Nixon interviews, is discouraged. However, during the final weekend’s preparation for the climactic session that will cover Watergate, he is surprised by a late night phone call from an apparently somewhat inebriated Nixon who talks about how both have been looked down upon by the upper layers of society and now are going to fight to get “back onto the winner’s podium.” Frost replies that “only one of us can win. And I shall be your fiercest adversary.” Nixon agrees that it will be the “limelight” for the winner and the “wilderness” for the loser.111 This conversation, which both disturbs and motivates Frost, is entirely of the playwright’s invention. It allows him to change Frost in a single stroke from a talk-show host into someone more serious. As the final session begins, Brennan notes “something different about Frost . . . a steeliness I hadn’t seen before.”112 He confronts Nixon with a previously overlooked White House conversation discovered by Reston that demonstrates the president was aware of the cover-up three days prior to the date he claims to have first learned of it. A surprised Nixon defends himself with the now-famous assertion that his actions were legal because “when the President does it, that means it’s not illegal,” although he immediately concedes that “no one else shares that view.”113 As Frost closes in for an admission of guilt, Brennan demands a break. Nixon takes advantage of the opportunity to return to his dressing room, but an unruffled Frost tells his angry staff that everything is fine because Nixon “wants the

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wilderness.” Upon his return he concedes making mistakes and letting down the public. That moment, Reston summarizes for the audience’s benefit, made the program a success through “the reductive power of the close-up.”114 In a coda, Nixon tells Frost how fortunate he is, “liking people. And being liked,” while Nixon himself has always been “hurt and suspicious.” Reston concludes the play by telling the audience how the program led to further success for Frost while Nixon remained a symbol of dishonor and disgrace. It is, he explains, “ ‘tough to tell where the politics stopped and the showbiz started. Maybe that was the point. Maybe in the end, there is no difference,” which Frost understood better than anyone else involved.115 The play’s London run was a great success, with critics strongly praising both the play and actors Frank Langella and Michael Sheen who played Nixon and Frost. Noting the boxing metaphor, Michael Billington wrote that “as in all good fight stories, the challenger loses the opening only to deliver a final knockout punch” in a play that “rivets the attention.” Andrew Gilligan’s conclusion that “it may not be history but it’s great theatre” also suggests the most common reservation. As Quentin Letts put it, in an otherwise strongly favorable review, Morgan seems to have “given the TV boys a greater importance than they truly rated.”116 British success soon led to a profitable Broadway run of 23 previews followed by 137 performances. Finding the play’s structure and inventions effective, Ben Brantley thought it had “the momentum of a ticking—time bomb thriller and the zing of a boulevard comedy” while making “it clear that the competitor who controls the camera reaps the spoils.” David Rooney’s enjoyment of “the suspense of a boxing match” was somewhat tempered by Morgan’s “frustrating tendency to spell out salient points that any audience should be attentive enough to deduce for itself,” while Jeremy McCarter, alluding to Morgan’s film scripts for The Queen and The Last King of Scotland, enjoyed the playwright’s “uncanny knack for making crowned heads and assorted monsters seductive.”117 Frost/Nixon won Tony and Drama Desk awards for best play, best actor (Frank Langella), and best director (Michael Grandage). The Broadway run was soon followed by a successful national tour with different actors and a film adaptation with Langella and Sheen reprising their stage roles. Although Nixon remains an antihero, Morgan’s version is more sympathetic than the Nixon in the other three plays discussed in this section. Less angry and profane, he is more willing to try, however ineptly, to be sociable. In the opinion of Elizabeth Drew, the “brooding,

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tormented, often angry, extremely introverted and socially awkward Nixon” she knew as a reporter is transformed into “a figure who readily and humorously, if still somewhat clumsily, chats with Frost.” Drew believes that by inventing and rearranging historical incident, Morgan has distorted history to increase the popular appeal of his play. Her most telling criticism is that the play exaggerates the role of the interviews in eliciting a confession from and “convicting” Nixon. Instead of simply confessing that he “was involved in a ‘cover-up,’ as you call it,” what Nixon actually said was “you’re wanting me to say that I participated in a legal cover-up. No!” She also suggests that Nixon’s admission of mistakes was calculated to help sell the interviews and increase their audience. Rather than Frost knocking out Nixon, both succeeded in achieving their goals. According to Drew, the program not only reached a huge audience, its result was that “Frost’s career and Nixon’s rehabilitation effort were enhanced considerably.”118 Like so many of the plays we have discussed, Frost/Nixon alters history to make its events more dramatic and more significant. The real Frost was less a dilettante than portrayed early in the play and not quite the keen interrogator depicted at the end. Because the evidence already uncovered was more than adequate to establish Nixon’s culpability in the cover-up, the importance of the conversation discovered by Reston seems exaggerated. Nevertheless, this Nixon is a complex and interesting character, and Frost’s interview, although clearly no equivalent of a trial, did make Nixon’s responsibility in the scandal clear to its audience of more than forty million. However, it did not end his attempts a comeback. Stephen Ambrose believes that by making the best case he could, Nixon continued to cheer his friends and anger his enemies. Quoting Nixon’s post-interview vow, “I’ll still be fighting,” Ambrose concludes that “he was coming back.”119 Was Morgan correct in concluding, through Reston, that Nixon “never achieved the rehabilitation he so desperately craved”?120 David Greenberg agrees, arguing that despite the attendance of four presidents at Nixon’s 1990 Hollywood-style funeral, “his name remained a synonym for presidential corruption and crime.” Ambrose disagrees, believing that both Nixon’s successes and failures were relative. In the end, he maintains, “Nixon’s place in history is likely to go up as time goes by.”121

George W. Bush Considering how recently George W. Bush’s term ended, it would seem premature for historians to discuss his comparative rating.

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Nevertheless, serious debate began during his second term, if not earlier. The most attention-grabbing evaluation emerged in a 2006 article by Sean Wilentz with the provocative title, “The Worst President in History?”122 Citing an informal survey of 415 historians taken in early 2004 in which 81 percent evaluated the Bush administration as a failure, Wilentz sought to explain how there could be such a consensus. Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt, our greatest presidents, rallied the country through seemingly impossible crises, leaving things better than when they took office. Failures such as James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Herbert Hoover, did the opposite. What may make Bush worst of all is that where the others failed in one or two key areas—disastrous domestic policy, foreign policy errors, military setbacks, lack of ethics, and lack of credibility—he fell short in all of them, in large part due to stubborn adherence to a simple ideology that prevented adjustments when his policies failed. The public’s evaluation at the end of Bush’s term was similarly negative. His overall job approval rating in the final New York Times/ CBS News poll was only 22 percent, one of the lowest for any president.123 The 2009 C-SPAN survey of historians ranked him thirtysixth of forty-two presidents rated. It is therefore not surprising that Bush has already been depicted as an antihero in a number of plays, the most acclaimed of which is British playwright David Hare’s drama about the origin of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Stuff Happens. In an author’s note to the published play, he explains that “scenes of direct address quote people verbatim. When the doors close on the world’s leaders and their entourages, then I have used my imagination. This is surely a play, not a documentary.” However, he also believes that “nothing in the narrative is knowingly untrue.”124 Hare’s curiosity was piqued by the contradiction between the popular stereotype of Bush as not particularly bright and his ability to prevail over others seen as far more intelligent. “I wanted to write the story of how a supposedly stupid man completely gets his way with two supposedly clever men,” Hare explained, referring to Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, “and wins repeatedly.”125 After a brief introduction, the play begins with the exchange between a journalist and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from which its title is drawn. Asked for his reaction to looting in Baghdad in the wake of the American military occupation, Rumsfeld replies, “I could take pictures in any city in America. Think what’s happened in our cities when we’ve had riots, and problems, and looting. Stuff happens!”126

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The following scene flashes back to the mid-1970s to show the background of most of the play’s main characters. Bush is defined by his religious faith. “There is only one reason I am in the Oval Office and not a bar. I found God,” he explains. He also asserts his philosophy of presidential power, noting “I’m the commander—see, I don’t need to explain.”127 At a January 2001 National Security Council meeting, CIA Director George Tenet shows a grainy photograph of an alleged Iraqi chemical or biological weapons factory. When Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill points out that it could be any factory rather than one manufacturing weapons, Tenet replies, “I’m not saying it is,” then later adds, “there is no confirming intelligence, no, that they are definitely producing chemical or biological weapons.” Bush favors pursuing this matter further, suggesting “we need to know more about the weapons.”128 This scene is very much in line with O’Neill’s recollection of the meeting, after which he concluded, “getting Hussein was now the administration’s focus, that much was already clear.”129 After the September 11 attacks, Bush tells aides “that we are at war and will stay at war until this is done. Nothing else matters.” Hare highlights worldwide sympathy for the United States by quoting the French newspaper Le Monde’s expression of solidarity, “We are all Americans now.”130 At his first war cabinet meeting, Bush declares that Afghanistan will be a “demonstration model” to send a message to countries hostile to the United States. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz advocates military action against Iraq, arguing that compared to Afghanistan, “this is something we can do with very little effort.” Without presenting any evidence, he claims that there is “a ten to fifty percent chance” that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks. Powell urges caution, fearing that international support for the United States will be jeopardized by the “bait and switch” of attacking Iraq. That argument is dismissed by the president because “at some point we may be the only ones left. That’s fine with me.”131 The meeting then breaks up for dinner as wives arrive. What Hare omits is that the cabinet members voted unanimously against an initial invasion of Iraq, with Rumsfeld abstaining. Nevertheless, the next day, Bush qualified this by telling National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice “We won’t do Iraq now,” then quickly adding “We’re putting Iraq off. But eventually we’ll have to return to that question.”132 As the war in Afghanistan proceeds, Blair complains to Bush that American Special Forces ordered the British to pull out of Tora Bora,

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even though that was where they had tracked Osama bin Laden to. Told that bin Laden has now disappeared, the president simply states respect for his military, refusing to go further. Later he remarks that he is no longer focusing on bin Laden because “terror is bigger than one man.”133 In late November 2001, he asks Rumsfeld to develop a war plan for Iraq, but to tell no one else about it. Hare highlights the differences between the British and Americans during a visit to Crawford, Texas, by dressing Blair’s party in dark suits and ties while Bush and his aides are casually attired in jeans and T-shirts. Suggesting that both he and the American president have a vision for reshaping the Middle East, Blair advocates bringing serious pressure for concessions equally on the Israelis and Palestinians. Rather than directly replying, Bush changes the subject to Iraq, telling Blair, “We did Afghanistan. Now we move on. The second phase.”134 Blair counters that without United Nations support and a broad coalition, neither the British public nor its Parliament will go along. Only an immediate threat can justify a war. After Bush simply replies that he will think the matter over and consult with his aides, Blair tells foreign policy adviser David Manning that he is unsure what they have agreed to because Bush’s advisers are likely to push him in a more hawkish direction. At West Point, Bush lays out his doctrine of preventive war, telling the 2002 graduates, “if we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited too long.”135 Uncomfortable with this approach, Powell meets with Rice and the president to present the case against invading Iraq, which he thinks would be an admission of policy failure. Unlike the “armchair generals” supporting military action, as a career military man, “I’m less impressed by the use of force.”136 An invasion would destabilize the region, endanger American allies there, sidetrack most other foreign policy initiatives, increase oil prices, and cost the support of many other countries. Nor is there a real plan for post-war reconstruction. After Bush leaves, Rice expresses appreciation for what Powell has just said without, however, revealing her own position. In August, the administration decides to ask the UN for a resolution authorizing weapons inspections and sanctions should Iraq fail to cooperate. The second act opens with a short scene in which a Palestinian academic argues for the primacy of Palestinian issues, ending with the assertion that “we are the Jews of the Jews.”137 The venue then shifts to the UN as Bush prepares his September 12, 2002 speech. Hawkish members of the administration, even including Rice, are undercutting Powell’s position by publicly declaring that because they have no

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doubt that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction (WMD), there is no need for further weapons inspections. Meanwhile, Blair calls in his head of intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove, to reassure him that there is clear evidence of the existence of WMD. Dearlove can only tell him that there is a single source who claims that Iraq can deploy chemical or biological weapons with 20 to 45 minutes’ notice. When pressed, the most that Dearlove can claim is that this “is a significant piece of raw intelligence.”138 The dossier ultimately released, however, makes the forty-five-minute claim with considerably more certainty. When part of Bush’s speech is omitted from the teleprompter, his improvised line transforms a request for action by the Security Council to the plural “necessary resolutions” from the originally intended singular. At a meeting of foreign ministers, Dominique de Villepin of France seizes on this to suggest two UN resolutions in order to allay fears that the world organization is being used to justify an American invasion of Iraq rather than to peacefully disarm Saddam. Only if the first resolution, requiring disarmament, failed after a reasonable amount of time, would a second, authorizing force, be considered. Powell dismisses Bush’s use of the plural as merely “a technical glitch,” then warns his colleagues that pressing him too hard could backfire, speeding up an invasion rather than preventing it.139 Because it is peripheral to his main narrative, Hare’s account of the congressional debate over the resolution authorizing “necessary and appropriate” military action against Iraq is perfunctory, utilizing short excerpts only from supporters. The opposition case is equally briefly stated by one of the dissenting Labour members of Parliament. Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix is then invited to the White House for three meetings. First Vice President Cheney tells him that because there should be no trouble finding WMD in Iraq, “if you have any trouble, understand, we’re ready to discredit you.” Conversely, the president expresses his confidence in Blix. Finally, Wolfowitz asks, “You do know they have the weapons, don’t you? I mean you are starting from that position, I hope.” Blix disagrees on the grounds that as a professional he cannot start from a predetermined position. According to the stage directions, “Wolfowitz just stares at him.”140 Two months of debate over a single word in the UN resolution end when Powell suggests to Rice that if the administration agrees to the French phrasing, the result will be ambiguous enough to justify differing interpretations from each side. “You can read it either way,” he explains and the result will be the desired headline, “US Achieves Iraq Resolution.” After the French and the Americans express

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contradictory understandings, an actor declares “this is widely seen as the moment of Powell’s greatest triumph.”141 As Hare portrays matters, however, it is the moment when both Powell and Blair have been outmaneuvered. When Blix fails to find WMD, an angry Blair tells Manning, “It isn’t Blix’s job to find the weapons—it’s Saddam’s to prove they’ve been destroyed.”142 If Saddam fails to understand that, the United States will go to war. Because of his belief that the best way to influence American policy is to side with them early, Blair has been locked into supporting Bush’s actions. Powell’s military sense of loyalty has similarly trapped him. When summoned to the White House, he is informed by the president that the decision to invade has been made. Given one last chance to dissent, Powell replies, “I don’t disagree.” After he leaves, Bush explains to the audience, “I didn’t need his permission.”143 In Bob Woodward’s version, Powell is more positive in expressing his agreement, telling the president, “Yes sir, I will support you. I’m with you, Mr. President.”144 The remainder of the play is anticlimactic, concentrating on the debate over the second UN resolution which the French threaten to veto. Because the administration believes it unnecessary to justify American military action, Cheney and Rumsfeld urge that it be dropped. Powell’s view that it is necessary in order to prop up Blair’s endangered parliamentary majority temporarily prevails. In the play, his UN speech presenting evidence to demonstrate the imminence of an Iraqi threat is interrupted by an actor debunking each assertion, after which Blix and de Villepin provide additional rebuttals. When Blair’s furious campaign to gain approval fails, the resolution is dropped and the invasion of Iraq begins. After a brief depiction of the military success and the problems of the occupation, the play ends with an Iraqi exile’s speech that criticizes the war but concludes that only the Iraqis themselves can save their country. “If you don’t do it yourself,” he tells the audience, “this is what you get.”145 British reviewers were generally impressed. Nicholas de Jongh wrote that “of all the thousands of first nights I have attended,” this “was the most significant and bracing” largely because Hare “treats politicians of both wings with seriousness and respect.” Quentin Letts found it “the most powerful work of drama for years,” whose power came from “the way events have spooled out of our control.” Michael Billington praised “a very good totally compelling play” that caused him to reassess the common stereotype of Bush “as some kind of holy fool or worse.” Instead, Bush was portrayed as “a wily and skillful manipulator who plays the role of a bumbling pseudo-Texan

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but constantly achieves his desired ends.” American critic John Lahr thought that Hare “brings us an exhilarating account of the genesis of the current war in Iraq” He admired both Hare’s “sharp eye for ironic detail” and his “looking for complexity, not self-congratulation.”146 Success in London led to American productions, but, because of the cost of the large cast, not on Broadway. Instead it was presented first in Los Angeles in 2005, then at New York City’s Public Theater the following year to largely enthusiastic reviews. While British reviewers focused on the play’s characterizations of Blair and Bush, Ben Brantley thought the key to the production was Powell’s progress “from apprehensive but hopeful good faith into fiery indignation and finally into numbed, appalled resignation.” Michael Kuchwara applauded “a fascinating, step-by-step account” of the origins of the Iraq War. In contrast, Jeremy McCarter, while agreeing that Stuff Happens is an important play, thought it too concerned with maneuvers and conferences with too little character development and thoughtful discussion.147 Stuff Happens’ original limited run was extended to two and a half months, winning an Outer Critics Circle Award for outstanding off-Broadway play as well as Obie and Drama Desk awards for acting and direction. Since then it has been performed in a number of cities in the United States. Powell is the play’s closest character to a hero, working hard to do what he believes is right, but, alone in his opposition to going to war, he ultimately fails. His tragic flaw is a military sense of loyalty that requires him, once he loses, to tell the president he doesn’t disagree with the result. This seems Hare’s explanation of why Powell did not resign in protest, instead lending his credibility to a UN speech that, in a television interview after leaving office, he termed a “blot” on his record. In that same interview, he defended his decision not to resign as justified because “I’m glad that Saddam Hussein is gone.”148 Hare exaggerates Powell’s role as a tragic hero while portraying most of his antagonists within the administration in one-dimensional terms. Since writing the play, however, his evaluation of Powell has evolved. In the original British version, according to the playwright, “Powell was represented as a liberal hero.” For the American production, he was rewritten as “a tragic hero,” but Hare now believes “that Powell was lying when he presented evidence to the UN.”149 Billington’s description of the play’s portrayal of Bush is quite accurate. Hare depicts him as shrewdly speaking in generalizations in public while allowing selected subordinates to do the dirty work. Blix’s three meetings at the White House provide the best example.

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While Bush compliments him, Cheney and Wolfowitz engage in more threatening behavior. When Bush decides to plan for the invasion of Iraq, he asks Rumsfeld to work out the details but not to tell anyone else, including Powell, who is told of these plans only when absolutely necessary. Hare’s portrait of Bush is well within the antiheroic tradition. Nevertheless, it is weakened by having been written midway through Bush’s presidency. As a result, it chronicles the rise of President Bush but very little of his decline. Other plays about Bush have been little more than expanded sketch comedy. These began surprisingly early in his presidency. One of the first was the successful British farce, The Madness of George Dubya which its author, Justin Butcher, described as a “hotchpotch of revue, satire, cabaret, stand-up, vaudeville.”150 In this play, a pajama-clad Bush’s malapropisms include declaring “war on tourism.” Beginning in a small fringe theater in early 2003, the play soon moved to the West End. Several American plays honored MacBird! in their titles. One example is The Tragedy of MacBush which was performed in Oakland in 2003. The most successful of these sketch plays was Will Ferrell’s impersonation, You’re Welcome America: A Final Night With George W. Bush. This gentle satire built on Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live sketches. Its run of 18 previews and 46 performances culminated in a performance televised live on HBO. It was nominated for a Tony award for best special theatrical event. Evidence of the level of humor is the play’s large-screen projection of a photo purporting to be Bush’s penis which caused some audience members to walk out.151 Now that Bush has left office, the public will soon be flooded with information that is certain to provide raw material for future playwrights. Will the result be that he will become a rival to Nixon as the most likely president portrayed as a theatrical antihero? If so, it will likely be a more sympathetic depiction resulting in a more complex character.

Two Theatrical Curiosities Of all American presidents, the least likely subject of a play would seem to be James Buchanan. In the U.S. News tally of surveys of historians, he ranked at the bottom, below even Harding. His final message to Congress, sent as South Carolina was on the verge of secession, informed the legislature of his view that “the Executive has no authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal

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Government and South Carolina.”152 His inaction on the issues of slavery and secession at the least failed to prevent the Civil War. Why then did John Updike, the prolific novelist, essayist, and poet, choose Buchanan as the subject of his only play? Updike himself described Buchanan Dying as “a full length portrait of political impotence and private timidity.” Yet he also considered the antiwar protests against Lyndon Johnson that had taken place a few years before the 1974 publication of his play. In his forward to the 2000 edition, Updike asked, “Had any President been so vilified—the play MacBird! marking a low point in the slander and venom—since Buchanan himself?” In his opinion, Buchanan was “something of a peacenik, dreading the men of violent action of whom Andrew Jackson is his chief exemplar.”153 The physical oddity that one of Buchanan’s eyes was nearsighted, the other farsighted, provided a metaphor for the ability to see both sides of a question simultaneously, resulting in a balanced view. Originally planned as a novel, the play was written primarily to be read. Because of its six-hour running time, large cast of 38 characters, and frequent use of archaic language, its few performances have been limited to abridged versions on college campuses. Nevertheless, the author’s prominence justifies a serious discussion of this drama. The setting is Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1868. As the 77-year-old Buchanan lies on his deathbed, he conjures up figures from his past, with the scene sometimes flashing back to his younger days. The first apparitions blame him for the Civil War. He allowed the South to elect him president, one accuser charges, then “turned his back when the chits were called in.” His defense is that the Constitution gave him no power to intervene. Even if he had such power, “firm action meant the abyss. Inaction was the last hope. Tranquilize the wavering states, and isolate South Carolina.” Unfortunately, Lincoln stayed home in Springfield until officially taking office, preventing the plan from succeeding.154 The play suggests that the key to understanding Buchanan is that staple of dramas about heroic presidents, the tragic love affair. However, Updike turns the usual arc upside down. Rather than inspiring a hero to future greatness, the death of Anne Coleman instead has a long-term paralytic effect because Buchanan himself bore great responsibility for it. Although James declares to Anne, “no one could touch me as you have. I vow, I will carry your image with me to the grave,” she wants to know his specific intentions, asking “what holds you back? Marry me.” Because her family disapproves of him as seeking their wealth, he urges delay, the same strategy he will later

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propose to prevent secession. “Time can only accustom them to my attendance,” he tells Anne, while “haste would confirm their suspicions of bad faith.”155 When Anne learns that James was late for their meeting because he interrupted a business errand to flirt with other women, she sends him a note breaking off their engagement then departs for Philadelphia. From offstage her voice cries “Traitor! Traitor!” He refuses to reply out of belief that the only way to meet her accusations is to allow for “the possibility that time and silence will reduce them to their selfevident absurdity.” Sending her a letter would be an admission of wrongdoing. Even when friends suggest that Anne is simply looking for a sign of his devotion and urge him to pursue her, he declines as that “would merely compromise my dignity.”156 Unfortunately, she dies not long after arriving in Philadelphia. As this story is told, the audience simultaneously views Buchanan’s efforts to prevent civil war. Torn between his conviction that the Constitution forbids secession, yet also grants the president no power to use military force against it, President Buchanan seeks delay, believing as he had so often before that “time is the great conservative force.”157 His last desperate hope is that President-elect Lincoln will agree to the Crittenden Compromise providing for a constitutional convention to make changes acceptable to the South: extension of the Missouri Compromise line to allow slavery with federal protection in western territories south of that line, and full enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. Even if Lincoln agreed, this would at best reduce the number of states seceding rather than prevent a civil war. Nor would Lincoln be likely to accept such violations of his own party’s platform. In fact, believing the South’s goal was to change the very nature of the American system, he told a visitor, “I will suffer death before I will consent or will advise my friend to consent to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege to take possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right.” In the play, since Lincoln never replied directly to Buchanan, it is Charles Sumner who tells the president that his Massachusetts constituents “would see their state sunk below the sea and become a sandbank before they would adopt these propositions.”158 The second act’s climax makes a direct connection between Buchanan’s failure to prevent both the Civil War and Anne Coleman’s death by having her offstage voice read the letter breaking off their engagement as the cabinet meets to hear a message from South Carolina indicating that war has begun. Because the executors of Buchanan’s will followed his wishes to destroy unread all correspondence with

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Anne despite his having saved it for so many years, Updike had to invent the words of her letter. In the third act Buchanan tries to come to terms with the events of his life to prepare for death. Speaking to the specter of Lincoln, he defends his pre—Civil War inaction as giving the North the moral high ground by forcing the South to make the first aggressive move. Equally important, delay made the North more powerful, “for every day my administration staved off secession, another factory sprouted.” He then discusses his religious doubts with the Reverend William Paxton, asking whether his sense of detachment is proof that he is damned. In a final prayer, his uncertainty apparently overcome, he asks to “let my accounts be said to balance, with some small deficit to be made up in the life to come.” After going over the provisions of his will in detail with his executor, he tells the man, “I have no regret for any public act of my life; and history will vindicate my memory from every unjust aspersion,” a statement that fails to include his private life. Updike precedes Buchanan’s actual final words, “O Lord, God Almighty, as Thou wilt,” with those actually written in a letter by a Holocaust victim, “all that is heavy falls away.”159 Because the play’s only performances occurred from April 29 to May 8, 1976 at Franklin and Marshall College and in six performances with script in hand the following year at San Diego State University, most of the few reviews reacted to the written rather than a performed version. In a detailed analysis, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. admired the playwright’s “fantastic talent for mimicry,” calling the invented letter from Anne Coleman “a masterpiece.” In contrast, he thought Updike overlooked the substantial concessions over slavery Buchanan offered to the South and found his defenses that the Constitution prevented presidential action and that delay helped the North prepare for war to be inconsistent. The result was the tempered praise that the play “is infinitely more interesting than most of the trash that finds its way to New York these days” and the hope that a regional theater would produce it. Other critics found Buchanan Dying static and its protagonist not very interesting. Despite admiring some scenes, Peter Prescott found them “not enough to redeem this wordy, ungainly and ultimately ill-advised attempt at theater.” Irvin Ehrenpreis was disappointed that “Updike stands on surprisingly neutral ground in the judgment of Buchanan’s virtues and faults,” while D. Keith Mano thought that fairness both a strength and a serious limitation, concluding that the playwright “has very little to say. And no one writing in America says it better.”160

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Since these college performances, no others have followed. However, Updike recycled much of the material in his 1992 novel, Memories of the Ford Administration, whose protagonist is a historian writing a biography of Buchanan. This allows Updike to alternate material from the biography with accounts of twentieth-century life. To most Americans, John F. Kennedy would seem more likely to be portrayed as a heroic than an antiheroic president. In a 2009 Gallup Poll, 22 percent chose him as the greatest American president, the same percentage who ranked Lincoln at the top and a higher percentage than chose Franklin Roosevelt or George Washington. Although historians have been less enthusiastic, the 2009 C-SPAN survey rated him sixth.161 John Kennedy’s youth and vigor together with his tragic end suggest the heroic president, as does his successful handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. On the other hand, the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion and the failure of Congress to pass his legislative initiatives until Lyndon Johnson pushed them through after Kennedy was assassinated suggest that the most appropriate grade for the Kennedy presidency should be incomplete or, as Thomas Cronin put it, “his greatness lies less in what he achieved than in what he proposed and began.”162 Gip Hoppe certainly does not portray Kennedy as heroic in Jackie: An American Life. Originally a collection of skits first produced in 1991 on Cape Cod, then a year later at the Hasty Pudding Theatre in Cambridge, a more polished revision made its way to Broadway in 1997. Hoppe, however, “never thought of Jackie as a Broadway play. I wrote it as a lark, as something to keep me busy during a winter on the Cape.”163 Ten actors, most playing multiple roles, share the stage with giant puppets and large cut-out boats and campaign buses. As the title indicates, the focus is Jacqueline Kennedy (later Onassis) who is portrayed as a reluctant object of public affection. As the play begins, she asks the audience, “What do you want from me? What is it you find so fascinating.”164 The rest of the play depicts her life chronologically. At graduation from finishing school, she hopes to become a writer, but the headmaster urges her instead to take up the role of traditional housewife. Reinforcing this message, her mother warns that “a woman is nothing unless she gets the right man.”165 After graduating from Vassar, she travels to France, then returns to Washington, DC, to take a job as a photographer with a Washington newspaper. Although engaged to a boring stockbroker (played by a giant puppet) that her family likes more than she seems to, Jackie soon meets the ambitious John Kennedy who tells her of his plans to

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run for the United States Senate, then begins to court her. She breaks off her engagement, literally throwing away her puppet fiancé. John invites Jackie to meet his family at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport which is described in the stage directions as resembling the Olympic games. The active but frivolous family spends all day playing games. A twenty-foot-tall puppet, representing John’s father Joe, expresses his approval of Jackie, then orders his somewhat reluctant son to marry her because the public will only elect a married man president. He shouts, “SHE’S THE ONE! THERE WILL BE NO MORE DISCUSSION!” John rarely speaks, even at their lavish wedding when asked by Cardinal Cushing if he will take Jackie to be his wife. Joe ends the first act by declaring, “I’M GOING TO SELL THOSE TWO LIKE SOAP FLAKES! THAT GIRL IS GOING TO MAKE OUR BOY THE PRESIDENT!”166 The 1960 campaign for the Democratic nomination depicts John and Jackie condescending to the rubes of Wisconsin and West Virginia, who vote for him because of her. When Jackie stays in Massachusetts with their daughter during the convention, John has an affair with Marilyn Monroe. In the general election debates, John answers all questions by explaining how young and handsome he is while Nixon’s responses point out his contrasting lack of attractiveness. John promises that he and his wife “will fulfill all of America’s sexual fantasies.” After the debate, Robert Kennedy laments that “if this trend continues, I foresee the day when we have an actor as president.” To further underline the point, his brother John replies that he has too much faith in the public to see that happening.167 The White House proves a disappointment to Jackie, who repeats Bette Davis’s famous line, “What a dump!” upon entering it for the first time. John’s suggestion that she make improving it her pet project proves such a success that, after she conducts a televised tour, America falls in love with her. Things change after John is assassinated as that same America wants Jackie to remain forever his widow. Besieged by photographers, she is saved by marrying Aristotle Onassis and retreating to his island. After Onassis dies, Mur Doch, the play’s version of media magnate Rupert Murdoch, tells her that “when the name Jackie is spoken, the words dignity and grace will follow close behind like beautiful swans.”168 Having discharged her duty to the public, she concludes the play with the request that they go home and get on with their lives. Most critics enjoyed the puppets and cardboard cutouts far more than the script. In Ben Brantley’s opinion, the play was a too-familiar comic strip that resembled a collection of skits from Saturday Night

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Live. Finding the satiric targets too familiar, Charles Isherwood suggested that “it’s not an auspicious sign when a comedy gets most of its laughs for its scenery.” “The words are seldom profound and the verbal jokes are often thin,” wrote Fintan O’Toole, “but the visual effects are often stunning.”169 The play ran for 34 previews and 128 performances, winning a Drama Desk Award for outstanding puppet design. Since then, it has occasionally been revived by such regional theaters as the Diamond Head Theater in Honolulu in 2000, Chicago’s Pilsen Theatre the same year, the Willows Theatre in Concord, California, in 2001 and the Music Theatre of Wenatchee, Washington, in 2009. The play’s portrait of John Kennedy varies depending on the jokes presented in each scene. For much of the play he is a womanizing twit, ambitious but dependent upon others to plan his own future and tell him what to do. At other times, however, he is politically shrewd and in control. He sometimes genuinely cares for his wife; at other times he merely uses her. The play also wildly overestimates Jacqueline Kennedy’s importance in Kennedy’s winning the presidency. It does succeed in making some significant, if today rather obvious points, about how the president and his family have become much the same type of celebrities as movie stars and professional athletes. Hoppe’s joke about the danger of an actor becoming president, so many years after the election of Ronald Reagan, demonstrates this point clearly.

Conclusion Although it had precursors, MacBird! marked a sea change in theatrical portrayals of presidents. As the public’s faith in government has declined, its opinion of the president has become more amenable to critical depictions. In many ways, this makes life easier for playwrights than when stage presidents had to be heroic. There is no longer a fear that any serious criticism of a president will alienate audiences. This made genres such as satire, whether as sharp as MacBird! or as gentle as Jackie: An American Life and You’re Welcome America, available. Playwrights soon realized that antiheroic presidents, because they present greater possibilities for complex characters, could be more interesting than one-dimensional heroes. The best example is the evolution of Richard Nixon on stage from the purely negative version presented in An Evening With Richard Nixon to the far more sympathetic yet hardly heroic Nixon depicted in Secret Honor, Nixon’s Nixon, and Frost/Nixon. To show his inner conflicts, however, the authors had to fictionalize history by inventing conspiracies

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or making up scenes such as the late-night phone call from Nixon to Frost. Even at their best, these presidents succeeded only in reducing the negative consequences of their unsuccessful administrations. Because of this, some playwrights developed counterweights to give the audience someone to root for. Lawrence and Lee’s hero, Bruce Bellingham, was so ethical he had to be entirely invented. David Hare’s flawed heroes (if that’s the right term), Colin Powell and Tony Blair, failed in the end. David Frost was more successful, but only in a limited way, by gaining a modest admission of fault from the former president. If this suggests that the public is still searching for heroes, there remains the possibility that the heroic president could make a comeback or that there could be a synthesis, resulting in a more realistic picture of presidents on stage—flawed but wellmeaning and able to achieve positive results for the voters. Because fiction allows playwrights to invent presidents who are both interesting and at least somewhat successful, the next chapter examines whether fictional presidents have followed a different trend than their real life counterparts.

Chapter 4 Fictional Presidents There are surprisingly few plays about fictional presidents. Surprising because there are so many films, including Gabriel Over the White House (1933), Fail-Safe (1964), Dr. Strangelove (1964), First Family (1980), Dave (1992), The American President (1995), My Fellow Americans (1996), Air Force One (1997), Wag the Dog (1997), Primary Colors (1998), and The Contender (2000). Television produced the successful series, West Wing, as well at others featuring female and African-American presidents. As discussed earlier, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century playwrights avoided writing about presidents for fear of alienating audiences. By the 1920s, they had realized that depicting heroic presidents was one way to avoid such controversy, even though it often resulted in dull history lessons and considerable use of poetic license to revise historical events for better dramatic effect. Soon it was discovered that the genre of comedy could be more entertaining, and, if the presidents were fictional, there would be neither need for historical accuracy nor fear of offending admirers of specific chief executives. After this chapter discusses comedies about imagined presidents, the next will examine musicals about both real and fictional ones. The main subject of fictional plays has been presidential elections which provide the conflict of opposing candidates as well as a limited time period and definitive outcome. Unlike films, which can open up to show any place in a realistic manner, the more artificial stage is limited in its sets. This made party conventions, which determined the presidential nominees during the first half of the twentieth century, ideal for theater, which could show behind-the-scenes maneuvering in hotel rooms and party headquarters. Now that the locus of power has shifted from party leaders to primary voters, film is a more natural medium for speeches and campaign rallies. Even conventions are opening up, as demonstrated by Barack Obama’s 2008 convention speech at a Denver football stadium. Nevertheless, the importance of television, particularly televised debates, still provides opportunities

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for imaginative playwrights, as do post-election battles over congressional legislation, to say nothing of military conflicts. We can certainly hope to see more playwrights inventing their own presidents in the near future.

First Lady After Katherine Dayton wrote a series of humorous magazine stories titled “Mrs. Democrat and Mrs. Republican,” friends urged her to turn them into a play. Because the neophyte playwright realized she needed a coauthor, she asked her agent for assistance. One of America’s most successful writers of comedies, George S. Kaufman, agreed to collaborate. The two decided that rather than writing something topical, they would satirize the trivial nature of social and political life in Washington, DC.1 First Lady opened in 1935, when women were neither encouraged to run for political office nor considered as possible presidents. Until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, women were not even permitted to vote. In a 1937 Gallup Poll, only 33 percent of those asked expressed a willingness to vote for “a generally well-qualified person . . . who happened to be a woman” should their party nominate her. 2 As we saw in a number of plays about heroic presidents, women were expected to channel their own ambitions through their husbands. First Lady’s main characters are two leaders of Washington society, Lucy Chase Wayne and Irene Hibbard. Lucy, the granddaughter of a former president, is working to advance the presidential candidacy of her husband, who is secretary of state. Many observers at the time noted Lucy’s resemblance to Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice, a friend of Dayton’s who had married House Speaker Nicholas Longworth. Her chief rival, Irene Hibbard, although married to a supreme court justice significantly older than she, plans to divorce him in order to wed Senator Gordon Keane, whose presidential candidacy she will promote. Whenever Lucy and Irene appear on stage together, their dialogue consists of exchanges of witty retorts. None of the men seems to harbor presidential ambitions; instead it is the women who push them. As Lucy’s husband, Stephen, puts it after one of Lucy and Irene’s encounters, “Suppose we leave the girls to mop up. A battlefield’s no place for a diplomat.”3 Lacking a legitimate path to political involvement, Lucy is an inveterate schemer. After learning of Irene’s plan, she decides to create an

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artificial presidential boom for Carter Hibbard that will induce Irene to remain married to him as her best path to the White House. Lucy gains support for Carter from the president of the Women’s Peace, Purity and Patriotism League, Louella May Creevey, who never tires of reminding everyone she meets “that I represent six million women in forty-seven of the forty-eight states.”4 At first, all goes exactly as intended. The very evening that Irene asks for a divorce, Mrs. Creevey shows up, accompanied by Judge George Mason of the bar association and Ellsworth Ganning, who runs a newspaper chain with a total circulation of twenty million readers. When they ask Carter if he will agree to allow them to promote his candidacy for president, the surprised justice defers to his wife. Suddenly transformed into an obedient spouse, Irene replies that “my husband’s interests are mine; his life is mine.”5 Unfortunately for Lucy, however, her plot succeeds far too well as Carter’s campaign takes off. With radio and newspapers poised to make the public aware of the little-known supreme court justice, Stephen tells his wife that “there just seems to be a lot of Hibbard sentiment, Lucy. We don’t know how it started.” Senator Hardwick laments that he had hoped Stephen would be the party’s candidate, and if it “hadn’t been for this Hibbard business we could have done it, too. Even had the President with us.”6 Lucy desperately searches for some way to prevent the formal announcement of Carter’s candidacy and the endorsements scheduled to accompany it. Scouring through his judicial opinions, she is unable to discover anything embarrassing. She then turns to investigating Irene, telling a friend, in the play’s typically epigrammatic dialogue, that “they ought to elect the First Lady and then let her husband be President.”7 Fortunately, she realizes that according to a treaty recently negotiated by Stephen, any legal actions in the country of Slavonia prior to its approval, including Irene’s divorce from her first husband, Prince Gregoravitch of that country, would not be valid under American law. In other words, the Hibbards are not legally married. Carter quickly withdraws his candidacy, claiming that a recurrence of his stomach problems would make it impossible to campaign. In need of an immediate replacement, all those who had been ready to support Carter turn to Stephen. In a final twist, Lucy’s niece Emmy announces her engagement to Gordon Keane, pointing out that he will never be president because he was born in Canada. All of Lucy’s schemes were for nought. Most reviewers of this comedy enjoyed what Brooks Atkinson termed “the relative modesty of its attack upon the foibles of Washington

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society.” Despite conceding that “the story is improbable,” he did not find it impossible, since “Washington is the capital of improbability.” Time’s critic enjoyed the gossipy wit in “as entertaining a show as ever bore the Kaufman hallmark,” even if it “breaks no tradition.” One of the few dissenters, Joseph Wood Krutch, concluded, not inconsistently with those more favorably inclined, that “when one has said that it is tremendously clever and tremendously amusing one seems to have said it all.”8 A great success, the play lasted on Broadway for 246 performances. A film version, however, was not nearly as successful, with reviewers comparing Kay Francis, the movie’s Lucy, unfavorably with Jane Cowl who played her on stage.9 The play was not meant to be realistic. While newspaper publishers, interest group leaders, and the bar association were not without influence in presidential nominations, the state party leaders through their national convention would have had the final say. The play ignores an opposition party contesting the general election. It is hard to believe that no one would have been aware that Senator Keane had been born in Canada and therefore ineligible for the presidency. However, it is the mildness of its jabs and the great changes in the role of women in politics and society that have dated the play. Even if its theme, that the right socially connected people will ultimately succeed in national leadership provided needed optimism during the Depression, it is at considerable odds with today’s public opinion. Nevertheless, First Lady’s witty lines and value as a historical relic have generated enough interest for occasional revivals. Most notable was the brief 1952 Broadway run starring a real politician, Helen Gahagan Douglas, who had served in the House of Representatives before losing an election for the United States Senate to Richard Nixon. However, Brooks Atkinson, despite his praise nearly two decades earlier, concluded that “despite the lively acting and some malicious humor about people in Washington, First Lady looks tired today.”10 More recent productions have presented First Lady primarily as a period piece. In his review of a 1980 Berkshire Theater Festival revival, Frank Rich was surprised that there were “no gags about the New Deal, but there are all too many benign one-liners about Washington’s parties, social customs and exotic diplomatic visitors” in a comedy lacking “satirical sting.”11 Since then, the play has been performed by the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1996 and the Actors Company Theater in New York City in 2000, as well as a few college productions.

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State of the Union In 1944, at the suggestion of actress Helen Hayes, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse wrote State of the Union, a comedy about fictional presidential candidate Grant Matthews. Although the authors denied that Matthews was modeled on 1940 Republican nominee Wendell Willkie, they conceded that “our political convictions are close to those of Wendell Willkie and Franklin D. Roosevelt.”12 The play puts Matthews into the 1948 presidential contest along with the actual candidates who are frequently mentioned in the fictional characters’ discussions and occasionally are unheard parties at the other end of phone conversations. At the beginning of the first act, political leader Jim Conover and newspaper publisher Kay Thorndyke are recruiting Matthews, a prominent businessman, to run for the Republican presidential nomination based on his appeal as a political outsider and the positive reception to a speech he delivered at one of his aircraft plants. Reluctant but flattered, Grant agrees to test the waters by giving similar speeches at his other factories in large cities around the country. His theme is an attack on the two parties for dividing the country because “they appeal to each one of these pressure groups just to get their votes.”13 If he runs, he insists he will remain his own man, listening to advice but ultimately making all important decisions himself. He demonstrates this by rejecting Conover’s recommendation to avoid being too specific in his speeches. However, because of gossip about him and Thorndyke, Grant agrees to ask his estranged wife Mary to accompany him on his speaking tour while Kay returns home. The play centers on the struggle for Grant’s soul between Mary’s desire that he speak frankly, whatever the political consequences, and the urging of Kay and Jim to be more realistic and occasionally compromise for the greater good of winning election. During the first few weeks of the speaking tour, his honesty has both generated public support and rekindled his marriage. As Grant and Mary read favorable messages, the audience gets to see how he embodies one of the characteristics of the heroic president, the man of the people. Telegrams from ordinary citizens heap praise on his speech. The sender of the only critical wire is a labor union officer, one of the special interest group leaders the speech denounced. However, Jim points out that, at a time when national conventions determined the party candidates, “you’re not nominated by the people—you’re nominated by the politicians.” When asked what the differences between the two parties are,

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he cynically replies, “All the difference in the world. They’re in—and we’re out!”14 Having secretly traveled to Detroit, Kay uses a few minutes alone with Grant to convince him to mute criticism of business’s high prices and excess profits in that night’s speech. After returning to their suite without Mary knowing of this rendezvous, Grant summarizes his dilemma: “I know now it isn’t just black and white—but damn it, where do you draw the line?”15 One of the play’s weaknesses is its failure to address this question, instead eventually settling for black and white. Mary consents to host a dinner for potential supporters in their New York City apartment, going so far as to agree to Kay’s inclusion on the guest list. She still does not know why Grant modified his Detroit speech. However, a friend’s chance remark that he had seen Kay heading for the Matthews suite that night enlightens her. As a result, she immediately breaks her promise to abstain from alcohol for the evening. The more talk of courting the votes of Italian and Polish Americans, farmers, business, and other self-interested groups she hears, the more she drinks. The play then skips the next hour, during which Mary has made cutting remarks to everyone seeking favors from Grant. Instead of viewing these confrontations, the audience sees Mary, desperately consuming coffee to regain her sobriety, as she tries to recall what happened. According to one of her guests, “you picked them off one by one—like settin’ birds.”16 Jim again tries to convince her to make some compromises, pointing out that the only place Kay has no chance of being with Grant would be the White House, should he be elected president. Mary remains true to her philosophy, denouncing efforts to court ethnic groups through divisive appeals. Evidence of how quickly even successful plays date is her declaration of what would be the worst evil, “How long is it going to be before you ask us to forgive Germany to get the German vote?”17 Now that a reunited Germany is one of America’s strongest allies, such a possibility will generate little alarm. In the end, Grant suddenly sees the light, telling Jim and Kay, “You want a candidate who will make deals with every special interest just to get votes. I can’t play that game.” He will withdraw as a presidential candidate, which will free him to speak honestly to the public, beginning with his foreign policy speech. Then he and Mary will take time off for a second honeymoon, after which he will resume his national speaking tour because “nobody can afford to be out of politics. . . . I’m going to be in there asking questions, and I’m going to see that the people get the answers.”18 This ending leaves open the possibility that

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public reaction will be so positive that Grant will again become a presidential candidate. The reviewers responded enthusiastically. Enjoying both the play’s political relevance and its gentle humor, Howard Barnes concluded that “State of the Union speaks out loud about things that need stating. It does so with gayety and conviction.” Agreeing with Lindsay and Crouse’s decision to avoid stating “exactly what Grant Matthews is driving at—apart from his general thesis that Americans should stop breaking into groups,” Brooks Atkinson praised “a stimulating and highly enjoyable play that discusses a real theme.” More tempered in his enthusiasm was Wolcott Gibbs who, despite finding State of the Union “by no means an important or even a completely satisfactory play,” liked its wit and “sensible point of view in regard to some of our current dilemmas.” One of the few dissenters was Harold Clurman who faulted the play for a lack of real satirical bite. It “exploits truisms, and never really gets to dealing with the ills it points out in any way that makes them hurt us in life.”19 State of the Union was a huge success at the box office, lasting for 765 performances from November 1945 to September 1947, and winning the 1946 Pulitzer Prize. A film adaptation, despite casting Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in place of the Broadway leads, had far less box-office appeal. In 1954, Lindsay and Crouse updated their play for television, positing a situation where President Eisenhower chose not to run for reelection and Matthews was a candidate for the 1956 Republican nomination. 20 The playwrights had always been open to such revisions, suggesting in a note to the original play that “it would not be difficult for anyone politically informed to bring these issues up-to-date by re-writing the lines involved.” They had no objection as long as a program note made clear who was responsible for any alterations. 21 Although generally presented as a period piece, the play has been regularly revived, especially during election season. Recent productions have taken place at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC, in 2006, and in 2008 at the Deep Dish Theater in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and the Penobscot Theatre in Bangor, Maine. Grant Matthews is an interesting variation on the heroic president or, in this case, presidential candidate. Although he follows the model of an imperfect individual who grows into a hero, his flaws, including adultery with Kay Thorndyke, are more serious than those of the real presidents discussed in our first two chapters. His fictional status gives the playwrights greater freedom to create such faults without risking either historical inaccuracy or offending Americans who are

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proud of their history and past leaders. Despite being more ambitious than the standard heroic president, like many of them, at least as portrayed on stage, Grant is pushed toward politics by women. The difference is that there are two women, one pushing him in the direction of selfish ambition, the other toward honesty and devotion to the public good. In the end, he makes the heroic gesture of sacrificing his presidential ambitions in order to speak out honestly. However, Clurman’s criticism that the play gives us truisms in place of uncomfortable truths seems justified. Attacks similar to Grant’s on special interests have been a perennial theme in American politics at least since James Madison warned in Federalist No. 10 “that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties.”22 Candidates of all political persuasions, whether Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, regularly rail against interest groups, differing only over which groups they label as most nefarious. For example, opponents of same-sex marriage will call advocates of gay rights a “special interest,” while those in favor may apply the same term to conservative religious groups. None of this helps to decide what policy, if any, reflects the public interest. Instead, Lindsay and Crouse embrace Jim Conover’s policy of avoiding specifics by omitting Grant’s speeches. We do see Grant denouncing both business demands for price increases and those of unions for wage hikes, but, even though these are not always unjustified, he does not tell how to determine when they are excessive. Instead of answering his own question of how to decide where to draw the line for political issues that are neither black nor white, Grant chooses to abjure compromise in his final heroic gesture. Unfortunately, we never learn any political principles, other than uncompromising honesty, that he espouses. Of course, being more specific would have risked alienating potential audiences. When the play was being adapted for the screen, the movie studios involved feared that even the relatively mild gibes of the play would alienate potential audiences. According to Time that was the reason they hired director Frank Capra, “a cinemagician who could turn bludgeons into lollipops.”23

The Best Man Gore Vidal’s 1960 play, The Best Man, is set at an unnamed party’s presidential nominating convention in Philadelphia. The principal rivals are, as described in the author’s introduction to the published play, Senator Joseph Cantwell, “a man of exemplary private life, yet

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monstrous public life,” and William Russell, “a man of ‘immoral’ private life and exemplary public life.”24 Because the play opened during an actual campaign, its producer sent the script to one of the candidates, Adlai Stevenson, who indicated that he liked Cantwell’s resemblance to Richard Nixon, but, if the indecisive Russell was modeled on him, he was “less than satisfied.” Vidal then sent a copy to another candidate, John Kennedy, who asked his wife, “Is Gore writing about me?” Vidal has explained that he based the characters on “certain archetypes,” rather than thinly disguising real politicians. In an amusing footnote, when Ronald Reagan sought the part of Russell, he was told by Vidal that audiences were unlikely to find him plausible as an intellectual politician.25 The play opens in Russell’s hotel suite as the candidate answers reporters’ questions with quotes from such intellectuals as Bertrand Russell, to the dismay of his campaign manager, Dick Jensen. After the press exits, National Committeewoman Sue-Ellen Gamadge arrives. Seeing herself as representing women in general, Mrs. Gamadge, a comical figure akin to Mrs. Creevey in First Lady, often prefaces her opinions with “women like” or “don’t like.” Worried about rumors of strains in the Russell’s marriage, she tells Russell, “Your wife should be at your side at all times. She must seem to be advising you. The women must feel there is a woman behind you, as there has been a woman behind every great man since the world began!”26 In fact, much like Mary Matthews, Alice Russell has returned to her husband, in this case after several years of separation caused by his frequent infidelities, to present the picture of a happily married couple necessary for his candidacy to succeed. After everyone but William Russell has left, Arthur Hockstader, the play’s Truman-like president, secretly slips into the hotel room where he tells his former secretary of state that his admiration for Russell’s ability is tempered by the fear that he is sometimes “so busy thinkin how complex everything is important problems don’t get solved.”27 Russell replies that Cantwell is so unprincipled that, if elected president, he will simply do what the polls tell him is popular rather than educating the public about issues. The Harvard-educated Russell’s lack of faith in the public’s wisdom indicates that he does not fit the popular image of the man of the people. Changing the subject, Hockstader reveals that contrary to the White House’s official statements about a hernia operation, he will soon die of cancer. After stating he will announce his endorsement at that night’s dinner, the president sneaks out before being observed. Russell then tells Jensen that it is Cantwell who will be endorsed.

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Although Hockstader dislikes Cantwell’s ruthlessness in doing whatever it takes to get elected, he is, in fact, about to inform the senator he intends to endorse him that night. Noting Cantwell’s personal probity while pouring his own drink, the president dryly tells him, “You don’t smoke, you don’t philander; in fact you are about the purest young man I have ever known in public life.”28 What disturbs him is that Cantwell believes his own rhetoric and is insensitive to the feelings of others. Instead of waiting to hear why Hockstader came, Cantwell reveals medical records showing that Russell had a nervous breakdown. If his rival fails to withdraw, every delegate will be given a copy of the psychiatric report. This so angers the president that he changes his mind, tossing his endorsement speech to the ground while telling Cantwell, “It’s not that I mind you bein a bastard, don’t get me wrong there. . . . It’s you bein such a stupid bastard I object to.”29 At that evening’s dinner, he surprises those present by declining to announce any endorsement. Having been given an ultimatum by Cantwell, Russell and Jensen mull over possible responses. The candidate declines a suggestion to “pull a Nixon” by addressing the charges on television. Having his doctor testify to Russell’s sanity seems likely to be ineffective. However, Jensen has learned that Cantwell had been charged with homosexual behavior while serving in the military. With Hockstader now present, Russell is reluctant to use such allegations because he believes that the private lives of candidates should be out of bounds. A furious Hockstader tells him to “be a saint on your own time,” to which he replies, “Once this sort of thing starts, there is no end to it, which is why it should never begin.”30 However, he agrees to meet with Cantwell to suggest that they both withhold their derogatory information. At the meeting, Cantwell refuses any such deals. Instead he adamantly denies the allegations, falsely claiming that he has just spoken to the general in charge of the original investigation who assured him he will confirm Cantwell’s innocence. When Russell leaves, Cantwell releases his opponent’s psychological records, certain that there will be no call to the general. By the next day, Hockstader has died, having declared in his final words to Cantwell, “to hell with both of you.”31 With the deadlocked convention on its sixth ballot, the presence of the little-known Governor John Merwin as a third candidate, has prevented any of them from achieving the necessary majority. When Cantwell offers Russell the vice-presidential nomination on his ticket, Russell realizes that Merwin must have declined a similar offer. Impressed by such

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determination, Russell announces he is throwing his delegate support to the governor, which will guarantee him the nomination. The play ends with Russell’s ironic echo of the play’s title, “I am of course happy: the best man won!”32 For most reviewers, The Best Man was a very entertaining melodrama. Brooks Atkinson described it as “political melodrama that comes close enough to the truth to be both comic and exciting,” particularly admiring that it ended without a triumphant hero. Time thought Vidal “knows that to keep things spinning, storytelling means more than anecdote-mongering, and a protagonist more than a prototype.” More ambiguous was Henry Hewes who believed that the play, while not aspiring to greatness, “will make American audiences think about politics and will provide them with many routine satisfactions in the process.”33 Nominated for a Tony as best play, The Best Man ran on Broadway for 520 performances. This success led to a film version that was originally supposed to be directed by Frank Capra. However, the sentimental adaptation, which included a climactic scene in which Russell, dressed as Abraham Lincoln, makes a dramatic speech on the convention floor, was too much for Vidal, whose objection resulted in Capra’s replacement by Franklin Schaffner.34 Beginning with the film version, Vidal regularly updated the play’s topical references until finally deciding in 1988 that the system of presidential nomination had changed so much that there was little point in continuing to do so. 35 In the movie, for example, Russell supports integration while Cantwell favors states’ rights, the eventual elimination of the income tax, and increasing military spending. None of these issues had been mentioned in the original play. Because the modern media focuses more than ever on the personal lives of political candidates, the play’s relevance has increased even as the presidential nomination system has been totally transformed. As a result there have been numerous revivals, the most notable running for 15 previews and 121 performances on Broadway in 2000. As political reporter Adam Nagourney put it, even though the play is dated in many ways, it “abounds with themes and lines that are at times strikingly contemporary.” Similarly, Fintan O’Toole believed that questions of how important character is for a president and whether moral integrity can be reconciled with the pursuit of power “could hardly be more relevant.” Citing President Clinton’s impeachment largely for personal misconduct, Margit Peterfy argues that the play has aged well because it depicts “fundamental problems of power and morality in a democracy.”36

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In many ways, The Best Man, produced shortly after The Gang’s All Here, is a bridge between the eras of the heroic and antiheroic presidents. In its conflict between moral and immoral (or perhaps amoral) candidates and the defeat of the latter through a selfsacrificing gesture by its protagonist, the play is very much in the tradition of depictions of heroic presidents. In contrast, its “hero” is very flawed—not only indecisive, but also an adulterer—yet the play, despite its ironic title, is optimistic rather than cynical in its belief that the little known Merwin may very well grow into the job. In Russell’s words, “men without faces tend to get elected President, and power or responsibility or honor fill in the features, usually pretty well.”37 Russell’s actions are so admirable that they cause his wife to agree to a reconciliation. It would be a number of years before The Best Man’s hopefulness yielded to the harsh criticism of MacBird! and Vidal’s own An Evening with Richard Nixon.

November By the time November opened on Broadway in 2008, the antiheroic president had become dominant in theatrical depictions of actual presidents. Playwright David Mamet describes his fictional president as “corrupt, venal, cunning and vengeful (as I assume all of them are).” Rethinking his own liberal politics, Mamet found that not only did he distrust the Bush administration, its faults “were little different from those of a president whom I revered,” John Kennedy. Among his examples, “Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. . . . Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia.”38 The comedy takes place during the fourth year of President Charles Smith’s term. His popularity ratings are so low that adviser Archer Brown tells him, “You broke the machine.”39 His party thinks so little of his chances of reelection that it has stopped paying for campaign commercials. If he does lose, he wants enough money to finance a presidential library and a lavish lifestyle. Smith’s conversations resemble the monologues of a stand-up comedian, filled with profanities and one-liners, with brief interruptions from the other characters who feed him straight lines and advance the plot. With Smith desperate for funds, Brown suggests selling pardons. Fortuitously, the next appointment is with a representative of the National Association of Turkey Manufacturers to arrange details for

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the yearly Thanksgiving turkey “pardon.” When Smith learns that the turkey producers only paid fifty thousand dollars the previous year, he first suggests doubling the amount, then realizes that so much money is made from turkeys, he can obtain far more. However, the apparently final bid of only an unsatisfactory one hundred ninety-five thousand causes the unscrupulous president to resort to threatening to pardon every turkey in the world. For assistance he needs Clarice Bernstein, his speechwriter, who has only arrived home late that morning from China where she and her female partner adopted a baby. Although Bernstein, tired and sick, was supposed to be writing the president’s concession speech while recuperating at home, he summons her immediately, demanding that she instead compose an address attacking the Thanksgiving holiday. Rejecting such arguments as the holiday’s exploitation of indigenous people and its celebration of conspicuous consumption, he tells her to get people angry. She needs to give them “something to HATE better than the things they like.”40 When her suggestion of claiming that the holiday originated not as a celebration of thanks for the harvest, but as a day of sexual orgy, is enthusiastically received, she expresses reservations about participating “in an exercise in extortion.”41 The turkey producers interrupt this conversation with an increased bid of three hundred thousand which is still far below the two hundred million the president is now asking for. Pointing out that Bernstein essentially paid for her daughter, Smith briefly explains his political philosophy: “Everyone wants something. The power to trade this for that separates us from the lower lifeforms.”42 What, he asks, will it take to get her to write his speech? Permission to marry her partner, she responds. Her belief, similar to the quote that precedes the published play, seems to express Mamet’s view. Contrary to the popular opinion that the United States is a divided country, “we’re a democracy; we hold different opinions. But: we laugh at the same jokes, we clap each other on the back when we made that month’s quota, and, Sir, I’m not at all sure that we don’t love each other.”43 Again, the turkey industry interrupts, this time to agree to the president’s terms. This allows Smith to purchase a final week’s advertising blitz, causing the party leadership to suddenly embrace him. However, Bernstein insists that he honor his agreement to perform her marriage ceremony before she will give him a copy of his speech. Not only does he lack legal authority for a same-sex marriage, if he goes through with it, the turkey producers will withdraw their offer for fear of alienating their

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customers. Brown tells Smith to sell Bernstein out but, before he can, the turkeys die, apparently of bird flu. Since Bernstein became ill in China, everyone blames her. Adding to the concluding comic confusion, Dwight Grackle, a Native American leader whom Smith had insulted in a telephone conversation early in the play, rushes into the White House threatening revenge for this slight. As he fires a poison dart, Bernstein leaps between him and the president. Her death is prevented by the amulet given by China to all those who adopt babies. Smith now learns that the turkeys died from the heat of the television lights rather than avian flu. Out of gratitude to Bernstein, he agrees to preside over the marriage ceremony even if it costs him the election. The play ends when Grackle asks for a presidential pardon, and renews his earlier request for a gift of Nantucket Island in order to build a casino, to which the president replies, “Jesus, I love this country.”44 Despite finding some of the jokes amusing, most critics panned the play. Typical was Joe Dziemianowicz, who wrote that it was unlike Mamet’s previous work that was “incisive, powerful and realistic. Here he goes for an easy, well-worn target and obvious setup.” Eric Grode also contrasted November unfavorably with earlier Mamet efforts, since in this one, “the plotting often gives way to a Borscht Belt style that comes a bit too easily.” Jeremy McCarter wondered “why a satire so pleased with its toughness felt to me like a Beltway fairy tale.” In contrast, John Lahr enjoyed the relative lightness of the comedy. “Instead of dissecting capitalism,” Lahr wrote that Mamet “delights in its barbarity, and the issue of give-and-take lends his jeu d’esprit a terrific wallop.”45 Audiences enjoyed the play more than these critics; it ran for 33 previews followed by 205 performances. Although November has already been performed by several regional theaters, it is too early to judge its staying power. Nevertheless, despite an epiphany when Bernstein saves his life, President Smith is clearly an antihero. The play’s last line suggests that his conversion is likely to be short-lived.

Conclusion Given the small number of plays, spread over a long period of time, examined in this chapter, any conclusions drawn must be tentative. Nevertheless, the trend is not inconsistent with that of plays about historical presidents. In First Lady and State of the Union, potential presidential candidates were motivated primarily by a desire to

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achieve good public policy rather than personal ambition. It took the women in their lives to stoke that ambition. In State of the Union, Grant Matthews, after briefly giving in to temptation, puts aside his vanity to make the heroic gesture of withdrawing his candidacy in order to speak out forthrightly about the issues of the day. As of the late 1940s, the heroic president, or at least presidential candidate, was alive and well on the stage. The Best Man, while remaining largely true to the heroic tradition, paints a more complex picture. Even though its relatively flawed hero ultimately also renounces his ambition in a gesture similar to that of Matthews, the optimism of its ending is unconvincing, with little evidence to support its hope that the unknown Governor Merwin will grow into the presidency. Clearly, change in the portrayal of presidents was coming. Three decades later, November demonstrated how great that transformation would be. Because most presidents in musicals have been fictional, the next chapter’s analysis is a good place to look for more evidence of change.

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Chapter 5 Musical Presidents According to Raymond Knapp, “the American musical is one of three distinctively American and widely influential art forms that took shape in the first half of the twentieth century,” the others being jazz and film.1 Of course, there had been musical productions in America well before then. The first was probably Flora in 1735, but it was a ballad opera imported from England. After the colonies became an independent nation, burlesques, consisting of parodies of well-known plays or famous performers, became popular. These too originated abroad, as did extravaganzas and spectacles popularized in the midnineteenth century. The first extravaganza written by Americans, The Black Crook, proved the most successful of its time. During the second half of the nineteenth century, foreign operettas by such notables as Offenbach and Gilbert and Sullivan were introduced, leading to American written productions beginning in the 1880s. 2 The modern American musical comedy, as explained by David Ewen, was “neither extravaganza nor burlesque, neither operetta nor revue. This was a completely new form, combining some of the elements of all these,” including production numbers, satire, chorus girls, romance, and glamour.3 George M. Cohan, in musicals such as Little Johnny Jones (1904), used plots, albeit thin and far-fetched, to provide a framework for his songs, dances, and jokes. By 1927, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s Show Boat had moved the musical comedy in the direction of musical theater by better integrating these elements as well as creating a more credible story and more believable characters. Scott Miller argues that “political trends have been present in almost all musical theatre storytelling over the years.” As America has changed, “every choice made by writers, directors, and designers was political, and each choice either reinforced or challenged prevailing social and political values.”4 If he is correct, we would expect that musical theater trends in portraying presidents would be comparable to those in straight plays. Like their fictional counterparts, however, musical presidents did not appear on stage until Depression-era

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comedies, suggesting that the hagiography phase would probably be bypassed in favor of light-hearted humor.

Musical Comedies of the 1930s After the producer of Strike Up the Band insisted on eliminating some of their sharper satirical material, authors George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind decided to write another play about politics that would be produced, in Ryskind’s words, “the way that we wanted it done even if we had to put it up with our own money.”5 In fact, Kaufman did finance the play with eighty thousand dollars of his own. Originally titled Tweedle-Dee, to show how little difference there was between the Democratic and Republican parties, the playwrights sought to satirize presidential elections by depicting a competition between the two parties for the best national anthem. Intrigued by the idea of ending the first act with the two rival songs in counterpoint, George and Ira Gershwin agreed to write the music and lyrics. However, Kaufman and Ryskind quickly realized that without a romance, typically a central element of musical comedy, the show’s appeal would be limited. Retaining the original theme of the triviality of political campaigns, they switched the plot from a musical competition to a contest for the heart of a presidential candidate. The result, retitled Of Thee I Sing, made its Broadway debut late in 1931.6 The play begins after an unnamed party’s convention has taken 63 ballots to nominate John P. Wintergreen for president and Alexander Throttlebottom for vice president. Wintergreen was selected because he “sounds like a president.” None of the party leaders gathered in a hotel room can recall whom they chose for his running mate, only that “we put a lot of names in a hat and this fellow lost.”7 The failure of anyone to remember who the vice-presidential nominee is, or to recognize Throttlebottom whenever he does appear, is a running joke. To make Wintergreen an appealing romantic lead, the play describes him as “a good-looking, magnetic young man. Aged 30,” even though the Constitution sets a minimum age of 35 for presidents.8 The party needs an issue, “something that everybody is interested in, and that doesn’t matter a damn.”9 The stumped politicians ask an ordinary American, the hotel chambermaid, what she cares about the most. Rejecting her first answer, money, as too controversial, they select her second, love. In order to select a bride for Wintergreen, the most beautiful women from each state will compete in Atlantic City. His logical question, what if he doesn’t fall in love with the winner, is

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brushed off by the politicians who tell him, “You can’t help falling in love with her! The most beautiful girl in America!”10 In a conversation with secretary Mary Turner, Wintergreen explains that while he likes beautiful women, “when a fellow gets married he wants a home, a mother for his children.” Proving his point about the appeal of domestic virtues, as soon as he tastes one of Mary’s corn muffins he is smitten, declaring “you can make corn muffins, and— you’re darned cute looking, and—I love you!”11 However, the spurned contest winner, Diana Devereaux, still wants her promised reward, asking “Who cares about corn muffins? All I demand is justice!”12 Undaunted, John tours the country, proposing to Mary in 47 of the 48 states. In the forty-eighth, at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the couple is introduced to the strains of “Love Is Sweeping the Country” by a speaker who informs those gathered that “we do not talk to you about war debts or wheat or immigration—we appeal to your hearts; not your intelligence.”13 When Mary again accepts John’s proposal, they sing the title song. Wintergreen sweeps to victory, casting the last four votes for himself. On Inauguration Day, the chief justice both swears in the new president and performs the wedding ceremony. Diana’s interruption to serve a summons for breach of promise is thwarted by an instant Supreme Court decision dismissing her claim and ending the first act. She persists, however, gaining support around the country. What seems to turn the tide in her favor is the discovery that not only is her ancestry French, it is of noble origin. As the French ambassador informs the president, “she’s the illegitimate daughter of an illegitimate son of an illegitimate nephew of Napoleon!”14 Wintergreen’s refusal to resign leads to impeachment proceedings with the vice president presiding over the Senate trial, ignoring the Constitution’s granting of that role to the chief justice of the Supreme Court. In the roll call, a senator is added from Alaska to rhyme with Nebraska since Throttlebottom “simply can’t be bothered when the names don’t rhyme.”15 Just as the Senate is voting to convict, Mary rushes in to save her husband by announcing that she is pregnant. Later, when she gives birth to twins, John is inspired to mollify Diana and France by getting the vice president to marry her on the grounds that his job is to fill in when the president is unable to discharge his duties. Critics celebrated the play as a breakthrough in the genre of musical comedy because of its political commentary, quick pace, and skillful integration of music and dialogue. According to Brooks Atkinson, Kaufman and Ryskind “have substituted for the doddering musical comedy plot a taut and lethal satire of national politics.” His one

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reservation was that in the last scenes, conventional “musical comedy rears its ugly head and dictates a conclusion that is political satire only at second hand.” Gilbert Gabriel wrote that “it was a new genre for a new decade. We first nighters were in at the liberation of musical comedy from twaddle and treacle.” Declaring the musical “a step forward,” E. B. White thought that “the first act is funny and the second is funnier.”16 Of Thee I Sing ran for 441 performances during which a road company successfully toured the country with a shorter version. It became the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize, with the Pulitzer board citing it not only as “coherent and well knit enough to class as a play, aside from the music” but also as “a biting and true satire on American politics and the public attitude toward them.[sic]”17 Curiously, the award went to Kaufman and Ryskind’s book and Ira Gershwin’s lyrics, but not to George Gershwin’s music, apparently because the board thought only words were within its mandate. The play also became the first musical comedy published as a book, requiring seven printings in 1932. Because so much of the humor was topical, jokes had to be periodically updated. Most notable was the elimination of lines about Calvin Coolidge when he died during the Broadway run.18 Despite the play’s success, however, it was not revived on Broadway until 1952, largely because Kaufman and Ryskind declined to write revisions. Ultimately, only modest changes were made, largely consisting of the removal of references to the Depression and the addition of a few jokes about Truman. Although Atkinson remained enthusiastic about the play, proclaiming that “nothing vital has been lost in the shuffle of the years,” most other critics praised the music while finding that the satire had not aged well. Time thought that “nowadays the joking in any good intimate revue would have more mustard in its madness, far more ability to make its target squirm or cry out.” For Walter Kerr, “the only thing missing from this plush, polished and well-paced revival of America’s most famous musical satire is the target. The same old arrows fly into the air, but they have no place to land.” Similarly, Newsweek concluded that because times had changed, the still-enjoyable show “has lost a good deal of its political bite.”19 The play ran for only 72 performances and would have closed sooner had the cast and theater owner not accepted reduced payment.20 An off-Broadway revival in 1969 proved even less successful, lasting for less than a month. Although finding the Gershwin music still fresh, Clive Barnes was dismissive of the book as “not just weak, it is tottering.”21

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A 1972 television adaptation made far greater changes, hoping the result would be more relevant to its audience. 22 For example, rather than falling in love with Mary because of her baking skills, John is impressed by her ability to avoid subpoenas and burn incriminating documents. However, most critics agreed with John J. O’Connor’s conclusion that despite its delightful score, “a musical that is remembered as outrageously uproarious and deliciously irreverent might be expected to be more than merely pleasant.”23 Since then, most revivals have either been concert adaptations to highlight the muchadmired Gershwin songs or relatively unrevised versions presented as period pieces. Although John P. Wintergreen is certainly no heroic president, Of Thee I Sing illustrates the limits of both the musical-comedy form and the receptivity of audiences of its time to sharp satire. In his study of American musicals, Knapp argues that “the trajectory of a successful if rocky courtship provides a sturdy narrative backbone, and offers standardized modes of expression along the way, for the optimistic comedies that are the mainstay of the American musical.”24 Once the decision was made that this play required a love affair, its authors had to make the romantic leads appealing even if that meant softening the satire. Despite being bumbling and amenable to feeding the voters foolishness if it would get him elected, Wintergreen is ethical in his way, choosing love and marriage to Mary Turner even at the risk of losing the presidency. As the authors rewrote the play to accommodate the romantic plot, Wintergreen’s character was transformed from “oily” and “knavish” to naive, while Throttlebottom became silly rather than “sly” and “almost villainous.” Despite fear of censorship prior to previews in Boston, an editorial in the Boston Herald assured potential audiences that the play was “wholesome stuff.” Even the play’s mild gibes against France caused a modest controversy when Bishop William Manning of the France-American Society asked that some lines be deleted. Kaufman wittily replied that “I’ll be glad to drop the lines out if Bishop Manning will write a couple for me which will get the same big laughs.”25 Today the play seems more a collection of silly farce, jokes whose potency has declined with age, and wonderful music. Nevertheless, it remains a milestone since it was the first Broadway play to make a serious attempt to satirize the presidency. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote in 1987, “It was liberating, both for audiences who were no longer required to regard presidents with automatic respect and for musical comedy writers who could go on to be more specific and stinging in their future satire.”26 Its main point, that presidential

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elections feed the voters trivial nonsense while giving short shrift to policy issues, remains timely in today’s age of the thirty-second television commercial and the even shorter sound bites that dominate election news coverage. In 1933, Kaufman and Ryskind decided to write a sequel which would have a harder edge. By late May, with the Gershwins and the lead actors from the original having signed on, they titled the show Let ’Em Eat Cake and began writing. The play begins as the presidential election between Wintergreen and John P. Tweedledee is concluding. In the opening scene, supporters of each candidate are marching, carrying banners, and singing their respective campaign songs in counterpoint. This continues the theme from Of Thee I Sing that there is no significant difference between the two parties as evidenced by the name of Wintergreen’s opponent, the identical tunes of the two songs, and the silly banners. Among Wintergreen’s banners are “Keep Love in the White House,” “It’s Fun to Be Fooled,” and “The Same Promises as Last Time,” while his opponent’s include “Vote for Tweedledee—What’s the Difference?” and “More Promises than Wintergreen.” After his landslide defeat, Wintergreen’s appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn the results is declined when he answers the question of whether there was stuffing of the ballot boxes with “yes, but not enough to re-elect me.” Despite four years in office, he is so naive that, after citing statistics showing high unemployment and other serious economic problems, he comments, “I wonder if that had anything to do with the election.”27 At their final cabinet meeting, administration officials wonder what to do to earn a living after leaving office until, seeing the highquality shirt that Mary made for John, they decide to start a business making Maryblue shirts in New York City’s Union Square. There they encounter demonstrators “led by a malcontent named Kruger” whose philosophy is “down with everything in view! Somehow I abominate everything you nominate! Everything from A,B,C to X,Y,Z.”28 Economic conditions under the new administration have worsened so much that customers cannot afford to buy shirts. Wintergreen is inspired to solve this problem by joining the revolution, not out of agreement with its goals, but to improve business. Since Italy has black shirts and Germany brown, why not blue for the United States? Sure enough, sales take off. Emboldened, Wintergreen organizes a military coup on Independence Day. President Tweedledee is depicted as so dim-witted that he declares in his July Fourth speech that “Christopher Columbus

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and his sturdy little band of Pilgrim fathers—and mothers—landed on Bunker Hill.” After the military commander Wintergreen recruited to lead the coup departs prematurely to go to a party, Mary urges the army to support John because, unlike the bachelor Tweedledee, he is a husband and father. The soldiers instead ask what is in it for them. The president’s offer of a dollar a day is outbid by Wintergreen’s promise, “Make me your Dictator and the war debts are yours!” Kruger congratulates the new dictator on his success, then immediately turns to the crowd to urge, “Down with Wintergreen!”29 Once in power, Wintergreen has the White House painted blue, requires everyone to wear blue shirts, closes all newspapers except one published by a supporter, abolishes Congress, and arrests the Supreme Court. In order to force the unwilling members of the League of Nations to pay their war debts, Wintergreen organizes a doubleor-nothing baseball game. When umpire Throttlebottom rules for the League on a disputed game-winning home run, he is made the scapegoat in order to appease the soldiers for the money they will now not receive, and is sentenced to death for treason. The dissatisfied military, however, orders Wintergreen and his advisers executed as well. Mary tries to save her husband with yet another last-minute announcement of pregnancy but is told that this won’t work a second time. Just as the executions are about to proceed, Mary leads the wives of the condemned in a show of the latest Parisian fashions, causing the female spectators to rebel against the standardized blue blouses required by Kruger, the new dictator. The Wintergreens go into the dress business along with his aides and Kruger, who, they learn, once operated a dress factory. Once the republic is restored, Tweedledee resigns in order to become president of Cuba. Since no one can remember who the vice president is, Throttlebottom is named the new chief executive. Critics compared Let ’Em Eat Cake unfavorably to the highly lauded Of Thee I Sing, giving it at best qualified praise. After complimenting “a hilarious first act,” Brooks Atkinson concluded that the authors’ “hatreds have triumphed over their sense of humor.” “The further adventures of Wintergreen and Throttlebottom are vastly amusing during many moments even if they are occasionally dull,” wrote Joseph Wood Krutch who also disliked an ending that perfunctorily avoided the issues the play had raised. Defending the musical against charges of bitterness, Richard Dana Skinner found it “savage, if you like, in the manner of most of the effective satires of history.”30 Audiences were not receptive, causing the play to lose money in its relatively short 90-performance run.

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The failure was so great that, after many years of neglect, the Gershwin score was believed to be lost until discovered in the Library of Congress’s Gershwin Archives in 1978. A concert performance at Lincoln Center was followed by a revival at the Berkshire Theater Festival. Richard Eder’s review evaluated the play’s comedy as not up to the very serious issues of economic crisis and war facing the country at the time. Despite “some funny lines,” he wrote, “time has only made clearer the aimlessness of its humor and the inadequacy of its severity.”31 Since then, revivals have been concert versions. In 1987, the Brooklyn Academy of Music performed both Of Thee I Sing and Let ’Em Eat Cake with added narration explaining the events between songs. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote, after attending the concert, that the problem with the sequel was that it “was out of snyc with the new national mood.” There was no support for a violent revolution because the public was satisfied with the peaceful Roosevelt reforms. 32 More recent concert productions were a 1994 BBC broadcast and one-hour adaptations with narration of each of the shows by the San Francisco Symphony in 2005. We can see from the failure of Let ’Em Eat Cake why there was no place for the antiheroic president in 1933. The public’s faith in government, as noted by Schlesinger, was still high, having been rejuvenated by heroic President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal. At least as important, the musical comedy form proved incompatible with a portrayal of its leading character as a presidential antihero because it left the audience no one to root for. Unlike Of Thee I Sing, the sequel lacked a romantic plot. Mary Wintergreen is primarily a device, appearing occasionally to save (or attempt to save) the day with her ability to sew shirts, claim a second pregnancy, and, finally, conduct a fashion show with the other wives of the condemned prisoners. Although Wintergreen was still played as an amiable character, he organized a coup to overthrow an elected president then took over as a dictator who arrested the Supreme Court and eliminated a free press. The satire proved scattershot, ranging from a joke-driven farce to a savage attack, with an optimistic ending seeming to contradict much of what occurred earlier. If the time would eventually prove propitious for an antiheroic president on the musical stage, it would have to be in a significantly changed theatrical form. In 1937, Kaufman began work on yet another play about a president, collaborating with Moss Hart on a musical gently poking fun at the Roosevelt administration. Although Calvin Coolidge had been included in a sketch in the revue Garrick Gaieties, no sitting president

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had ever been a leading character in a book musical. To avoid offending audiences with this daring idea, the authors told producer Sam Harris that they needed to cast someone who could play Franklin Roosevelt “with dignity and distinction, but . . . also be able to play certain scenes with a broad sense of humor.”33 Eventually they settled on George M. Cohan, whose songs “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” made him an ideal choice as the embodiment of patriotism. Despite their fears that he would decline because he was comfortably retired, had never performed in a musical he had not written and composed himself, and was a conservative opposed to the New Deal, Cohan immediately accepted. Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart were asked to compose the music and lyrics, but were reluctant due to a bad experience with Cohan on a film. Convinced by Kaufman and Moss Hart that Cohan would be better behaved, Rodgers also realized that Cohan was “possibly the only one in the musical theater who could play Roosevelt.” For Rodgers, the musical would be “an affirmation of the freedom we had always enjoyed and had long taken for granted,” in contrast to the totalitarian regimes emerging in so many other countries. 34 The play’s original title, Hold on to Your Hats, Boys (supposedly the punch line of an off-color joke), was changed to the first part of a famous remark attributed to Henry Clay, “I’d rather be right than president.”35 During the first tryouts in Boston, Cohan substituted some of his own lyrics critical of Roosevelt, then made a comment to the audience. After complaints from lyricist Hart, he agreed not to repeat such behavior. Concluding that the show needed work, the playwrights brought in Noel Coward for revisions. Nevertheless, anticipation was so great that both Time and Life magazines ran photo-laden features, with the latter remarking that “as the President in the new show, that old trouper George M. Cohan is no symbolic Wintergreen but ‘Franklin D. Roosevelt.’ ” The New York Times even devoted an editorial to the proposition that “Americans love to laugh at plays satirizing or burlesquing their public men.”36 I’d Rather Be Right takes place on July 4 in Central Park. Young Peggy and Phil are unable to afford to get married because the depressed economy has prevented his company from giving him a promotion. “We can’t get married until they balance the budget,” explains Phil. “It doesn’t make sense, but it’s true.” Noting this novel obstacle to romance, Peggy replies, “It isn’t the Montagues and the Capulets that keep you apart anymore; it’s the budget.”37 As Phil falls asleep in Peggy’s lap, President Roosevelt conveniently walks by, asking for directions. With the president, who used a

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wheelchair in real life, not only strolling through Central Park, alone no less, but dancing, it is clear that I’d Rather Be Right should not be judged by its fidelity to historical fact. However, the play’s Roosevelt has some of the characteristics of the heroic president portrayed in plays of the time. He tells the couple, “I never thought I’d be President.” He also shows himself a man of the people, sharing ice cream with Peggy and Phil while sympathizing with their plight. Instead of returning to his New York City apartment to write a speech, he will solve their problem, “if it’s the last thing I do as President.”38 The bulk of the show consists of his efforts to find a way to balance the budget. He is periodically interrupted by irrelevant characters, including Roosevelt’s mother and a Federal Theatre troupe, who serve as subjects of jokes and musical numbers. First he convenes the cabinet, which supplies only hare-brained ideas such as taxing shaving. The president, however, is so impressed by Peggy’s idea that if women gave up beauty products for a year and donated the savings to the government, the deficit would immediately vanish, that he schedules a fireside chat to make the suggestion. Unfortunately, the women of America forcefully reject this idea, in song, of course. When Roosevelt asks the Supreme Court for help, they refuse, before even hearing what he has to say. Every other attempt the president makes proves equally unsuccessful. In the end, Roosevelt delivers a July 4 speech, arguing that “even though things are a little wrong right now, we’ve got a chance to make ’em right, because at least this is a country where you can come out and talk about what’s wrong.” He then tells Peggy and Phil to get married anyway. Somehow they will manage and he will too. Before breaking into song, his final words to the couple are, “I’m not through trying—not by a damned sight.” His last song is a reprise of “We’re Going to Balance the Budget.” According to the stage directions, “he seems to mean it.”39 After the president leaves, Phil wakes up. In a time-worn stage device, the entire play turns out to have been a dream. Inspired, he asks Peggy to marry him tomorrow, a proposal she happily accepts. The play ends on a note of hope, as Phil tells a police officer, “We’re in America, and doing very nicely, thank you.”40 Reviewers found the play pleasant enough, but far short of the satirical bite the advance buildup had promised. Comparing the show unfavorably to Of Thee I Sing, Brooks Atkinson thought it “a pleasant-spoken musical comedy that leisurely ambles away the evening.” Similarly, George Jean Nathan, after wondering why there was so much fuss about a musical whose characters included some with

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the names of leaders of the national government, found the result applied “a droll and delightful slapstick to the seat of government.” Time concluded that “the new play pokes playfully at a dozen current problems, much in the manner of the semi-annual Gridiron satires, staged by the Washington correspondents.”41 Echoing this verdict, the published play gave itself the subtitle, “A Musical Review.” Sparked by large advance sales, I’d Rather Be Right was very successful, running on Broadway for 290 performances followed by a 27 city tour. Today it seems dated, with a score far less memorable than the Gershwins’ for the two Kaufman and Ryskind musicals. As a result, there have been few revivals. One of the most notable was a benefit performance by Washington, DC’s Arena Stage that mixed professional actors with such political notables as Senators Daniel P. Moynihan, Alan Simpson, and John Chafee. In 1999, London’s Lost Musicals series staged a concert version that, as one critic put it, “reminds us that not all musicals are made to last.” Similarly, Variety, noting that the actual Roosevelt’s efforts to balance the budget in 1937 nearly caused a recession, and pointing out “the dubious taste of a singing and dancing Chief Exec we now know to have been wheelchair-bound,” concluded after seeing a 2008 Los Angeles revival that, “nothing wears less well than yesterday’s topical satire.”42 Nevertheless, by demonstrating that a sitting president could be a leading character in a musical comedy, I’d Rather Be Right marks an important milestone. Because the musical-comedy form requires humor, we cannot expect to see an entirely heroic figure, but this play’s Roosevelt comes reasonably close as an amiable man of the people who is trying to do what is right, even if opposed by much of the political establishment. As Patrick Julian has written, by gently poking fun at the president, portraying him as physically active, an “open-minded man of the people, confident of the ability of America to survive and prosper . . . and allowing him the opportunity to let America laugh at his recent troubles, they [Kaufman and Hart] were contributing to his mythical status as the protector of the common man and the leader of a free people in a dark world.”43 In a recent article, Garrett Eisler has countered by arguing that although the show characterizes Roosevelt the man positively, it is actually a conservative critique of the New Deal because the targets of its humor include taxes, Social Security, the Wagner Act, and the Federal Theatre Project.44 The focus on balancing the budget removes the onus of Phil and Peggy’s problems from Phil’s employer’s having denied him a raise to the wasteful spending of the New Deal.

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Eisler’s thesis seems strained. The jokes themselves are relatively mild. For example, the Wagner Act is lampooned by unfurling “a huge legal manuscript,” while a song about Social Security points out that you have to wait until retirement age to benefit from it.45 The accumulation of a large number of gentle jokes results in no more than a temperate critique, especially since there are also numerous barbs aimed at the president’s conservative critics, particularly the Supreme Court and the rich. In the opening scene, two wealthy men complain about high taxes. One fears that “you’re going to have to live on a hundred thousand a year and like it!” to which the other replies, “yes sir. Communism.”46 Eisler’s final paragraph suggests an awareness that his argument may be exaggerated. It begins, “at the very least, the script is full of moments of political ambivalence toward the New Deal. It is reactionary in the sense of resisting or recoiling from radical political changes coming from the Left.”47 The three musical comedies examined in this section show the limits that the form places on satire. Mild jibes fit very nicely, but it proved difficult for playwrights to go much further, even assuming their willingness to do so. From the perspective of audiences this was fine. Except for the brief period when the Federal Theatre Project was in existence, the price of tickets to Broadway plays assured that audiences would come largely from those with relatively high incomes who would not be receptive to plays challenging the status quo, such as the much later MacBird!” However, when trust in government began to decline sharply in the 1960s, the changing composition and tastes of theater audiences would prove more difficult to accommodate in this form. The time period we next turn to will demonstrate how problematic this transition would be.

From World War II into the 1960s During and after World War II, musical comedies began to better integrate book, music, and lyrics into a single unified voice in such shows as Oklahoma! (1943) and Guys and Dolls (1950). South Pacific (1949) and West Side Story (1957) demonstrated that musicals dealing with more serious subjects could succeed commercially. The latter even proved that a happy ending was no longer a necessity. As a result of these changes, writes Scott Miller, “musical theatre was ready for the tumult of America in the 1960s.”48 How musicals about presidents fared during these years will be our next subject.

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As the Girls Go, produced in 1948 with a book by William Roos and music by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson, was not part of this transformation. Originally titled The First Gentleman of the Land, it was set four years in the future when Lucille Thompson Wellington was elected as the first female president. Comedian Bobby Clark, best known as the star of comedy reviews, was cast as her husband Waldo who makes a hash of his ceremonial functions. Although her political enemies try to entice Waldo’s wandering eye with a bevy of beauties, they ultimately fail. Reviews of Boston tryouts were so negative that much of the book was replaced by diversionary jokes, slapstick, and Clark’s popular routines, including even his trademark painted-on glasses, trick cane and two-way cigar.49 For most of the play, the president is ignored in order to keep the focus on Clark’s comedy. Most reviewers enjoyed the silly fun. Conceding that the show was “eschewing art for the moment” and that “most of Bobby’s skullduggery we have seen before,” Brooks Atkinson nevertheless decided that “his supernatural exuberance keeps it fresh and incomparably funny.” Similarly, Wolcott Gibbs did not mind that the story disappeared after the first few scenes because Clark gave a “classic performance, in the highest tradition of burlesque.” Harold Clurman concluded that “as an excuse to get Bobby Clark and a lot of spectacularly perpendicular girls on the stage, it is a wow. The reviewers and a large public have decided to like it.” A minority, however, believed that the day of such broad comedy had passed. “If ever there was a good theme wasted,” wrote Kappo Phelan, who found Clark’s popularity puzzling, this show provided an excellent illustration. In his opinion, “the people who are crowding the Winter Garden are there either for an adjusted ‘girlie show’ or because they have been vastly misled by the nostalgia of the critics.”50 Audiences were amused, propelling the play to a long run of 414 performances. Since then, both Clark, whose last Broadway show this was, and the never-published play, have been largely forgotten. Audience tastes would soon begin to change, but musicals about presidents proved slow to adjust. Mr. President provides considerable evidence of just how sluggish this adaptation was even as late as 1962. Because the show marked the return of the 74-year-old Irving Berlin to the theater after an absence of 12 years, audience anticipation was so great that it generated an advance sale of a million dollars even before the cast was announced. When Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who had

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written not only the play State of the Union but also the book for Berlin’s previous musical, Call Me Madam, told him their idea for a musical about a fictional president, he quickly agreed to write the songs. As Crouse described the planned show, “it dealt with the personal problems facing a President ending his second term and his daughter’s love affair with a Secret Service man assigned to guard her.”51 At first, Lindsay and Crouse thought of modeling their president on Dwight Eisenhower, but realizing his younger, more vigorous successor would have greater box-office appeal, they added elements of John and Jacqueline Kennedy to the play’s first family. The play’s old-fashioned patriotic appeal, however, was designed more for the older generation. “At the end of the show,” Berlin told an interviewer, citing the closing song, “we say ‘If this is flag waving, do you know of a better flag to wave?’ ”52 Despite Berlin’s attempts to incorporate more modern musical styles in songs such as “Washington Twist,” the first tryouts in Boston proved disastrous as audiences laughed derisively at the opening scene. Pronouncing the show “dreadful,” leading Boston critic Elliot Norton declared that “never in his whole career has Irving Berlin written so many corny songs.” Time derided the plot as “a situation comedy roughly like TV’s Stone Age comedy, ‘The Flintstones.’ ” After a few modest rewrites to the book but none to the music, Mr. President moved to the nation’s capital, where the Kennedy family bought out the house for a benefit performance, guaranteeing a dignitary-filled audience. However, even though Jacqueline Kennedy appeared punctually, her husband’s seat remained empty until fifteen minutes into the second act because he preferred to watch the heavyweight championship boxing match on television. Despite such setbacks, with the advance sale having grown to more than two and a half million dollars and CBS having agreed to produce an original-cast album as well as advance half the play’s cost to the producers, financial success still seemed guaranteed. 53 The play’s first song clearly signals its rejection of new trends. As guests at a White House reception dance the twist, First Lady Nell Henderson tells her husband, “I don’t want to twist. I don’t want to bossa nova. I don’t want to hully-gully. Remember when dancing was dancing? Tonight I just want to dance.” She then sings, “Let’s Go Back to the Waltz.”54 In a prologue, the stage manager describes the show’s theme. “It’s about an American / Not one of the greats / But he happens to be President / Of these United States.”55 This motif of the ordinary American, who, despite preferring home life to politics, rises to the

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occasion in a crisis, is very much akin to the depiction of heroic presidents we saw in plays discussed in earlier chapters. Just four months from the end of his term, Stephen Decatur Henderson and his wife, tired of the rituals of White House life, are eager to return to the peaceful life of their home town. However, they have one last trip abroad, accompanied by their rebellious young adult children. Their son Larry is a sort of playboy who is dating a belly dancer, while his sister is involved with Youssein Davair, the charming son of a Middle Eastern leader. Stephen planned to cancel the trip until Soviet leaders somehow found out and sought to make propaganda hay out of his decision. Stephen and Nell soon realize that she told their daughter, Leslie, who must have revealed to Youssein that the family would be staying home. Before the final stop in Moscow, Stephen sees the trip as a success because “everywhere they’ve seen us as just a family. They like that.”56 However, the Soviet government sends a message to the president’s plane telling him that because of a speech earlier on the trip criticizing them, he is no longer welcome. They “strongly advise” him not to land there.57 In order to avoid appearing weak, he ignores this message, landing anyway. Trying to prevent additional problems, he orders his other plane back to Frankfurt, not realizing that all his interpreters are on it. Fortunately, Larry learned Russian before dropping out of college and shows unexpected maturity by translating at the airport where the friendliness of the president and his family wins over those they meet. After brief conversations with the airport workers about their respective families, the president’s party immediately flies home. Soon after Henderson returns to Washington, the opposition party wins a landslide victory against the presidential candidate he supported. When his own party’s leader blames the flight to Moscow for the defeat, Larry punches him in the nose as television cameras record the event. Despite scolding Larry, his father clearly admires his son’s loyalty. Romantic complications ensue when the dependable Secret Service agent, Pat Gregory, now freed from his official duties of protecting Leslie, declares his love for her. However, she remains engaged to Youssein. The second act begins with the Hendersons moving back to the small town they originally lived in as Nell and the townspeople sing about how glad they are she’s home again. To give his successor a fair opportunity to overcome early problems, Stephen avoids publicly criticizing him. Instead he turns his attention to family matters, demonstrating that father knows best. Although informing Leslie of his

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suspicion that Youssein leaked his travel plans angers her, it plants doubts in her mind. After observing the opportunistic Youssein flirt with the new president’s daughter at a White House reception, Leslie asks him about the leak, which he freely admits. She immediately breaks up with him, singing that for Youssein, “getting in with the ins . . . is part of the Washington Twist.”58 Eventually, she and Pat become engaged. Meanwhile, to stop Larry from getting any more speeding tickets, Stephen arranges for him to spend ten days at state police barracks where he bonds so well that he immediately becomes a state trooper. His favorite part of the job is the ability to drive fast enough to apprehend speeders. Later he decides to return to college to eventually become an astronaut so that he can travel at seventeen thousand miles an hour. Despite these domestic successes, Stephen misses the excitement of Washington life. His problem appears to be solved when the governor offers to appoint him to succeed a recently deceased senator. However, Stephen is too principled to agree to the governor’s requests to support a judicial nominee of questionable honesty and a number of porkbarrel projects. Nor will he aid the party by attacking the incumbent president because he believes “this country is in danger! . . . We haven’t time for that kind of politics.”59 Governor Bardahl takes this rejection in stride by appointing himself instead. After he leaves, Stephen explains, in the tradition of the heroic president, that he has learned how wrong it has been to put his interests above those of the country, then sings “This Is a Great Country,” ending “if this is flag waving . . . do you have a better flag to wave?”60 Suddenly, President Chandler arrives to ask Stephen to accompany him to a summit meeting with the Soviet leaders, who admire the courage shown by his Moscow landing. Chandler also appreciates Stephen’s consideration in keeping silent about the new administration’s difficulties. The company then reprises “This Is a Great Country.” Although critics enjoyed a few of the songs, they declared them far from Berlin’s best, and the show itself bland and old-fashioned. Howard Taubman asked “has there ever been as dull a president?” As for the book, it “is patched together out of remnants of lame topical allusions, pallid political jokes and stale gags based on White House tribal customs.” Comparing the play to the Titanic, Time declared the script “doggedly glum.” Finding the characters too generic, Henry Hewes thought that the play attempted “an inoffensive synthesis of all Presidents into one neuter portrait labeled ‘Stephen Decatur Henderson,’ which is actually no President.”61

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Despite these reviews the play’s advance sale guaranteed a significant run. However, the seriousness of world events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis quickly made the play’s picture of the White House as primarily glamorous social events seem out of touch with reality. After a few months, ticket sales began to decline, but the play had a fairly successful run of 265 performances, ending in June 1963. Additional revenue was expected from summer stock productions in nine cities, including St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City, the following year. The mood for such entertainment was soured when President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. References to the Kennedy family were deleted, but Berlin was reluctant to replace them with jokes about the Johnsons because, as A. L. Berman told Lindsay and Crouse, he “thinks it would be unwise to try and be funny with a man who is so new on the job.”62 Nevertheless, the tour went on, although it proved less successful than had been hoped. Since then, the play has been rarely revived. In the most notable attempt, Gerard Allessandrini, known for his parodies of musicals in Forbidden Broadway, retained the score but radically revised the book and lyrics in 2001 in order to comment on the previous year’s presidential election. As reviewer Robert Dominguez wrote, “the fact that Mr. President wasn’t particularly good is the point behind this revival,” which he concluded was “a zany, if uneven show that settles for easy laughs.”63 Mr. President sticks to the tradition of the heroic president, but lacks any sort of real crisis to bring out the heroism of its everyman protagonist. Stephen Henderson has some of the characteristics of the presidents seen in earlier chapters. He lacks selfish political ambitions, is a man of the people, and puts the country ahead of selfish interests and partisanship. Unlike real life heroic presidents, however, he lacks significant accomplishments, despite serving two terms in office. In the play, his heroism consists more of what he doesn’t do than what he does. He refuses to attack his successor; declines to make a political deal to gain a seat in the senate and defies the Soviet government by landing in Moscow, stopping briefly to chat with airport workers, then taking off. His main positive accomplishment is helping his rebellious children mature into adults with conventional values. No one would seriously compare him to Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln or either Roosevelt. The play’s flag-waving finale shows that it had no desire to create a complex character as its chief executive. Although Berlin lived until 1989, Mr. President was his final musical.

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Two years later, The White House, written by A. E. Hotchner, made its debut on Broadway. The play is a series of anecdotes about presidents, accompanied by music written by Lee Holby, and a few short songs, often drawn from campaign jingles. “I’ve tried to pinpoint that one particular thing about each President that best expresses his personality,” Hotchner told an interviewer. Taking a similar view, director Henry Kaplan explained that, “I realized the whole thing was to make them humans, not gods.” The play ends with the Wilson administration because, according to Hotchner, he “decided that nothing essentially new had been added since Wilson” who set the parameters of the modern presidency.64 After listing names of presidents, the opening song informs the audience that these are “names of fame and all comprising / Sons who rose with a country rising!” Several chief executives are quoted as seeing their office as a burden. James Garfield asks, “What is there in this place that a man should ever want to get in it?” To William Howard Taft, “the White House is the lonesomest place in the world.”65 The bulk of the show consists of vignettes of each president and first lady who inhabited the White House, thus excluding George Washington, from Abigail and John Adams to Edith and Woodrow Wilson. Starting with a discussion between the second president and his wife about the discomforts of the not-yet-completed White House and ending with Edith Wilson helping her husband govern despite serious illness, the emphasis is on the personal difficulties of White House life. As John Quincy Adams puts it, of all the struggles presidents face, “the struggle of struggles is to find a little peace and quiet.”66 The most attention goes to Lincoln, with excerpts from his debates with Douglas ending the first act. The second act begins with Mary Lincoln’s excessive spending habits and her later institutionalization for mental illness. Few of the incidents depicted are of great historical significance, although some, such as Cleveland’s secret cancer surgery, are interesting and little known. The play ends with a prayer from John Adams, asking for “the best of blessings on this house and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof. Amen.”67 Although reviewers praised the play’s accomplished cast, which included Helen Hayes who had returned to Broadway after a six-year absence, and found a few of the vignettes moving or amusing, they found the play primarily a collection of presidential trivia. Howard Taubman saw it as “an endless series of patched-together gossip columns, with their unpredictable intermingling of jokes, uplift,

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anecdote and name-dropping.” Time suggested that “it combines the shallower features of a dramatic reading and a TV documentary.” While agreeing that the play “doesn’t pretend to deal with history very profoundly,” John McCarten countered that “it does offer us a spate of anecdotes about the Presidents and their mates that are usually amusing and occasionally quite dramatic.”68 The White House closed after 23 performances. Not quite a drama and not quite a musical, it was so little remembered that when it was performed at the real White House as part of the 1995 commemoration of National Public Radio, Hotchner admitted that he hadn’t even looked at the play since its brief Broadway run.69 Although the script has been published, that presentation may be the only time it has been revived.

Musicals Since 1970 As the 1970s began, musical theater had no breakthrough comparable to MacBird! Although public skepticism about presidents was growing, musicals had not yet begun to reflect that sentiment. Was it because writers and composers were simply not interested in the topic? Or were audiences for musicals less receptive than those for straight plays? Or was it the fiscal conservatism of those who provided the financing for musicals which generally cost more to produce than dramas or non-musical satires? The tribulations of one of Broadway’s most famous failures, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, provide evidence of the difficulties of the transition. When the project began, it seemed a guaranteed success. Alan J. Lerner, who wrote the book and music for My Fair Lady, would do the same for this show. Leonard Bernstein would compose the music, as he had done for West Side Story. Based on their credentials and a few songs, Coca-Cola agreed to provide approximately a million dollars in funding.70 Problems quickly surfaced. Behind many of them was a conflict between those who wanted to present a critical view of the presidency and those who sought to celebrate the nation’s 1976 bicentennial with a heroic portrayal of the men who had occupied the executive mansion. The play originated from an idea of Lerner’s that placed him in the first camp. Depressed by Richard Nixon’s 1972 landslide, he asked Bernstein to collaborate to “write a musical about the first hundred years of the White House and other attempts to take it away from us.”71 Centering around four such attempts in the nineteenth

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century—the British burning of the White House during the War of 1812; the Civil War; the impeachment of Andrew Johnson; and the corruption of the robber barons at the end of the century—the play utilized a format similar to the popular public television series Upstairs, Downstairs to tell its story from the point of view not only of the first family, but also of three generations of fictional black servants. That would allow criticism of both the expansion of presidential power and America’s history of racism. However, as Erik Haagensen has observed, it created two shows, as the Civil War is the only one of the historical events whose direct cause was racial inequality.72 In the play’s most enduring song, Abigail Adams asks servant Lud Simmons to promise to “Take Care of This House.” By the play’s conclusion, however, the servants have become so disillusioned by the behavior of their leaders that they consider abandoning the White House and, by extension, American democracy, until Theodore Roosevelt restores their faith in democracy by promising to return the country to its original ideals. They will stay and fight for what they believe in. Roosevelt’s admirable action indicates that even though Lerner’s view of nineteenth-century presidents was a critical one, he believed enough in the possibility of heroic presidents to end on a more optimistic note of promise even if one not necessarily delivered. Still, only by the actions of the public, as represented by the Simmons family, could the battle for democratic equality be won. The story was structured as a musical within the play in which one actor and actress play all the presidents and their wives while two black performers similarly depict the three generations of servants. In the opening scene, the actors speak directly to the audience about racial stereotyping. Before tryouts began, Lerner expanded this metatheatrical device so that during supposed rehearsals for this musical, the actors debate the meaning of the historical events in their play, sometimes in song. In this way, as Bernstein explained to an interviewer, “both the house and the play become metaphors for the country.”73 According to Jamie Bernstein, her father “believed that slavery and the injustice toward the blacks was the essential core of the American experience,” which would put him in sympathy with the antiheroic presidency view.74 In a revised ending, the actor playing Lud’s grandson stops the rehearsal to decide whether he should continue in the play, eventually reaching a conclusion similar to that of his character. Haagensen believes that these changes seriously damaged the show. Without the meta-theatrical framework, Lud was someone the audience could root for, supplying “the glue that holds the evening together.” Deemphasizing his character in favor of that of the actor

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allegedly playing his part changed him into a mouthpiece providing the perspective of black people rather than a person.75 As a result of these late modifications, the play was in a relatively unfinished state when tryouts began in Philadelphia. Because of its complexity, the show’s structure proved easier to describe than to put into practice. Bernstein’s original score was 90 pages long, while tryout performances lasted four hours. Producer Arnold Saint-Subber, who had previously worked on relatively light musicals, disliked the show so much that he urged its abandonment, then quit when his advice went unheeded. New producers Roger Stevens and Robert Whitehead brought in Frank Corsaro to direct. However, he did not agree with Lerner’s antiheroic presidency theme, arguing that “the point of the work was to give the United States a gift at its Bicentennial and it turned out to be no real gift at all. Instead it was a portrait which severely criticized the early residents of the White House.” Representatives of Coca-Cola, who had been hoping for a bicentennial celebration, also worried about the play’s “seeming criticism of the presidency.”76 Despite excellent ticket sales in Philadelphia, the results were dismal with much of the audience leaving at intermission. Reviews were uniformly negative, pronouncing the play boring, overly long, and preachy. Some even complained that there was too much attention paid to race. In the Philadelphia Inquirer, William Collins lamented that “the viewpoint for most of the time is one which a black historian might take in laying out the record of denial of equal rights. It is a narrow view, a slant rather than a dramatic theme, a position rather than a passion.” As Haagensen points out, the show is filled with passion, suggesting that “it is precisely that passion that so offended the good people of Philadelphia.”77 Apparently neither critics nor audiences for musical theater in Philadelphia were ready for such a critical view of American politics. Numerous changes were quickly made. Director Corsaro was replaced by Gilbert Moses and George Faison. Barring Bernstein and Lerner from the actual rehearsals, Moses told Time that “whatever I thought was too long, too laborious, too repetitive, not theatrical enough, I cut.”78 The opening scene in which the black actors address the audience on the subject of racial stereotyping was replaced by an upbeat number in which the entire cast sings “Rehearse!” The show was shortened by an hour as most of the meta-theatrical scenes were eliminated. However, the final songs in which the black actors first refuse to go on, then change their minds, were retained, ending the play on a less than coherent note. Lerner hurriedly rewrote while Bernstein

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largely withdrew from the creative process. Whitehead was able to respond to Coca-Cola’s fears of excessive criticism of presidents by informing them that “practically all of that has already been removed from the production.” Haagensen believes that, as a result, the play “ceased to be a piece of political theatre. It was now to be the ‘celebration’ that Lerner began to claim in newspaper interviews he always intended and which audiences expected for the Bicentennial.”79 Although exponents of the heroic presidency triumphed, the show did not. Critical reaction was brutal. Clive Barnes complained that “the show’s racial conscience bleeds like a sapping but superficial wound.” Jack Kroll pronounced it “Patriotic Bore.” “It was an excellent conception,” suggested Richard Watts, “but I’m afraid it worked out badly.” One of the few with kind words was Martin Gottfried, but even his praise of the music and lyrics was tempered by a characterization of the book as “an absence of plot populated by anonymous characters, lumbering along without organization or attitude.”80 After thirteen previews and seven performances, the show closed. The result was so disastrous that there was neither a script published nor an original cast album released. Although Bernstein was interested enough in developing a revised version that he approached Gore Vidal about a new book after Lerner’s death in 1986, nothing came of it. After Bernstein died in 1990, however, his estate hired Haagensen to recreate the original pre-Philadelphia version. Concluding that this was “a brave, deeply felt, uncompromising attempt to write a musical about a subject that, if anything, is more urgent than ever,” he directed a workshop production with a cast of Indiana University students in April 1992 that was brought to the Kennedy Center for a limited run later that year.81 “The result is a show of momentary vitalities and considerable longueurs,” concluded Bernard Holland, but he went on to write that “with some tough, smart editing, it might have a future.”82 However, those hopes have not come to fruition. Instead, A White House Cantata has become the show’s designated successor. Primarily a 90-minute concert version, it debuted in London in 1997, followed by a recording released in 2000. It has been occasionally produced since then, most notably for a brief run in New York City’s Rose Theater in 2008. There are many reasons for the failure of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The perhaps overly ambitious show was under such pressure to open at a certain time that it was never fully finished. Elements of the musical theatre—producers, financial backers, critics, and audiences—seem not to have been as receptive to the idea of the

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presidential antihero as were those similarly involved in nonmusicals during the same time period. Jamie Bernstein thinks that the time was not ripe. “It was the bicentennial year, and nobody liked being told painful stories,” she believes. Because of television programs such as Saturday Night Live and South Park, “nowadays people have a better sense of irony.”83 For a long time after 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue closed, no one was interested in taking the artistic or financial risks of a musical that took a sharply critical view of the presidency. Conversely, there was also little market for musicals depicting heroic presidents, as shown by the fate of Teddy and Alice, a 1987 effort with a book by Jerome Alden, a playwright familiar to us from his one-man play about Theodore Roosevelt, Bully! Alden’s statement that Roosevelt was “the last hero—he had a great sense of morality, justice, and what this country’s all about” makes clear his opinion of his protagonist.84 Utilizing music written by John Philip Sousa, adapted by Richard Kapp, this show was even more old-fashioned than Mr. President a quarter of a century earlier. As quoted in the monodramas discussed in chapter two, Roosevelt had said about his daughter, “I can either be president of the United States or I can control Alice. I can’t possibly do both!” The opening scene shows that Teddy and Alice will give precedence to the personal over the political. With the nation in mourning over the death of President McKinley, his successor tells those gathered in the White House, including his family and the press, that he will perform his duty to get the country on track. After some perfunctory questions about politics, the reporters move on to what they are more interested in, stories that Alice has been smoking in public and betting on horses. Rather than answering questions, however, Teddy plays football with his children. The audience first meets the rebellious Alice when she crashes Nicholas Longworth’s car after her pet snake escapes into the front seat.85 Her father intervenes with the police to avoid a summons while reporters ask her about her behavior as well as the possibility she will marry Representative Longworth. In her next appearance, she interrupts a cabinet meeting about the crisis in Panama to ask permission to have her coming-out party in the Rose Garden, then offers advice about Panama. Teddy reprimands Alice for smoking and asks why she is inviting the much older Nick to her party. Seeing Alice looking at herself in the mirror, Teddy is surprised by how much she resembles her mother, who died shortly after giving birth to her. When Alice shows

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him a box that her aunt gave her as a coming-out present, Teddy grabs it because it was originally a gift he gave her mother on the night Alice was born. Her mother, Alice Lee, he insists, must never be spoken of. Later, Teddy and his current wife Edith are engaging in a wideranging discussion, when Alice enters in a blue gown. Knowing this would be considered scandalous because the custom was to wear white, Alice nevertheless gets her way. Edith too realizes how much like Alice Lee, a woman Edith has competed with from the beginning of her marriage, young Alice is. At the party, Teddy constantly tries to keep Alice and Nick apart. Although Nick loves Alice, he does not want to alienate her father who “runs the town.” However, the cabinet members, seeing how much in love he is, urge him on in the hope that marriage will prevent her from meddling in matters of policy. Although asked by Edith to let the adult Alice act on her own, Teddy temporarily separates the couple by sending her on a four-month Asian goodwill tour. His advisers cleverly counter this plan by getting Nick a ticket on the same ship. While Alice is away, J. P Morgan and other influential Republicans tell Teddy they will fight to deny him the party nomination because of their opposition to his progressive policies. He replies that he is in fact a radical who will fight for “human need before human greed!” Actually, although bankers and big businessmen would have preferred a less progressive candidate, Roosevelt was so popular that there was never a chance he would be denied the nomination. As Paul Boller Jr. has written, “the Old Guard would have preferred someone more conventional but had no intention of turning him out.” Morgan even contributed $150,000 to Roosevelt’s campaign.86 As the first act ends in Teddy’s convention triumph, the company sings “Wave the Flag” to the tune of “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Upon Alice’s return, Teddy is angered not by her wild behavior, but by Nick’s presence on the trip. Despite quickly softening to her, he shouts at Nick. Fortunately, his other children interrupt to demand that Alice give them the presents she has brought home. Teddy avoids further conversation with Nick by taking everyone, including foreign diplomats, for a round of exercise. Meanwhile, Alice tells Edith that even though she is in love with Nick, she fears losing her freedom should she marry him. When Nick is finally able to discuss his intentions, he tells Teddy that Alice will not discuss marriage without her father’s approval. He refuses to give permission because he believes Nick is simply trying to

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advance his career with the match. Eventually Alice realizes she has to convince her father to allow her to marry the man she loves. On election night, Teddy is trailing in early returns. Upset at the thought of leaving office, Teddy tells Alice, who has burst into his office, that he will not give her permission to marry Nick. After Alice leaves in tears, Edith pleads with him to let both Alice and the ghosts of his past go. His refusal to discuss the issue further causes Edith too to tearfully depart. Teddy then opens the box he had previously taken from Alice. The music box in it brings back memories of all that has happened in his life. Later, after tucking in his children who have been camping in the woods, Teddy is able to exorcise the ghosts he sees by firing a gun just before being told that he will win the election by a landslide. The large margin of victory, over 57 percent of the popular vote and an electoral vote of 336–140, suggests that the play’s earlier election night anxiety is an exaggeration for dramatic effect. After everyone leaves, Teddy thinks matters over, singing “Can I Let Her Go?” to the slowed down tune of Sousa’s “The Thunderer” march, then discusses with Alice how much her mother meant and still means to him. When he gives her the music box as a wedding gift, the two embrace. In a final song, the characters discuss their “Private Thoughts.” In a happy ending, Alice and Nick are married. Troubles surfaced quickly during the first week of a six-week tryout in Tampa. Slow ticket sales and poor reviews led to the replacement of director Bud Widney with John Driver. Matters did not improve during the four week pre-Broadway run. Typical of reviewer reaction was David Richards’s opinion that the show “just looks dated” with its portrayal of Roosevelt as “really an old softy underneath” his bluster, “not unlike Clarence Day in Life With Father.87 New York critics also found the show far too old-fashioned for their taste. Hoping for a musical in the style of Of Thee I Sing, Frank Rich was disappointed to find instead a pale imitation of Mr. President, with both including new dance crazes introduced in the White House by the president’s daughter and flag-waving finishes. The show’s biggest error is “its complete misreading of the zeitgeist of its own era.” “The flag-waving furor” of the play, wrote Michael Kuchwara, seems misplaced and oversimplified.” His analogy was to “a warm milkshake—sweet, heavy and bland.” John Simon’s even harsher comparison was to “a sub-comic-book version” that “flashes by in cartoon panels with dialogue to match.” Even reviews with kind words qualified them. Clive Barnes praised “a good old-fashioned

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musical, the kind they don’t write anymore” despite an “undeniably lame” ending.88 Nevertheless, Teddy and Alice had a fairly respectable run of 11 previews and 77 performances, suggesting that there was still at least some audience for old fashioned celebration of admirable presidents. A sharply revised and streamlined version produced by Seven Angels Theater in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1996, failed to make the play relevant to contemporary audiences, with one critic concluding that the musical “hasn’t been helped by the passing years and seems to be dated beyond redemption, particularly when it comes to its embarrassing finale,” which originally had been the flag-waving conclusion to the first act.89 If musicals celebrating the presidency such as Mr. President and Teddy and Alice were too old-fashioned to succeed, and the more critical perspective of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue too far advanced, what would it take to be acceptable? As with MacBird! the answer was so far out of the mainstream that critics were slow to embrace it, but, unlike Barbara Garson’s play, Assassins was not a great success with audiences when it opened in late in 1990. With a book by John Weidman and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Assassins went even further than critically examining the presidency by making its main characters those who tried, sometimes successfully, to kill presidents. This forced the show to humanize these criminals since, as Weidman explained, there was “no point in writing a show that it was bad to shoot the president.” Nevertheless, Sondheim has stated that the play is “in the old-fashioned sense, a musical comedy—whether people think it’s a comedy or not, it’s a collection of songs” with different styles representing the characters and the times they lived in. Just as the songs play with those styles, including frontier ballads, Sousa marches, and barbershop quartets, Sondheim’s statement must be taken with more than a tinge of skepticism. Raymond Knapp clarifies the paradox, writing that “the perspective in Assassins runs closely parallel to more conventional narratives detailing the progress of the American dream as the country grew to world prominence, but it focuses on the shadow of that more hopeful narrative line, projecting a dark and sinister spirit hovering disturbingly close to America’s main road.”90 The musical is staged in the form of a revue, albeit with a consistent theme. According to Weidman, the play’s protagonists are united by the belief that “everyone has a right to happiness, not just to its pursuit.” Knapp argues that they “desperately want in to American society, and will kill to do it.” Andre Bishop may have laid out the parallel

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best, when he wrote that in America, “Any kid can grow up to be President; any kid can grow up to be his killer.”91 Because none of the assassins actually met any of the others, often living in different eras, many of the play’s scenes are imagined encounters between them. By setting the first scene in a carnival shooting gallery whose proprietor urges his customers to “c’mere and kill a president,” the play warns the audience that it will be in for a dark and shocking evening. After introducing Leon Czolgosz, John Hinckley, Charles Guiteau, Giuseppe Zangara, Samuel Byck, Sara Jane Moore, Lynette Fromme, and John Wilkes Booth, the proprietor asserts the opening song’s title, “Everybody’s Got the Right to Be Happy.” The scene ends when Booth excuses himself in order to shoot Lincoln offstage. The audience hears a gunshot followed by Booth’s shout, “Sic Semper Tyrannis!”92 In scene two, Booth, who had been designated the “pioneer” by his fellow assassins, is angry that the public believes he acted out of madness or mercenary motives. As the scene ends with Booth’s death, the balladeer, a continuing character who often expresses the values of society, proclaims “Damn you, Johnny! You paved the way for other madmen to make us pay.”93 In the third scene, the male characters from scene one are gathered in a bar where Guiteau toasts the presidency, “an office which by its mere existence reassures us that the possibilities of life are limitless. An office the mere idea of which reproaches us when we fall short of being all that we can be.” Thus, the glorification of the heroic president taunts America’s failures for their shortcomings. When Czolgosz complains about his six-cent-an-hour job in a stifling bottle factory, Guiteau upbraids such pessimism, declaring “This is America! The Land of Opportunity!” In contrast, Booth is constantly agitating, suggesting that Czolgosz break the bottle that is in front of him. Responding to Czolgosz’s inaction, Booth quotes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (itself a play about assassination), “Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. . . .”94 It is the last phrase that is particularly telling in this context. The scenes that follow lay out both the motivations of the assassins and the contributions of American culture to their actions. Angry at being called a foreigner, Zangara, strapped to the electric chair as a band plays Sousa marches, asks, “Why are there no photographers? For Zangara, no photographers! Only capitalists get photographers.”95 A lonely Czolgosz seeks out Emma Goldman to declare his love, only to be urged to pursue social justice and equality instead. Forming a

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barbershop quartet, Czolgosz, Booth, Guiteau, and Moore sing about the wonders of guns and how quickly they can change the world. Czolgosz asserts that “in the U.S.A. you can have your say, you can set your goals and seize the day.”96 Byck dictates a letter to Leonard Bernstein that is written with both admiration for Bernstein’s talent and resentment at being ignored. Hinkley and Fromme’s duet promises to prove their love for Jody Foster and Charles Manson through assassination. Guiteau’s hanging is so popular that tickets have to be raffled. As he cakewalks to the gallows, the balladeer tells him to “look on the bright side” since at least he will be remembered.97 As the show approaches its climax, each of the assassins concisely states his or her motives, then asks where the promised prize is. In folk-song style, the balladeer replies, “It didn’t mean a nickel, you just shed a little blood, and a lot of people shed a lot of tears.” They counter with “Another National Anthem,” which is “for those who never win, for the suckers, for the pikers, for the ones who might have been,” and conclude that “you can always get a prize . . . you can always get your dream.”98 At this point the final, most shocking assassin makes his first appearance. In a scene set in the Texas School Book Depository, we meet Lee Harvey Oswald, who is welcomed to the family of assassins by Booth. Lee wants, Booth explains, what everyone wants, to be loved, appreciated, and valued, but planning suicide to make those who know him realize how much they cared about him will not work. Instead he must kill President Kennedy. The suggestion conjures up Booth’s fellow assassins whose deeds will once again be remembered if he acts. After he shoots, all exit, only to return for a final scene that reprises the opening song, “Everybody’s Got the Right to Be Happy.” The play ends with the assassins firing their weapons at the audience. Critical reaction was almost uniformly negative. Decrying the show’s “moral fuzziness,” Jack Kroll thought that linking the assassins with the theme of achieving their dreams “is a pretty pathetic rationale for the complex questions that Sondheim does raise.” Because of the Gulf War, John Simon complained that the show “would be in poor taste anytime and is much more so now.” Calling the play’s view of America “a myth, born to glib cynicism,” Michael Feingold asked “if today’s Americans have no faith in the democratic process,” why are so many demonstrating in Washington?99 One of the few reviewers to get beyond distaste for the play’s characters was David Richards although even he conceded that “watching Assassins is rather like receiving a death notice in the form of a singing

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telegram.” Applauding the show’s daring, he believed that after producing a morality play about good and evil, the authors “then boldly exiled goodness to the wings.” Countering the traditional optimism of the American musical, Assassins “turns the musical’s traditional values inside out and delivers a rebuke to George M. Cohan on his very own turf.”100 From this we can understand that musical theater was so much slower than its nonmusical counterpart to move away from heroic depictions of the presidency because doing so rejected not merely a traditional perception of politics, but the very essence of the American musical comedy. Assassins, wrote Knapp, gave “Americans too many ways to be disoriented and confused by it.”101 By humanizing their characters, Sondheim and Weidman deliberately discomfit the audience in order to ask it to consider its own responsibility in helping create the climate for the assassin’s actions. When the assassins end the show by aiming their weapons at their real target, the audience, there is no one left on stage for that audience to root for, neither the righteously optimistic balladeer nor the lethal misfit assassins. The planned transfer of Assassins to Broadway after its 73-three performance run off Broadway never took place, possibly because of the negative reviews or in the belief that the post—Gulf War period was not an auspicious time. However, a year and a half later, the show was a great success in London. One possible reason for the different reaction was that the British audiences had less emotional investment in both the musical comedy form and the show’s subject matter. Commenting on the play’s lack of success in the United States, British critic Jeremy Sams argued that its irony, paradox, and reinvention of standard forms ran up against a tradition characterized by “sentiment, reassurance and recidivism.” He admired the way the off-Broadway production turned around the American dream to show its seamy side, exploring it “by taking the back bearings, as it were.”102 Sondheim’s addition of the song “Something Just Broke,” which he had intended to include in the aborted transfer to Broadway, also helped clarify his intentions. The idea was to show what happens to the United States after a presidential assassination, because, whether the president is as great as Lincoln or far less accomplished, as Sondheim put it, “it’s a constant when the country goes into a convulsion like that.”103 Critical reaction in London was a mirror image of that in New York. “It restores my faith in a seemingly bankrupt genre,” wrote Michael Billington who admired the show’s ability to simultaneously seduce and shock its audience. “Presidential power becomes an

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inflammatory symbol of everything society has failed to deliver,” he wrote, which guns counter with “a perverse momentary equality.” John Peter praised the way the show’s “form boldly dispenses with most of the trimmings you and I associate with musicals.” Instead, “Sondheim is using the most conventional American means to tell you that nightmare is part of the American dream.” Writing in Variety, which had published a negative review of the off-Broadway production, Matt Wolf concluded that “the show’s achievement is neither to patronize nor sentimentalize its myriad misfits, instead dissecting a collective psychosis that has haunted a nation over time.”104 Back in the United States, the passage of time created a climate more conducive to critical views of the presidency and American culture, even in musical theater. By 1995, Dick Lochte was able to write of the Los Angeles Repertory Company’s production, that it “is a mordantly funny, complex, exquisitely crafted work that the intervening four years have turned more profound and relevant.”105 A revival scheduled for the fall of 2001 was again derailed by international events. The September 11 attacks canceled Roundabout Theater Company’s production, costing the company $400,000.106 In April 2004, 13 years after its New York debut, Assassins finally reached Broadway. Disillusion over the Iraq War and the decline in support for President Bush, although not enough to prevent his reelection, made it likely that the public mood would be more receptive to a critical view of American politics. The anger that greeted the original production had so greatly dissipated that Elysa Gardner was able to write that “even the most ardent jingoist would be hardpressed to argue that Sondheim’s songs or Weidman’s libretto seek to glorify, or justify, the actions of Assassin’s characters.” Most critics now praised the show, although with more enthusiasm for the music than the book. Ben Brantley believed that in the time that passed, the play had “acquired a new point of connection with contemporary culture . . . the right to be famous,” now familiar from such television programs as Jerry Sringer and Survivor. Even if not fully converted, some of those who criticized the play 13 years earlier had reconsidered. Frank Rich, after characterizing his first review as “lackluster,” explained that “it’s not the show that has changed so much as the world,” citing polls indicating 57 percent of the public believed that the United States was on the wrong track. He also noted how many of the 9/11 hijackers had justified their actions by feelings of impotence and humiliation much as the characters in Assassins had done, concluding that “there’s scant cheer in observing that artists often possess the prescience that the rest of us do not.” Even John Simon,

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still considering the music lesser Sondheim, decided that “a secondbest Sondheim score . . . is still the equal of just about anybody’s best; Weidman’s book is at once funny and creepy.” Despite such qualified admiration, he wished for more depth to help explain events that make no more sense to us than an earthquake.107 Such praise, along with five Tony awards, including one for best musical revival, were only enough to translate into a respectable run of 26 previews and 101 performances. Assassins suggested that as the twenty-first century began, dark musicals about the presidency had far less box-office appeal than such upbeat predecessors as Of Thee I Sing, I’d Rather Be Right, or even As the Girls Go. However, considerable evidence of the play’s influence can be found in the numerous productions in cities across the country. Since 2006, these have included Arlington, Virginia; Boston, Los Angeles, Louisville, Philadelphia, Sacramento, St. Louis, and Spokane. The musical was even performed in Capetown, South Africa. With book, music, and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa, First Lady Suite imagines White House life through the eyes of several twentieth-century first ladies. LaChiusa’s interest in presidential wives began when, as a boy, he read Abe Lincoln in Illinois. According to the author, his goal was to find what these women had in common. “They shared great grief and great hope,” he told an interviewer.108 The 1993 play consists of four vignettes that mix reality and fantasy with most of the dialogue sung, often in recitative. “Over Texas” is set on Air Force One en route to Dallas on November 22, 1963. By portraying this trip from the perspective of John and Jacqueline’s personal secretaries, Evelyn Lincoln and Mary Gallagher, LaChiusa adds yet another degree of distance. Evelyn and Mary each complain of the triviality of much of their work. For Mary, “this is not a life, sorting out her bills. Four more years: Maybe I should quit.” Similarly, Evelyn laments, “so much work. Waiting for his voice, waiting for his smile, waiting for his laugh, waiting for his word.”109 As Mary dozes off, she dreams of Mrs. Kennedy, whose incessant demands interrupt her sleep. The first lady then poignantly foresees riding in the fatal motorcade, squeezing her secretary’s arm. When Mary awakes, Evelyn reassuringly sings that although “we’re only part of a giant machine . . . what we do is bound to do some good.”110 This play ends as she invites Mary to ride in the motorcade. “Where’s Mamie?” takes place on Mamie Eisenhower’s birthday in 1957 as the crisis over integrating Central High School in Little Rock

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is unfolding. Despite singing, “I’m no Eleanor Roosevelt: I know my place. I know my job is to be a wife: My husband’s is to lead,” Mamie resents being ignored on her birthday while her husband attends meetings to deal with the crisis.111 The play imagines her traveling to Little Rock to meet Marian Anderson, her “favorite Negro opera singer,” as a birthday treat.112 Marian pleads with her to urge the president to send troops to Little Rock to protect the black schoolchildren. Mamie then takes her to Algiers in 1944, where the two observe General Eisenhower kissing his female driver. Informing the surprised but repentant general that he will someday be president, his wife blackmails him into agreeing to dispatch troops when that time comes. Mamie happily declares that “this is the best birthday ever!”113 “Olio” is a term used in the past for brief entertainments presented to divert the audience from scene changes. In this short piece, a domineering Bess Truman (played by a male actor in drag) introduces her daughter Margaret to a women’s group. Bess constantly interrupts her daughter’s song by coughing, unwrapping candy, blowing her nose, and declaring, “Go on. I’m not doing nothing.” When Margaret is finished, Bess asks, “That it?” causing her daughter to rush out crying. Bess sums up, “Very nice. My daughter Margaret. The singer.”114 In the final playlet, “Eleanor Sleeps Here,” the audience is introduced to Eleanor Roosevelt and her friend Lorena Hickok, referred to in the musical as Hick, aboard Amelia Earhart’s airplane in 1935. LaChiusa’s depiction of the friendship between Hick and Eleanor is consistent with that of Blanche Wiesen Cook who describes it in her biography of Eleanor as “stormy, unpredictable, and somehow rather grand. The period of passion soared and mellowed, and did not last very long. Still their happiness seemed worth all the trouble.”115 In the play, Hick replies to Amelia’s question about what she does at the White House by explaining that she is a leading journalist who chose to “give everything up to run after, chase after, trail after Eleanor Roosevelt like a presidential pup.” A jealous Hick’s attempt to jump off the wing is prevented by Amelia who then admiringly notices Eleanor’s lack of vanity, singing, “she never looks into a mirror. Great ladies never do.” Finally, after wondering what her husband will think, Eleanor is taught by Amelia how to fly. While at the controls, she sings, “Look at me! I’m a pilot! Extraordinary! Franklin will be angry.”116 Critical reaction was decidedly mixed. Except for the final playlet, David Richards thought that “LaChiusa’s ambitions for his musical are more bracing than the musical itself.” Nevertheless, the result

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was “weird, funny and wigged-out.” Conversely, Michael Feingold preferred the first half, which illustrated “the triangular tension between the woman, her domestic role, and her public image” to the static second act. Mary Campbell liked the “music and lively fantasy organization” more than “the gossipy topics addressed” in the play. Similarly, John Simon praised the music, but was disappointed that the “clever and campy” show promised more than it delivered.117 Although the musical lasted for only 32 performances at New York’s Public Theater, it has been frequently revived since then, including productions by Theater LaB Houston in 1997, Philadelphia’s Hoopskirt Theatre Company in 2000, Los Angeles’s Blank Theatre Company in 2002, New York City’s Transport Group in 2004 and London’s Union Theatre in 2009. Obie awards for the original production went to actress Alice Playten, who played two roles, along with a special citation for LaChiusa. First Lady Suite fits into the antiheroic presidency tradition only indirectly. By portraying its first ladies as trapped by their roles, as in Jackie: An American Life, discussed in an earlier chapter, it takes a critical view of the presidency. Except for “Olio,” each of the episodes is a fantasy of escape from that role. The only president who does appear, Dwight Eisenhower, is depicted as an adulterer who, while repentant, has to be manipulated into doing the right thing. The final vignette ends with Eleanor defying Franklin by piloting an airplane. Reinforcing the theme of entrapment, each play shows other women imprisoned: John and Jacqueline Kennedy’s personal secretaries by their subordinate roles; Marian Anderson by racial discrimination; Margaret Truman by her domineering mother; Lorena Hickok by sacrificing at least some of her career to remain close to Eleanor Roosevelt; and even Amelia Earhart, who is urged by Hick to “tell your husband you want to can the fashion line, the toothpaste and the gum. Tell him you just want to fly around the world.” Solidarity is the only salvation. Evelyn invites Mary to join the presidential motorcade. Working to achieve their goal, Marion and Mamie bond during their flight of fantasy. In the final episode, each of the three women learns to admire the others, with Hick ending the play by looking at the audience and, according to the stage directions, “She sees the past, the future—all in one; sad and painful. She accepts it,” declaring “I see. I see. . . . I see . . . !”118 More recently, there has been a sprinkling of musicals with antiheroic presidents as protagonists. Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre described its 2007 production of Jon Steinhagen’s Teapot Scandals as a “musical vaudeville loosely based on the scandalous administration

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of former president Warren Harding.”119 Mixing fact with large doses of fiction, the show is a series of flashbacks, emceed by Attorney General Harry Daugherty who is described in the stage directions as “exuding all the warmth and charm of a patent medicine huckster.” The opening song tells the audience it will see “something tonguein-cheek and not upsetting,” but also “something that lampoons the shaft we’re getting.”120 Harding is portrayed as so clueless that the actor playing the part breaks the fourth wall by wandering onto the stage supposedly confused about when to sing his first song. His wife Florence fits the model of the ambitious political wife seen so often on stage. After a fortuneteller predicts that her husband will be elected president but later poisoned, she sings “I Can Live With That” because as long as he becomes president, everything else is inconsequential to her. More concerned with his personal affairs than with policy, Warren signs whatever documents Daugherty hands to him without bothering to read any. They are, sings the attorney general, merely “small things,” such as a “tax break for the wealthy” or “pardons for the crooked.”121 As with the opening song, Steinhagen is suggesting the relevance of these events to the contemporary presidency. Four of Harding’s cronies explain the Teapot Dome scandal in a barbershop quartet, “Who Put the Tea in the Teapot?” Warned by his wife about how corrupt his associates are, Warren briefly gets involved in his own administration, singing “I don’t think that it’s too late now to be more than a drone.”122 However, this Harding is unlike his counterpart in The Gang’s All Here, whose final heroic gesture exposes the responsibility of those behind the corruption. Instead, as publicity about the scandal increases, he asks for a vacation. Daugherty sends him to Alaska where he falls fatally ill. As the play ends, the actor playing Warren announces he is quitting after this performance, then sings the finale, “Bounce Right Back.” “We’ll never get a Lincoln every four years. We’ll never see a Washington again!” he declares. Instead, “Crimes will always be committed, lies will still be told, but our democratic attitude will hold!” The key is that “it’s the citizens who should be in charge.” The chorus finishes the play by reminding the audience that even though the country may be bamboozled by presidents, “I know America will bounce right back as it’s done a hundred times before.”123 Chicago critics were amused. Declaring with a wink that “resemblances to administrations past or present are accidental,” Hedy Weiss found “Steinhagen’s musical pastiches are full of verve.” Time Out Chicago pointed out that a president elected through a mix of

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good luck and likability, possibly manipulated by aides beholden to big business and motivated by self-interest, “may sound like current events, but Steinhagen’s cheeky new musical is based on” scandals of the Harding administration. Barbara Vitello agreed that “the sly lyrics and book draw not-so-subtle parallels between Harding’s administration and those of Bush and Clinton.”124 Although far more lighthearted than Assassins, Teapot Scandals uses its campy portrayal of the antiheroic Harding as a plea for citizens to empower themselves rather than await rescue by electing a president they hope will be as heroic as Washington or Lincoln because they are more likely to get someone who will disappoint them. The more bizarre President Harding Is a Rock Star portrayed him as a glam rocker whose cocaine-snorting friends are Alexander Hamilton and Napoleon Bonaparte. At the end of Kyle Jarrow’s musical, which had a run in Washington, DC, Harding is chased around the stage by a huge crustacean after eating crab poisoned by his wife. Even if Harding actually died of an aneurysm or a stroke, declared Jarrow, “the image of an American President chased around the stage by a giant crab is very symbolic in the way that an aneurysm isn’t.”125 Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which employed a contemporary musical genre called emo, had a short run in 2009 at New York City’s Public Theater. It proved so popular that the play was brought back the next year for a run that was extended twice then was scheduled to move to Broadway during the 2010–11 season. One critic described its interpretation of Andrew Jackson as “an angry, enthusiastic and very hungry overgrown boy with a need for instant gratification and a whopping sense of entitlement.” Another thought that while the original version’s Jackson resembled “George W. Bush running the national agenda like an out-of-control cowboy,” by 2010, the Tea Party movement had made the play more relevant because “the simplistic speeches and rock anthems to populism sound as if they could be heard at a Sarah Palin rally.”126 Perhaps this play, by transforming a heroic president into one with many characteristics of the antihero, signals a new satirical direction for musicals.

Conclusion Musicals have followed a path somewhat different from that of straight plays, yet the results are surprisingly comparable. Because the musical comedy genre seemed too undignified a place to present

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presidents, the early-twentieth-century hagiographic portraits were never found in musicals. When presidents did appear as major characters in the early 1930s, the need for humor and romance resulted in relatively light vehicles poking respectful fun at chief executives. The chief executives in Of Thee I Sing and I’d Rather Be Right retained elements of the heroic presidency such as an unselfish willingness to sacrifice their own political interests in order to do what is right, a devotion to family, and an identification with the average person. An attempt at darker themes in the sequel to Of Thee I Sing proved far less appealing to audiences. By the 1960s, however, the light comedy approach had run out of steam as public faith in presidents began to decline. Upbeat musicals about more or less heroic presidents, even with music by Irving Berlin, were perceived as too old- fashioned. Conversely, the more critical perspective of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, despite the illustrious pedigrees of its creators, failed even more dramatically. When Assassins premiered in 1990, it too was hardly welcomed by either critics or audiences. Because it took until the 2004 revival for it to gain a degree of critical and audience acclaim, it is too early to declare a trend similar to that seen among dramas and comedies. The portrayal of presidential wives in First Lady Suite as trapped in the White House by public expectations of their role presented a critical view of the presidency different from, but not inconsistent with, many of the antiheroic theatrical depictions of the White House. The few antiheroic musicals that have appeared since have yet to demonstrate appeal to mainstream audiences. Even the audiences for Assassins were a tiny fraction of those flocking to such popular successes as Mamma Mia! and Wicked. Will there be a significant niche for musicals about antiheroic presidents? The absence of their heroic counterparts in recent musical theater suggests a possible void, but it may simply mean that musical audiences are not terribly interested in seeing presidents sing and dance. Even tentatively finding a trend seems premature.

Conclusions In the introduction, we noted that nineteenth-century playwrights avoided centering their work around presidents for fear of offending audiences. Early in the twentieth century, this problem was solved by writing about idealized versions of great presidents, especially Abraham Lincoln. Poetic license frequently exaggerated the difficulties of their pre-presidential lives and invented details to make their romances more dramatically interesting. In portraying what made these men great, playwrights stressed success in times of crisis while glossing over or even entirely ignoring such serious faults as the ownership of slaves. In the approved picture, these men began as reluctant politicians pushed into running for office by others in their lives, especially ambitious women. For example, Lincoln was frequently depicted as resisting a pushy Mary Todd. They disliked elites, preferring the company of ordinary citizens whose wisdom informed their policy decisions. In The First Lady of the Land, the stuffy Europeans make fun of Dolly Todd but James Madison falls in love and marries her. The plot of That Awful Mrs. Eaton centers on Andrew Jackson’s defense of Peggy Eaton against the snobbery of the other cabinet officers’ wives. In The Patriots, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington remove their wigs to sneak away for an afternoon of fishing. Later Jefferson vows to counter Hamilton’s alliance with big business by founding a “people’s party,” despite his own distaste for party politics. Most importantly, these presidents were willing to ignore all political considerations in order to do what is right. In The Patriots Jefferson is convinced by Washington that the country needs him so badly he should make the sacrifice of not returning home to his family. Plays about Lincoln’s presidency stressed his opposition to the supposed desire of radicals in his own party to seek vengeance on the South. Instead, his goal of preserving the union favored reconciliation, with one play, If Booth Had Missed, even imagining a possible impeachment. All of these presidents act out of idealistic, never selfish or political, motives. If there is any fault, it is, as with Woodrow

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Wilson in In Time to Come, that they are too idealistic. Ultimately, after triumphing over adversity in their personal lives, as Franklin Roosevelt did in Sunrise at Campobello, they succeed in solving the more serious crises faced by the nation during their presidencies. Even when the portraits became more complex from the 1930s on, the characteristics of these heroic presidents remained consistent, with a few minor faults added to humanize them and make their successes more dramatic. Beginning in the late 1960s, however, the public began to become less trustful of government in general and presidents in particular, especially in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. The surprising success of MacBird!, written by the unknown Barbara Garson, indicated that there was an audience for critical views, even if savagely satirical, of presidents. Later plays, especially those about Richard Nixon, made their antiheroes more human and therefore more interesting, even when disapproving of their actions. As a result, except for one-person shows, recent theatrical depictions of historical presidents have been dominated by those near the bottom of historians’ ratings. On stage, at least for nonmusical plays, truth seems stranger or at least more interesting than fiction when presidents are the protagonists. The few plays depicting fictional presidents have been primarily comedies centering on elections. Although it is impossible to make more than the most tentative generalizations from so small a number, the trend is similar to that of historical presidents. After World War II, in both State of the Union and The Best Man, the personally flawed but basically righteous presidential candidates ended their plays with heroically self-sacrificing gestures that surrendered their own political ambitions for the good of the country. In contrast, the recent November portrayed a greedy, self-centered president at the end of his term. Even in this apparently cynical portrait, however, President Smith retains a bit of the heroic presidency in his final act as president. The light humor central to early twentieth-century musical theater resulted in a somewhat different trend, which started during the Depression, combining romance with modest gibes at presidents in such successful comedies as Of Thee I Sing and I’d Rather Be Right. Even though lightweight comedies about presidential families began to seem anachronistic by the 1960s, there were no replacements in sight. The critical view presented by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue failed both for artistic reasons and because producers and audiences seemed unready for a musical counterpart to MacBird! or even less

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scathing alternatives. When Assassins presented such an alternative in 1990, neither critics nor audiences were receptive. Its successful 2004 revival, followed by a few small-scale musicals depicting antiheroic presidents, suggest the possibility, but only a possibility at the moment, that musical theater will follow in the footsteps of drama and comedy. From more than 40 years of antiheroic tradition, we can see a developing portrait of its protagonists. The antiheroic president enters office overshadowed by others more glamorous and charismatic such as the Kennedy family. Unable to fit in among the elite in a world he sees as hostile, he is forced to scheme, finding allies such as the neo-conservatives or the Committee of 100 where he can. Despite early success, these schemes ultimately collapse. In some cases the antihero makes a self-sacrificing (or is it self-destructive?) gesture to prevent catastrophe. Sometimes, as in Nixon’s Nixon, he even has an attack of conscience. The flaws of these protagonists make them more endearing because they are as human as we are. However, democracy is inadequate to remedy their flaws as the public is passive and easily manipulated. Presidents play the role of statesman, leaving the dirty work to less visible subordinates such as Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz. Theatrical presidents are important because they simultaneously show both our images of presidents and our aspirations for those of the future. Where once we hoped to elect presidents as great as the theatrical versions of Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt, today we fear ourselves unable to choose anyone better than an antihero. Our election campaigns are dominated by negative advertisements that often urge voters to select the lesser of two evils. In a study of negative ads, Darrell West found that while only 12 percent of prominent ads in the 1960 campaign were negative, by 1968 the percentage had increased to 70. Despite some variation, the level has remained quite high. In the 2008 election, 62 percent of Barack Obama’s and 88 percent of John McCain’s spot ads were negative.1 Predicting future trends is a futile exercise, especially in theater where much depends upon the creativity and skill of those who write plays. Perhaps the election of Barack Obama will renew the heroic stage president, but early signs are not encouraging. Three upbeat musicals were quickly put together, all premiering outside the United States. Obama: The Musical was produced in the president’s father’s native Kenya and seems unlikely to have much of a future. Written by an American, Obama on My Mind opened in London to reviews typified by Lyn Gardner’s conclusion that “there is little evidence

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here that anyone here knows how to write a musical.” Its only United States production was at Seattle’s Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, where one critic described it as “pretty hopeless.” The reaction to American playwright Randall Hutchins’ Hope—The Obama Musical Story, performed in a mix of German and English in Berlin early in 2010, was similar, with Catherine Hickley declaring that “parts of it are so silly they have to be seen to be believed.”2 Are there great plays about presidents waiting to be written? Will producers risk their money to put them on? Will audiences attend in large enough numbers to make them successes? Finally, will future presidents act in ways that continue to fuel public belief that they are antiheroic or will they instead contribute to a new theater of admirable presidential protagonists?

Appendix Plays Discussed in This Book Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Robert Sherwood. 1938 Broadway run: 472 performances. 1993 Lincoln Center revival: 27 previews, 40 performances. Abraham Lincoln, John Drinkwater. 1919 Broadway run: 193 performances. 1929 Broadway revival: 8 performances. Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party, Aaron Loeb. 2008 San Francisco. 2010 off-Broadway run. American Iliad, Donald Freed. 2001 Burbank, California. As the Girls Go, William Roos (book), Jimmy McHugh (music), Harold Adamson (lyrics). 1948 Broadway run: 414 performances. Assassins, John Weidman (book), Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics). 1990 off-Broadway run: 73 performances. 1992 London revival. 2004 Broadway revival: 26 previews, 101 performances. The Best Man, Gore Vidal. 1960 Broadway run: 520 performances. 2000 Broadway revival: 15 previews, 121 performances. Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, Alex Timbers (book), Michael Friedman (music and ly73rics). 2008 Los Angeles. 2009 and 2010 off-Broadway runs. Buchanan Dying, John Updike. 1976 Franklin and Marshall College. Bully! Jerome Alden. 1977 Broadway run: 8 previews, 8 performances. 2006 off Broadway revival. The Bully Pulpit, Michael O. Smith. 2008 off-Broadway. Camping with Henry and Tom, Mark St. Germain. 1995 off-Broadway run: 105 performances. Numerous regional theater revivals since then. An Evening with Richard Nixon, Gore Vidal. Broadway run: 14 previews, 16 performances. First Lady, Katherine Dayton and George S. Kaufman. 1935 Broadway run: 246 performances. 1952 off-Broadway revival. 1980 Berkshire Theater Festival revival. 1996 Yale Repertory Theatre revival. First Lady Suite, Michael John LaChiusa. 1993 off-Broadway run: 32 performances. Revivals include Los Angeles 2002, off Broadway 2004, and London 2009.

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Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan. 2006 London. 2007 Broadway run: 23 previews, 137 performances. The Gang’s All Here, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. 1959 Broadway run: 132 performances. Give ’em Hell, Harry! Samuel Gallu. 1975 premiere in Hershey, Pennsylvania followed by three-week Washington, DC, run, sixcity tour. 2008 off-Broadway revival. The Heavens Are Hung in Black, David Selby. 2009 Washington, DC, run. Hope: The Obama Musical Story, Randall Hutchins. 2010 Berlin run. I’d Rather Be Right, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart (book), Richard Rodgers (music), Lorenz Hart (lyrics). 1937 Broadway run: 290 performances. 2008 Los Angeles revival. If Booth Had Missed, Arthur Goodman. 1931 Broadway run: 1 performance. 1932 Broadway run: 21 performances. In Time to Come, Howard Koch and John Huston. 1941 Broadway run: 40 performances. Jackie, Gip Hoppe. 1997 Broadway run: 34 previews, 128 performances. Several regional revivals since then. The Last Days of Lincoln, Mark Van Doren. 1961 Florida State University. 1965 off-Broadway run: 1 performance. Let ’em Eat Cake, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind (book), Ira Gershwin (lyrics), George Gershwin (music). 1933 Broadway run: 90 performances. 1978 Berkshire Theater Festival revival. Lincoln, Benjamin Chapin. 1906 Broadway run: 21 performances. 1909 Broadway revival: 17 performances. Lincoln, Saul Levitt. 1976 off-Broadway run: 32 performances. The Lincoln Mask, V. J. Longhi. 1972 Broadway run: 19 previews, 8 performances. MacBird!, Barbara Garson. 1967 off-Broadway run: 386 performances. 2006 Washington, DC, revival. A Man of the People, Thomas Dixon, Jr. 1920 Broadway run: 15 performances. Mister Lincoln, Herbert Mitgang. 1980 Washington, DC, premiere. 1980 Broadway run: 5 previews, 16 performances. 1995 offBroadway revival. Mr. President, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (book), Irving Berlin (music and lyrics). 1963 Broadway run: 4 previews, 265 performances. 2001 off-Broadway revival with significant revisions. Nixon’s Nixon, Russell Lees. 1994 off-Broadway run: 125 performances. 2006 off-Broadway revival.

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November, David Mamet. 2007 Broadway run: 33 previews, 205 performances. Obama on My Mind, Teddy Hayes. 2009 London run. 2009 Seattle run. Of Thee I Sing, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind (book), Ira Gershwin (lyrics), George Gershwin (music). 1931 Broadway run: 441 performances. 1952 Broadway revival: 72 performances. 1969 off-Broadway revival. Poker Night at the White House, Sean Benjamin. 2007 Chicago run. The Patriots, Sidney Kingsley. 1943 Broadway run: 173 performances. President Harding Is a Rock Star, Kyle Jarrow. 2003 off-off Broadway run. 2008 Washington, DC, revival. Prologue to Glory, Ellsworth P. Conkle. 1938 Broadway run: 161 performances. The Rivalry, Norman Corwin. 1959 Broadway run: 81 performances. 2008 Los Angeles revival: 5 performances. 2009 off-Broadway revival. Secret Honor, Donald Freed and Arnold Stone. 1983 off-Broadway run: 47 performances. 1986 Washington, DC, revival. 1988 San Francisco revival. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics), Leonard Bernstein (music). 1976 Broadway run: 13 previews, 7 performances. 1992 Washington, DC, revival. Revived as A White House Cantata in London 1997 and off-Broadway 2008. State of the Union, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. 1945 Broadway run: 765 performances. 2006 and 2008 Washington, DC, revivals. Stuff Happens, David Hare. 2004 London premiere. U.S. premiere, Los Angeles 2005. 2008 off-Broadway run. Sunrise at Campobello, Dore Schary. 1958 Broadway run: 556 performances. Occasional regional revivals since. Teapot Scandals, Jon Steinhagen. 2007 Chicago run. Teddy and Alice, Jerome Alden (book), John Philip Sousa (music), Hal Hackady (lyrics). 1987 Broadway run: 11 previews, 77 performances. 1996 Waterbury, Connecticut revival. Teddy Tonight! Laurence Luckinbill. 2002 off-Broadway run. That Awful Mrs. Eaton, John Farrar and Stephen Vincent Benét. 1924 Broadway run: 16 performances. The White House, A. E. Hotchner (books and lyrics), Lee Holby (music). 1964 Broadway run: 1 preview, 23 performances.

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You’re Welcome America: A Final Night With George W. Bush, Will Ferrell. 2009 Broadway run: 18 previews, 46 performances.

Note These plays are listed alphabetically by title, followed by authors, information about the original run, and a listing of the most prominent revivals, if any.

Notes Introduction 1. For example, see the collection Hollywood’s White House, Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor (eds.), Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2003. 2. Patrick Julian, “A Touch Too Cracker Barrel Folksy: The Mythic Portrayal of Harry S. Truman in Give ’em Hell, Harry!” Philological Papers 44 (1998): 113. 3. Christian Moe, Scott J. Parker and George McCalmon, Creating Historical Drama: A Guide for Communities, Theatre Groups and Playwrights, Second Edition, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press, 2005: 5. 4. Quoted in Casper H. Nannes, Politics in the American Drama, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1960: 13. 5. Nannes: 24.

1 Plays about Abraham Lincoln 1. Merrill D. Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994: 389. 2. Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1958: 5. 3. Quoted in Cunliffe: 14. 4. Cunliffe: 13. 5. Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1984: xxi–xxii. 6. Christian H. Moe, Scott J. Parker, and George McCalmon, Creating Historical Drama: A Guide for Communities, Theater Groups, and Playwrights, Second Edition, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press, 2005: 16. 7. Maxwell Anderson, Valley Forge, in Stanley Richards (ed.), America on Stage: Ten Great Plays of American History, Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1976: 145–56. 8. Anderson: 184. 9. Anderson: 248. 10. Joseph Wood Krutch, “Drama: Red—and White and Blue,” Nation 139 (Dec. 26, 1934): 750.

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11. Brooks Atkinson, “Philip Merivale in ‘Valley Forge,’ ” New York Times, Dec. 11, 1934: 28. 12. David Turley, “A Usable Life: Popular Representations of Abraham Lincoln,” in David Ellis (ed.), Imitating Art: Essays in Biography, London: Pluto Press, 1993: 60. 13. Peterson: 27, 395–7. 14. Peterson: 35. 15. Benjamin Chapin, “Lincoln in the Hearts of the People,” The Independent 66 (Feb. 11, 2009): 305–8. 16. “To Portray Lincoln on the Stage,” New York Times, Feb. 6, 1906: X4. 17. “Abraham Lincoln as a Stage Figure,” New York Times, Jan. 1, 1906: XI. 18. “Mr. Chapin as Lincoln,” New York Times, Feb. 6, 1909: 9. 19. Peterson: 202. 20. Peterson: 170. 21. “The Negro a Menace, Says Thomas Dixon,” New York Times, Jun. 9, 1903: 2. 22. Thomas Dixon, A Man of the People: A Drama of Abraham Lincoln, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1920: ix. The edition used was reprinted by Kessinger Publishing. 23. Dixon: 31–2. 24. Dixon: 47–49. 25. Dixon: 53–60. 26. Dixon: 105. 27. “Lincoln Again Play Hero,” New York Times, Sept. 8, 1920: 18 (Section: Amusements); and Anthony Slide, American Racist: The Life and Films of Thomas Dixon, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2004: 69. 28. Lerone Bennet, Jr., “Was Abe Lincoln a White Supremacist?” Ebony, Feb. 1968: 35–42. 29. Two useful summaries of this debate are Arthur Zilversmit, “Lincoln and the Problem of Race: A Decade of Interpretations,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 2 (1980) Issue 1: 22–45; and Martin D. Tullai, “Abraham Lincoln: Racist, Bigot or Misunderstood?” Lincoln Herald 103 (2001) Issue 2: 85–92. 30. Raymond A. Cook, Thomas Dixon, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974: 107. 31. Brook Thomas, “Thomas Dixon’s A Man of the People: How Lincoln Saved the Union by Cracking Down on Civil Liberties,” Law and Literature 20 (Spring 2008): 21–46. 32. Thomas: 42. 33. St. John Ervine, “John Drinkwater,” North American Review 210 (Dec. 1919): 825. 34. Peterson: 202. 35. Eva Chappell, “The Pitiful High Heart of Lincoln,” World Outlook 6 (Feb. 1920): 7.

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36. John Drinkwater, Lincoln, The World Emancipator, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1920: 3. 37. Chappell: 7. 38. John Drinkwater, Abraham Lincoln: A Play, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919: 2. 39. Drinkwater 1919: 34. 40. Drinkwater 1919: 62. 41. Drinkwater 1919: 73. 42. Drinkwater 1919: 103. 43. Drinkwater 1919: 112. 44. Burns Mantle (editor), The Best Plays of 1919–20, Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1920: v. 45. “Letters and Art: Abraham Lincoln,” The Literary Digest, Jan. 30, 1920: 30–32. 46. F. Abraham Hackett, “After the Play,” New Republic 21 (Dec. 31, 1919): 148. 47. Alexander Woolcott, “Second Thoughts on First Nights: Abraham Lincoln,” New York Times, Dec. 21, 1919: 76. 48. Edmund Wilson, “After the Play,” New Republic 26 (Apr. 6, 1921): 162. 49. Harriet Monroe, “A Lincoln Primer,” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse 15 (Dec. 1919): 159–62. 50. Alexander Woolcott, “The Play,” New York Times, Dec. 16, 1919: 18. 51. Drinkwater 1920: 47. 52. Quoted in Literary Digest: 31. 53. “Royalty Saves ‘Abraham Lincoln,’ ” New York Times, May 5, 1940: 154. 54. “Abe Lincoln in Japanese,” Time, Feb. 25, 1946, accessed at www. time.com. 55. Mark S. Reinhart, Abraham Lincoln on Screen: A Filmography of Drama and Documentaries, Including Television, 1903–1998, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1999: 36. 56. Arthur Goodman, If Booth Had Missed, New York: Samuel French, 1932: unnumbered front matter. 57. Martin Bunzl, “Counterfactual History: A User’s Guide,” The American Historical Review 109 (Jun. 2004), 845–858. 58. Goodman: 23. 59. Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: What Might Have Happened in American History if Lincoln Had Lived,” New York Times, Apr. 5, 1932: 24; “New Play in Manhattan,” Time, Feb. 15, 1932, accessed at www.time.com; and Joseph Wood Krutch, “Drama: Cleopatra’s Nose,” Nation 134, Feb. 24, 1932: 238. 60. Eric Foner, “If Lincoln Hadn’t Died . . .” American Heritage 56 (Winter 2009): 47, 53–54. 61. Hans L. Trefousse, Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth Century Egalitarianian, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997: 159, 170. 62. Goodman: 4, 19. 63. E. P. Conkle, “Prologue to Glory,” in Willard Swire, Three Distinctive Plays About Abraham Lincoln, New York: Washington Square Press,

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64. 65. 66.

67.

68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

81.

82. 83. 84.

85.

Notes 1961. Most of the dialogue in the play is written in this style of dialect. The major exception is that of Ann Rutledge. Conkle: 21. Conkle: 28. Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: E. P. Conkle’s ‘Prologue to Glory,’ a Fable of Lincoln’s Early Years in New Salem,” New York Times, Mar. 18, 1938: 22; and Time, “New Play in Manhattan,” Mar. 28, 1938, accessed at www.time.com. Thomas Ewing Dabney, “Lincoln Drama Well Received,” New Orleans States, Jan. 24, 1939 and Burns Mantle, “Iowan’s Story of Lincoln Wins Critic’s Praise,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar. 27, 1938. Malcolm Goldstein, The Political Stage: American Drama and Theater of the Great Depression, New York: Oxford University Press, 1974: 273. Conkle: 60. For an account of these events, see David Herbert Donald, Lincoln, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995: Chapter Two. Robert Sherwood, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939. The essay is on 189–250; the quotes on 189 and 197. Sherwood: 208–9. Sherwood: 79–80. Sherwood: 88–89. Sherwood: 100–101. Sherwood: 220. Sherwood: 127. Sherwood: 139. Sherwood: 182–84. Gerald Boardman, American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1914–1930, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995: 171; Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: Raymond Massey Appearing in Robert Sherwood’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” New York Times, Oct. 17, 1938: 59; and Harriet Hyman Alonso, Robert E. Sherwood: The Playwright in Peace and War, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007: 200. Joseph Wood Krutch, “A Good Beginning,” Nation 147 (Nov. 5, 1938): 488; Alonso: 200; and “Drama Critics Fail to Name ‘Best Play,’ ” New York Times, Apr. 20, 1939: 25. Peterson: 321 and Alonso: 203. “Abe Lincoln in Illinois: Overview Article,” Turner Classic Movies, www.tcm.com. Howard Taubman, “Theater: Lincoln Revival,” New York Times, Jan. 23, 1963: 5; and Richard Gilman, “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” Commonweal 77 (Feb. 15, 1963): 543. Carol Gelderman, “Abe’s Global Vision,” American Theatre, Dec. 1, 1993: 13; and Michael Sommers, “Abe Lincoln in Illinois Revival Depicts a Spiritual Heritage,” The Oregonian, Nov. 25, 1993.

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86. David Richards, “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” New York Times, Nov. 30, 1993: C15; Vincent Canby, “A Lincoln With an Agit-Prop Subtext,” New York Times, Dec. 12, 1993: A5; Michael Kuchwara, “ ‘Lincoln’ an Impeccable Drama,” Albany Times Union, Dec. 3, 1993: C9; and “Backwoods Lawyer Hews a Path to the White House,” Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 2, 1993. 87. Kelly Huffman, “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” www.theatermania.com, Oct. 19, 2009. 88. Letter from Corwin to Cheryl Crawford, Dec. 19, 1958, Norman Corwin Papers, Series II, Box 16, Syracuse University Library Special Collections. 89. Herbert Mitgang, “Saturday Night! Lincoln v. Douglas,” New York Times, Feb. 1, 1959: X1. 90. Norman Corwin, “Cautionary Note,” Norman Corwin Papers. 91. “The Tangled Weave,” in The Rivalry tour play program booklet in Corwin Papers and A. J. Langguth (editor), Norman Corwin’s Letters, New York: Barricade Books, 1994: 210. 92. Norman Corwin, The Rivalry, New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1960: 12, 31. 93. Corwin 1960: 46. 94. Corwin: 73–74. 95. Brooks Atkinson, “Vivid Americana,” New York Times, Feb. 15, 1959: X1; Harold Clurman, “The Rivalry,” Nation 188 (Feb. 28, 1959): 194; Kenneth Tynan, “Matters of Fact,” New Yorker 35 (Feb. 21, 1959): 96–98; Richard Watts, Jr., “Those Lincoln-Douglas Debates,” New York Post, Feb. 9, 1959; and “New Play in Manhattan,” Time, Feb. 16, 1959, accessed at www.time.com. 96. Sid Friedlander, “The Man in the Stove-pipe Hat,” New York Post, Feb. 15, 1959: M2. 97. Max Lerner, “The Wrestler,” New York Post, Feb. 11, 1959: 48. 98. Harold Holzer (editor), The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, New York: Harper Collins, 1993: 63, 283. 99. Norman Corwin, “Coast to Coast with a Dramatized Debate,” Theatre Arts 43 (Feb. 1959): 61. 100. Quoted in Richards: 346–7. 101. Mark Van Doren, The Last Days of Lincoln in Richards: 354. 102. Van Doren: 367–69. 103. Van Doren: 383–386. 104. Van Doren: 407, 410. 105. Richards: 346. 106. Van Doren: 431. 107. “Van Doren’s Play Given in Florida,” New York Times, Oct. 19, 1961: 39. 108. Charles Poore, “Books of the Times,” New York Times, Feb. 12, 1959: 25. Two collections that include The Last Days of Lincoln are Richards and Swire.

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109. Tom Donnelly, “Longhi: Arguing with the Immortals,” Washington Post, Sept. 10, 1972. 110. Clive Barnes, “Lincoln Mask at Plymouth,” New York Times, Oct. 31, 1972: 51; and Brendan Gill, “Self-Wounding, Self-Delighting,” New Yorker 48 (Nov. 11, 1972): 130. 111. Mel Gussow, “Stage: Weaver as Multimedia Lincoln,” New York Times, Dec. 20, 1976: 62. 112. Herbert Mitgang, Mister Lincoln, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982: v. 113. Mitgang: x. 114. James Lardner, “A Century Later Abe Lincoln Returns to Ford’s Theatre,” Washington Post, Jan. 13, 1980: M1. 115. Mitgang: 52–53. 116. Mel Gussow, “Stage: Mister Lincoln, Starring Roy Dotrice,” New York Times, Feb. 26, 1980: C5; and John Beaufort, “An Authoritative Mister Lincoln,” Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 3, 1980. 117. Accessed at www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey. 118. Barry Schwartz, “Lincoln at the Millenium,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 24 (Winter 2003): 1–31 (quote on 31). 119. “2009 Lowlights,” Washington City Paper, Dec. 25, 2009: 23.

2

Other Heroic Presidents

1. Thomas E. Cronin and Michael A. Genovese, The Paradoxes of the American Presidency, Second Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004: 62. 2. Lydia Saad, “Best President? Lincoln on Par with Reagan, Kennedy,” www.gallup.com, Feb. 11, 2009 and “C-SPAN 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey,” www.c-span.org, Feb. 16, 2009. 3. An excellent discussion of the difficulty of rating presidents which includes summaries of recent surveys of both historians and the general public can be found in Cronin and Genovese, Chapter 3. Unless otherwise stated, information about such surveys is taken from this source. 4. The correct spelling of her first name is Dolley. Because Nirdlinger used the popular but incorrect “Dolly,” we will avoid confusion in discussing his play by adopting his version. 5. Charles Frederic Nirdlinger, The First Lady of the Land, Boston: Walter H. Baker Co., 1914: 54. 6. Nirdlinger: 25. 7. Nirdlinger: 38, 43. 8. Nirdlinger: 163. 9. Nirdlinger: 169. 10. Nirdlinger: 208.

Notes

169

11. “Elsie Ferguson in Historical Comedy,” New York Times, Dec. 5, 1911: 9; and Clayton Hamilton, “Midwinter Nights’ Entertainments,” The Bookman 34 (Sept. 1911–Feb. 1912): 651. 12. Acton Davies and Charles Nirdlinger, The First Lady in the Land, New York: H.K. Fly Co., 1912. 13. Catherine Allgor, A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2006: 32. 14. Allgor: 10. 15. Nirdlinger: 145. 16. Gerald Boardman, American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1869–1914, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994: 700. 17. Stephen Vincent Benét, “Is the Costume Drama Dead?” The Bookman 60 (Dec. 1924): 481. 18. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, New York: W. W. Norton, 2005: 318. 19. Allgor: 360. The spelling is unchanged from the original source. 20. Wilentz: 318. 21. “New Plays,” Time, Oct. 13, 1924, www.time.com; Stark Young, “The Play,” New York Times, Sept. 30, 1924: 27; and Charles Fenton, Stephen Vincent Benét: The Life and Times of an American Man of Letters, 1898–1943, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958. 22. Howard Koch and John Huston, In Time to Come, in Stanley Richards (ed.), America on Stage: Ten Great Plays of American History, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1976: 530. 23. Koch and Huston: 534. 24. Koch and Huston: 538. 25. Koch and Huston: 555. 26. Koch and Huston: 561. 27. Koch and Huston: 568–72. 28. Koch and Huston: 575. 29. Koch and Huston: 579. 30. Koch and Huston: 586. 31. Koch and Huston: 589. 32. Koch and Huston: 599. 33. John Gassner, “ ‘Clash by Night’ and Other Plays,” Current History 1 (Feb. 1942): 568; Brooks Atkinson, “Drama About League of Nations and Woodrow Wilson Opens at the Mansfield,” New York Times, Dec. 29, 1941: 20; and Burns Mantle, The Best Plays of 1941–1942, New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1942: 35. 34. “In Time to Come,” Theatre Arts 28 (Oct. 1944): 606. 35. Alexander L. George and Juliette L. George, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study, New York: Dover Publications, 1964: 315. 36. John Guare and Ruth Goetz, “Conversations With . . . Sidney Kingsley,” Dramatists Guild Quarterly (Autumn 1984): 27.

170

Notes

37. Sidney Kingsley, The Patriots, in Nena Couch (ed.), Sidney Kingsley: Five Prizewinning Plays, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1995: 181. 38. Kingsley: 183. 39. Sidney Kingsley, “On Lifting Washington’s Periwig,” New York Times, Feb. 21, 1943: X1. 40. Kingsley 1995: 200. 41. Kingsley 1995: 209. 42. Kingsley 1995: 223–25. 43. Kingsley 1995: 235. 44. This seems more like playwright’s melodramatic hindsight than Hamiltonian prophecy as the challenge from Burr came more than three years later, after, as Sean Wilentz has written, “Hamilton had hated and pursued Burr with a passion that . . . certainly bordered on the obsessive” (Wilentz: 115). 45. Kingsley 1995: 238. 46. Lewis Nichols, “The Play,” New York Times, Jan. 30, 1943: 11; John Gassner, “Jefferson and Hamilton in Drama,” Current History 4 (Mar. 1943): 88–89; George Jean Nathan, “The Best Play of the Season,” The American Mercury 56 (1943): 486–87; and Wolcott Gibbs, “Birth of a Nation,” The New Yorker 18 (Feb. 6, 1943): 31. 47. Thomas F. Brady, “Warners to Film Play by Kingsley,” New York Times, Jun. 9, 1947: 27. 48. Kingsley 1995: 185. 49. Kingsley 1995: 212. 50. Dore Schary, Sunrise at Campobello, New York: Random House, 1958: Foreword. 51. Schary: 77. 52. Schary: 101. 53. Schary: 109. 54. James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956: 94. 55. Brooks Atkinson, “FDR as Invalid,” New York Times, Feb. 9, 1958: X1; and Kerr quoted in “Sunrise at Campobello,” Theatre Arts 42 (Apr. 1958): 16. 56. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “F.D.R. on the Stage,” The New Republic 138 (Feb. 10, 1958): 20; Wolcott Gibbs, “F.D.R.,” The New Yorker 33 (Feb. 9, 1958): 93–96; Robert Hatch, “Sunrise at Campobello,” The Nation 186 (Feb. 15, 1958): 146; and Henry Hewes, “The FDR Story,” Saturday Review 41 (Feb. 15, 1958): 28. 57. Schary: 67. 58. Schary: 78, 105. 59. “New Play in Manhattan,” Time 71 (Feb. 10, 1958): 20. 60. Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume One, 1884–1933, New York: Viking 1992: 285 and 316.

Notes

171

61. Jacob Leibenluft, “The Unpopular President: Why was Harry Truman as unloved as George W. Bush?” Slate, May 5, 2008 (www.slate.com). 62. Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, New York: Berkley, 1974. 63. Stefan Kanfer, “Trumania in the ’70s,” Time 105 (Jun. 9, 1975): 45. 64. John V. R. Bull, “Splendid Saltiness Marks Whitmore’s Recreated Truman,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 31, 1975: 5B. 65. Patrick Julian, “A Touch Too Cracker Barrel Folksy: The Mythic Portrayal of Harry S. Truman in Give ’em Hell, Harry!” Philological Papers 44 (1998): 114. 66. Samuel Gallu, Give ’em Hell Harry: Reminiscences, New York: The Viking Press, 1975: 1. 67. Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman,” New York: Oxford University Press, 1995: 641. 68. Gallu: 76. 69. Gallu: 82. 70. For example, see Sarah Miles Bolam and Thomas J. Bolam, The Presidents on Film: A Comprehensive Filmography of Portrayals from George Washington to George W. Bush, Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Col, 2007: 278–80. 71. Gallu: 61. 72. White House Central Files: President’s Secretary’s Files, Box 118, Harry S Truman Library and David McCullough, Truman, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992: 901. 73. Hamby: 129. 74. McCullough: 164 and Hamby: 114. 75. Gallu: 56. 76. McCullough: 801. Hamby: 544 has a similar account of the incident. 77. T. E. Kalem, “His Own Man,” Time, May 12, 1975: 63 www.time.com, Richard L. Coe, “Whitmore’s Glorious Mr. Truman,” Washington Post, Apr. 16, 1975: B1, 9 and Richard L. Strout, “Ford’s Hero, Truman, back in capital; onstage,” Christian Science Monitor, Apr. 17, 1975: 3. 78. Harry F. Waters, “One-Man Showmanship,” Newsweek, May 12, 1975: 89. 79. Andrew Gans, “Barnaba Will Be Truman in Give ’Em Hell Harry!” www.playbill.com, Jul. 18, 2008. 80. Andy Propst, “Seeing the President as Outspoken Leader in Give ’Em Hell Harry!” American Theater Web Review, Jul. 30, 2008, accessed at www.americantheaterweb.info and Robert Windeler, “Give ’Em Hell Harry!” Backstage.com, Aug. 1, 2008. 81. Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997: 228. 82. Michael A. Genovese, The Power of the American Presidency, 1789– 2000, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001: 114.

172

Notes

83. Nora E. Taylor, “James Whitmore: a sense of history,” Christian Science Monitor, Apr. 5, 1977: 10. 84. Jerome Alden, Bully: An Adventure with Teddy Roosevelt, New York: Crown Publishers, 1979: 8. 85. Alden: 12. 86. Alden: 20. 87. Alden: 27. 88. Alden: 32. 89. Alden: 16. 90. Alden: 29. 91. Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002: 191. 92. Alden: 49, 52. 93. Alden: 67–68. 94. Alden: 11. 95. Alden: 32. 96. Anita Hamilton, “A Step Back for Blacks,” Time 168 (Jul. 3, 2006), www.time.com; and John D. Weaver, The Brownsville Raid, College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 1992. 97. Richard Eder, “Drama: Bully Talks Softly,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 1977: 67. 98. For example, see Thor Eckert, Jr., “James Whitmore does bully job depicting Teddy,” Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 23, 1977: 12. 99. Clifford Ridley, “A Side of Roosevelt in Bully!,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 17, 1998: E04; and Mike Steele, “John Davidson is a bully Roosevelt,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 31, 1997: 3E. 100. Michelle Bearden, “Not So Rough Rider,” Tampa Tribune, Sept. 3, 2002: 1 (Baylife section). 101. Michael Sommers, “The Bully Pulpit,” Newark Star-Ledger, May 16, 2008: 4. 102. Frank Scheck, “Solo Portrait of Teddy Roosevelt Bears Up,” New York Post, May 16, 2008: 53.

3

The President as Anti-Hero

1. Casper H. Nannes, Politics in the American Drama, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1960: 120. 2. Nannes: 133. 3. American National Election Studies data were found at www. electionstudies.org. The Pew Research Center Survey is “The People and Their Government: Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor, Washington, DC: Pew Research Center for the People & The Press, 2010.

Notes

173

4. Harris Poll results came from www.pollingreport.com/institut.htm.; Obama approval ratings from Lydia Saad, “Obama Starts 2010 With 50% Approval,” www.gallup.com, Jan. 6, 2010. 5. Rosalee A. Clawson and Zoe M. Oxley, Public Opinion: Democratic Ideals, Democratic Practice, Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008: Chapter 10 contains a useful summary of the debate. 6. Arthur Marwick, The Sixties, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998: 16–17; and John C. McWilliams, The 1960s Cultural Revolution, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000: 15–18, 94. 7. Mel Gussow, “Much Ado About Mac,” Newsweek 69 (Feb. 27, 1967): 99. 8. Gussow: 99. 9. Gussow: 99. 10. Barbara Garson, MacBird!, New York: Grassy Knoll Press, 1966: Prologue. 11. Garson: 5–6. 12. Garson: 9, 11. 13. Garson: 28. 14. Garson: 26–27. 15. Garson: 33. 16. William Shakespeare, Macbeth, in David Bevington (ed.), Four Tragedies, New York: Bantam Books, 1980: 710; and Garson: 56. 17. Garson: 55. 18. Garson: 34. 19. Garson: 22–23. 20. Garson: 40. 21. Barbara Garson, “The Stealth Socialist; I’m Running Too—So Won’t Somebody Ask Me About NAFTA?” Washington Post, Nov. 1, 1992: C5. 22. Sam Zolotow, “Program Printer Rejects ‘M’Bird!’ ” New York Times, Jan. 11, 1967: 53; Louis Calta, “Grove Press Buys Stage Programs,” New York Times, Aug. 12, 1967: 15; and Associated Press, “Hoover Assails MacBird! Author, New York Times, Apr. 1, 1967: 29. 23. Walter Kerr, “Truth, Taste and MacBird!” New York Times, Mar. 12, 1967: 111: “Mangy Terrier,” Time 89 (Mar. 3, 1967), 52; Edith Oliver, “Off Broadway,” The New Yorker 43 (Mar. 11, 1967): 127; and Robert Graham Kemper, “A Plague on Both Houses,” Christian Century 84 (May 31, 1967): 725. 24. Ryan Howe, “How Can Who Say What About the War? Dramatic Form and Authorial Identity in Criticism of Two Vietnam War Plays: MacBird! and Streamers,” Theatron, Spring 2003: 70–81; and Walter Kerr, “MacBird! at the Village Gate,” New York Times, Feb. 23, 1967: 38. 25. Robert Brustein, “MacBird! on Stage,” The New Republic 156 (Mar. 11, 1967): 30–32; and Dwight Macdonald, “Birds of America,” New York Review of Books 7 (Dec. 1, 1966): 12–14. 26. Peter Brook, “Is MacBird! Pro-American?” New York Times, Mar. 19, 1967: D1.

174

Notes

27. Dan Sullivan, “M’Bird! Gets Off to Flying Start,” New York Times, Feb. 22, 1967: 22. 28. For example, see Peter Marks, “ ‘60s Satire MacBird! Lays a MacEgg,” Washington Post, Sept. 13, 2006: C02. 29. Jay Tolson, “Ten Worst Presidents: Introduction,” U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 16, 2007, www.usnews.com; “C-SPAN 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey,” www.c-span.org, accessed Feb. 16, 2009; and Robert K. Murray, The Harding Era: Warren G. Harding and His Administration, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press: 1969: 418. 30. Hastings’ dates of birth and election to the White House can be found in “Discussions: The Gang’s All Here” (Robert E. Lee dictating), Nov. 22, 23, 1958, Lawrence and Lee Papers, 1917–70, Sub-series 4—The Gang’s All Here, New York Public Library (NYPL), Billy Rose Theater Collection. 31. Kenneth Tynan, “Thunder on Pennsylvania Avenue,” The New Yorker 35 (Oct. 10, 1959): 125. 32. The first quote can be found in Alan Woods (ed.), The Selected Plays of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1995: 170; the second in “Discussions with Danny Mann,” Oct. 10, 1957, Lawrence and Lee Papers, NYPL. 33. Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaigns, Revised edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996: 214. 34. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, The Gang’s All Here, Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co., 1960: 76–77. 35. Lawrence and Lee: 102. 36. Lawrence and Lee: 123. 37. Lawrence and Lee: 129. 38. Brooks Atkinson, “Political Play,” New York Times, Oct. 2, 1959: 38. Kerr’s quote is cited in Woods: 171 which summarizes the opinions of the other newspaper reviewers. 39. Tynan: 126. 40. Lawrence and Lee, “Comments on Gang’s All Here,” Jun. 16, 1958 and Letter from Lawrence and Lee to Melvyn Douglas, Mar. 22, 1959, both in Lawrence and Lee Papers, NYPL. 41. Lawrence and Lee, The Gang’s All Here, 113, 126–27. 42. Nannes: 120. 43. Kathleen Allen, “Play imagines trip by Edison, Ford and, curiously, Harding,” Arizona Daily Star, Feb. 6, 2009. 44. Allen. 45. Mark St. Germain, Camping With Henry and Tom, Garden City, NY: The Fireside Theatre, 1995: 15. 46. St. Germain: 30. 47. St. Germain: 46–47. 48. St. Germain: 50. 49. St. Germain: 70. 50. St. Germain: 98.

Notes 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63.

64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

73.

74. 75.

175

St. Germain: 105. St. Germain: 107. St. Germain: 74–75. Vincent Canby, “American Luminaries Venture Into the Wild With Agendas in Tow,” New York Times, Feb. 21, 1995: C13. “Poker Night at the White House,” www.theatermania.com, accessed Apr. 8, 2007. The Neo-Futurist website is www.neofuturists.org. Sean Benjamin, Poker Night at the White House, unpublished manuscript supplied by the play’s author: 2, 5. Benjamin: 30. Benjamin: 6. Benjamin: 12. Megan Powell, “Poker Night at the White House,” Time Out Chicago, Apr. 26, 2007; and Wendell Brock, “Poker Night at the White House,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, shared blogs, Feb. 14, 2008. David Greenberg, Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image,” New York: W.W. Norton, 2003: xiii. Greenberg: xvii. Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962–1972, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989: 10; Michael Genovese, The Power of the American Presidency, 1789–2000, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001: 159; and Greenberg: 337. For examples, see Daniel Frick, Reinventing Richard Nixon: A Cultural History of an American Obsession, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas: 146–47. Mel Gussow, “Vidal Warming Up His ‘Act of Politics,’ ” New York Times, Apr. 28, 1972: 32. Gore Vidal, An Evening with Richard Nixon, New York: Random House, 1972: 6. Vidal: 3. Gussow: 32. Vidal: 85–86. Vidal: 85. Vidal: 133. Walter Kerr, “ ‘Nixon’—Reminding Us Doesn’t Amuse Us,” New York Times, May 7, 1972: 3; Jack Kroll, “Hail to the Chief,” Newsweek 79 (May 15, 1972): 92; Henry Hewes, “Distal and Proximal Bite,” Saturday Review 55 (May 20, 1972): 63; and Harold Clurman, “Theatre,” The Nation 214 (May 22, 1972): 34. Margit Peterfy, “Gore Vidal’s ‘Public’: Satire and Political Reality in Visit to a Small Planet, The Best Man, and An Evening with Richard Nixon,” Amerikastudien 45 (Issue 2, 2001): 218. Frick: 78. Donald Freed and Arnold Stone, Secret Honor: The Last Testament of Richard M. Nixon: A Political Myth, in M. Elizabeth Osborn and Gillian Richards (eds.), New Plays USA 2, New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1984: 3.

176

Notes

76. Freed and Stone: 6–7. 77. Freed and Stone: 13. 78. Herbert S. Parmet, Richard Nixon: An American Enigma, New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008: 11. 79. Freed and Stone: 23. 80. Parmet: 27. 81. Freed and Stone: 26. 82. Freed and Stone: 28. 83. Freed and Stone: 29. 84. Freed and Stone: 17–19. 85. Freed and Stone: 28. 86. Freed and Stone: 31. 87. Keith W. Olson, Watergate: The Presidential Scandal that Shook America, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003: 62. 88. Freed and Stone: 17, 24. 89. Mel Gussow, “Secret Honor, Nixon After the Pardon,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1983: C4; and David Sterritt, “It’s Fascinating to Watch, but Secret Honor Is No Legitimate Historic Study of Nixon,” Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 30, 1983: 35. 90. Janet Maslin, “At the Movies,” New York Times, Jun. 14, 1985: C12. 91. Vincent Canby, “Nixon Tale, Secret Honor,” New York Times, Jun. 7, 1985: C8; Roger Ebert, “Secret Honor,” www.rogerebert.com: Jan. 1, 1984; and Jay Carr, “Altman Humanizes Nixon,” Boston Globe, Nov. 2, 1984: 38. 92. Allan Havis (editor), American Political Plays: An Anthology, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001: 271. 93. Robert Nesti, “Writer Plays Head Games with Nixon and Kissinger,” Boston Herald, Mar. 4, 2000: 30. 94. Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973–1990, New York: Touchstone, 1991: 428–29. 95. Russell Lees, Nixon’s Nixon, New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1996: 18. 96. Lees: 18. 97. Lees: 38. 98. Lees: 39. 99. Lees: 46–47. 100. Lees: 49. 101. Vincent Canby, “Of Nixon and Kissinger: What Might Have Been,” New York Times, Mar. 13, 1996: C13; and Liz Trotta, “Nixon’s Nixon Replays Last Night with Kissinger,” Washington Times, Dec. 8, 1995: A2. 102. “Frost/Nixon Interviews Hit Broadway,” Morning Edition, Apr. 20, 2007, www.npr.org; Gareth McLean, “When the Playboy Met the Liar,” The Guardian, Aug. 1, 2006: 22; and Peter Morgan, Frost/ Nixon, London: Faber and Faber, 2006: author’s note preceding the script.

Notes 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116.

117.

118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129.

130. 131. 132.

177

McLean: 22. Morgan: 6. Morgan: 17. Morgan: 15. Morgan: 29. MacLean: 22. Morgan: 45 and 56. Morgan: 47. Morgan: 66–67. Morgan: 71. Morgan: 74. Morgan: 77–78. Morgan: 81–82. Michael Billington, “Frost/Nixon Donmar,” The Guardian, Aug. 23, 2006: 34; Andrew Gilligan, “It May Not Be History But It’s Great Theatre,” The Evening Standard, Nov. 28, 2006: 13 and Quentin Letts, “Expletive Deleted! Why Tricky Dick Is Still So *!*!? Mesmerising,” The Daily Mail, Aug. 25, 2006: 63. Ben Brantley, “When David Faced a Wounded Goliath,” New York Times, Apr. 23, 2007: E1; David Rooney, “Frost/Nixon,” Variety, Apr. 22, 2007; and Jeremy McCarter, “We Still Have Nixon to Kick Around,” New York, May 7, 2007. Elizabeth Drew, “Nixon’s Broadway Revival,” The Nation 285 (Jul. 16, 2007): 26–28. The quote from the play can be found in Morgan: 77. Ambrose 1991: 512. Morgan: 82. David Greenberg, “The President Who Never Came in from the Cold,” Slate, May 27, 2007 www.slate.com and Ambrose 1991: 591. Sean Wilentz, “The Worst President in History?” Rolling Stone, Issue 999 (May 4, 2006): 32–37. “Bush’s Final Approval Rating: 22 Percent,” www.cbsnews.com, Jan. 16, 2009. David Hare, Stuff Happens, London: Faber and Faber, 2004: author’s note. Jesse McKinley, “David Hare Enters the Theater of War,” New York Times, Mar. 26, 2006: Section 2, p.1. Hare: 3. Hare: 9–10. Hare: 14. Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004: 75. Hare: 17–18. Hare: 19–25. Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004: 25–26.

178 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146.

147.

148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160.

Notes Hare: 30. Hare: 36. Hare: 46. Hare: 49. Hare: 60. Hare: 64. Hare: 75. Hare: 79–82. Hare: 84–86. Hare: 88. Hare: 92. Woodward: 271. Hare: 120. Nicholas de Jongh, “The State Gets Its Old Protest Power Back,” The Evening Standard, Sept. 14, 2004: 61; Quentin Letts, “Theatre of War,” The Daily Mail, Sept. 13, 2004: 13; Michael Billington, “Stuff Happens,” The Guardian, Sept. 11, 2004: 7 and John Lahr, “Collateral Damage: David Hare on the March to War in Iraq,” New Yorker, Sept. 27, 2004: 154. Ben Brantley, “His Gang, in ‘On the Road to Baghdad,’ “ New York Times, Apr. 14, 2006: E1; Michael Kuchwara, “Stuff Happens a Robust Drama,” Associated Press, Apr. 14, 2006; and Jeremy McCarter, “The Fog of Antiwar,” New York, Apr. 24, 2006. Steven R. Weisman, “Powell Calls His U.N. Speech a Lasting Blot on His Record,” New York Times, Sept. 9, 2005: 10. Charlotte Higgins, “Hare: I Was Wrong About Powell,” The Guardian, May 30, 2006: 10. Alan Cowell, “Mocking the White House at War,” New York Times, Apr. 14, 2003: E1. Patrick Healy, “No President Needs This Kind of Exposure,” New York Times, Feb. 7, 2009: C1. Tolson and Michael Genovese, The Power of the American Presidency, 1789–2000, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001: 77. John Updike, Buchanan Dying, Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000: vii-viii. Updike: 19 and 24. Updike: 43–44. Updike: 62 and 66–67. Updike: 134. David Herbert Donald, Lincoln, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995: 268; and Updike: 141. Updike: 150, 175, 179 and 180. Updike’s explanation of his addition to Buchanan’s last words is on p. 260. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “The Historical Mind and the Literary Imagination,” Atlantic Monthly 233 (Jan. 1974): 54–59; Peter Prescott, “Immobile President,” Newsweek 24 (Jun. 24, 1974): 82, 85–86; Irvin

Notes

161. 162.

163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169.

179

Ehrenpreis, “Buchanan Redux,” New York Review of Books 21 (Aug. 8, 1974): 6–8; and D. Keith Mano, “Doughy Middleness,” National Review 26 (Aug. 30, 1974): 987–88. Lydia Saad, “Best President? Lincoln on Par with Reagan, Kennedy,” Feb. 11, 2009, www.gallup.com and C-SPAN 2009. Thomas E. Cronin, “John F. Kennedy: President and Politician,” in Paul Harper and Joann P. Krieg (eds.), John F. Kennedy: The Promise Revisited, New York: Greenwood 1988: 2. Terry Byrne, “The Spoof That Laid a Golden Egg,” Boston Herald, Nov. 7, 1997: S11. Gip Hoppe, Jackie: An American Life, New York: Samuel French, 1998: 8. Hoppe: 20. Hoppe: 42 and 46. Hoppe: 58. Hoppe: 80. Ben Brantley, “Enter Smiling but Elusive, as Always,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1997: E4; Charles Isherwood, “Jackie: An American Life,” Variety, Nov. 11, 1997: 2; and Fintan O’Toole, “Jackie: Pretty in Pink,” New York Daily News, Nov. 11, 1997: 41.

4

Fictional Presidents

1. Malcolm Goldstein, George S. Kaufman: His Life, His Theater, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979: 227; and Scott Meredith, George S. Kaufman and His Friends, Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1974: 518. 2. Brigid C. Harrison, Women in American Politics: An Introduction, Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2003: 174. 3. Katharine Dayton and George S. Kaufman, First Lady, New York: Random House, 1935: 66. 4. Dayton and Kaufman: 48. Elsewhere in the play, she gives a figure of five million. 5. Dayton and Kaufman: 96. 6. Dayton and Kaufman: 116 and 122. 7. Dayton and Kaufman: 157. 8. Brooks Atkinson, “Capitol Impieties,” New York Times, Dec. 8, 1935: X3; “New Plays in Manhattan,” Time 26 (Dec. 9, 1935): 52; and Joseph Wood Krutch, “Drama: Cat Fight,” The Nation 141 (Dec. 11, 1935): 694–95. 9. For example, see Frank S. Nugent, “The Screen,” New York Times, Dec. 23, 1937: 25. 10. Brooks Atkinson, “Helen Gahagan and Edna Best Appear in ‘First Lady’ at the City Center,” New York Times, May 29, 1952: 18.

180

Notes

11. Frank Rich, “A Kaufman Revival,” New York Times, Jul. 16, 1980: C17. 12. Casper H. Nannes, Politics in the American Drama, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1960: 223. 13. Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, State of the Union, New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1945: 8. 14. Lindsay and Crouse: 58 and 64. 15. Lindsay and Crouse: 67. 16. Lindsay and Crouse: 82. 17. Lindsay and Crouse: 92. 18. Lindsay and Crouse: 93 and 95. 19. Howard Barnes, “The Theater Has a Winner,” New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 16, 1945: 16; Brooks Atkinson, “State of the Union,” New York Times, Sept. 8, 1946: XI; Wolcott Gibbs, “Brief Thanksgiving,” The New Yorker 21 (Nov. 24, 1945): 48; and Harold Clurman, “Nightmares for a Prosperous People,” in Marjorie Loggia and Glenn Young (eds.), The Collected Works of Harold Clurman: Six Decades of Commentary on Theatre, Dance, Music, Film, Arts and Letters, New York: Applause Books, 1994: 54. 20. Jack Gould, “Television: State of the Union,” New York Times, Nov. 17, 1954: 45. 21. Lindsay and Crouse: 4. 22. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, New York: Pocket Books, 2004: 61. 23. “The New Pictures,” Time 51 (May 3, 1948): 90. 24. Gore Vidal, The Best Man, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1960: 7. 25. Gore Vidal interview, Theater Talk #703, Sept. 15, 2000, New York Public Library, Theater on Film and Tape Archive; and Gore Vidal, Palimpsest: A Memoir, New York: Random House, 1995: 337. 26. Vidal 1960: 28. This stereotype was harder to put across in more recent revivals. Vidal did change at least Sue-Ellen Gamadge’s physical appearance, omitting the description of her as “small, plump, elderly” (21) from the script for the 2000 Broadway revival in which she was played by the still glamorous Elizabeth Ashley. See Gore Vidal, The Best Man, New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2001: 13. 27. Vidal 1960: 46. 28. Vidal 1960: 65. 29. Vidal 1960: 79. 30. Vidal 1960: 123 and 126. 31. Vidal 1960: 163. 32. Vidal 1960: 171. 33. Brooks Atkinson, “The Best Man Arrives,” New York Times, Apr. 1, 1960: 39; Brooks Atkinson, “The Best Man,” New York Times, Apr. 10, 1960: X12; “New Play on Broadway,” Time 75 (Apr. 11, 1960): 85; and Henry Hewes, “November Song,” Saturday Review 43 (Apr. 16, 1960): 343.

Notes

181

34. Gore Vidal interview, 2000; and “The Best Man: Overview Article,” www.tcm.com. 35. Elysa Gardner, “Gore Vidal Still Outwits Politics,” USA Today, Sept. 15, 2000: 2E. 36. Adam Nagourney, “The Bard of American Politics, Still Campaigning,” New York Times, Sept. 3, 2000: Section 2, p. 8; Fintan O’Toole, “Still the ‘Man’ of the Hour,” New York Daily News, Sept. 18, 2000: 43; and Margit Peterfy, “Gore Vidal’s ‘Public’: Satire and Political Reality in Visit to a Small Planet, The Best Man, and An Evening with Richard Nixon,” Amerikastudien 45 (Jan. 2000): 214. 37. Vidal 1960: 169. 38. David Mamet, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal,’ ” The Village Voice, Mar. 12–18, 2008: 19. 39. David Mamet, November, New York: Vintage Books, 2008: 7. 40. Mamet, November: 57. 41. Mamet, November: 64. 42. Mamet, November: 66. 43. Mamet, November: 74. 44. Mamet, November: 120. 45. Joe Dziemianowicz, “Expletives Depleted in Prez Plot,” New York Daily News, Jan. 18, 2008: 43; Eric Grode, “Race to the Bottom,” New York Sun: Jan. 18, 2008: 13; Jeremy McCarter, “David Mamet’s November Spins the White House for Laffs,” New York, Feb. 4, 2008; and John Lahr, “Presidential Pratfalls,” New Yorker 83 (Jan. 28, 2008): 84.

5 Musical Presidents 1. Raymond Knapp, The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005: 3. 2. Mark Lubbock, The Complete Book of Light Opera, New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1962: 753. 3. David Ewen, The Story of America’s Musical Theater, New York: Chilton Co., 1961: 65. 4. Scott Miller, Strike Up the Band: A New History of Musical Theatre, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2007: 5. 5. Howard Pollack, George Gershwin: His Life and Work, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006: 499. 6. Pollack: 499–500; Malcolm Goldstein, George S. Kaufman: His Life, His Theater, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979: 194–95; and Scott Meredith, George S. Kaufman and His Friends, Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1974: 428–30. 7. George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, Of Thee I Sing, New York: Samuel French, 1931: 11–12. 8. Kaufman and Ryskind: 7; and United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1.

182 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

Notes Kaufman and Ryskind: 19. Kaufman and Ryskind: 22. Kaufman and Ryskind: 31–32. Kaufman and Ryskind: 36. Kaufman and Ryskind: 43. Kaufman and Ryskind: 72. Kaufman and Ryskind: 80. Brooks Atkinson, “Of Thee I Sing,” New York Times, Jan. 3, 1932: X1; Gabriel quoted in Miller: 33 and E. B. White, “Of It We Sing,” The New Yorker, Jan. 2, 1932: 26. Pollack: 513. “Play Is Revised as Coolidge Dies,” New York Times, Jan. 6, 1933: 23. Brooks Atkinson, “At the Theatre,” New York Times, May 6, 1952: 34; “Old Musical in Manhattan,” Time 59 (May 19, 1952): 83; Walter Kerr, “The Stage,” Commonweal 56 (May 30, 1952): 196; and “Revival,” Newsweek 39 (May 19, 1952): 101. Goldstein: 429. Clive Barnes, “Of Thee Is Thirties, Baby,” New York Times, May 8, 1969: 19. This version was viewed at the Paley Center for Media in New York City, Nov. 15, 2008. John J. O’Connor, “Of Thee I Sing,” New York Times, Oct. 24, 1972: 87. Knapp: 9. Pollack: 503, 509 and 512–13. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “How History Upstaged the Gershwins,” New York Times, Apr. 5, 1987: Section 2, p. 6. George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, Let ’Em Eat Cake, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1933: 27, 36. Kaufman and Ryskind 1933: 55–56. Kaufman and Ryskind 1933: 117, 126–27. Brooks Atkinson, “Further Adventures of Wintergreen and Throttlebottom in Let ’Em Eat Cake,” New York Times, Oct. 23, 1933: 18; Joseph Wood Krutch, “Three Good Plays,” The Nation 137 (Nov. 8, 1933): 548–50; and Richard Dana Skinner, “Let ’Em Eat Cake,” Commonweal 19 (Nov. 10, 1933): 47. Richard Eder, “Let ’Em Eat Cake Back in Berkshires,” New York Times, Jul. 5, 1978: C14. Schlesinger: 6. Jared Brown, Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theatre, New York: Back Stage Books, 2006: 136. Brown: 137. Goldstein: 292. Patrick Julian, “Let the Orchestra Go, but Carry the Gallery: The Mythic Portrayal of FDR in I’d Rather Be Right,” New England Theatre Journal

Notes

37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42.

43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50.

51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

183

9 (Jan. 1998): 54; and “Spoofing the Budget,” New York Times, Oct. 14, 1937: 24. George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, I’d Rather Be Right, New York: Random House, 1937: 10. Kaufman and Hart: 16–20. Kaufman and Hart: 121–22. Kaufman and Hart: 124. Brooks Atkinson, “George M. Cohan as the United States President in I’d Rather Be Right,” New York Times, Nov. 3, 1937: 28; George Jean Nathan, “George M. Roosevelt,” Newsweek 10 (Nov. 15, 1937): 29; and “New Plays in Manhattan,” Time 30 (Nov. 15, 1937): 25. Peter Hepple, “I’d Rather Be Right,” The Stage, May 20, 1999: 12 and Bob Verini, “I’d Rather Be Right,” Variety, May 19, 2008, www. variety.com. Julian: 67–68. Garrett Eisler, “Kidding on the Level: The Reactionary Project of I’d Rather Be Right,” Studies in Musical Theatre 1 (Number 1, 2007): 7–24. Kaufman and Hart: 92, 69. Kaufman and Hart: 4–5. A hundred thousand dollars in 1937 would certainly be the equivalent of well over a million today. Eisler: 21. Miller: 84. Lester Bernstein, “Bobby Clark Set for Show in Fall,” New York Times, Jul. 14, 1948: 27; and Stanley Green, The Great Clowns of Broadway, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984: 36. Brooks Atkinson, “At the Theatre,” New York Times, Nov. 15, 1948: 21; Wolcott Gibbs, “The President’s Husband,” The New Yorker 24 (Nov. 20, 1948): 58; Harold Clurman, “Light Up the Box Office,” The New Republic 119 (Dec. 6, 1948): 37; and Kappo Phelan, “As the Girls Go,” Commonweal 49 (Dec. 10, 1948): 231. William Ewald, “Berlin Returns to Broadway,” Saturday Evening Post 235 (Oct. 20, 1962): 93. Herbert Mitgang, “ ‘Mr. President’ of Tin Pan Alley,” New York Times Magazine, Oct. 14, 1962: 43. Lawrence Bergreen, As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, New York: Viking Penguin, 1990: 535–44 and “President Flintstone,” Time 80 (Sept. 7, 1962): 62. Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, Mr. President, unpublished manuscript, New York: Rodgers and Hammerstein Theatre Library, 1978: 5. Lindsay and Crouse: 1. Lindsay and Crouse: 72. Lindsay and Crouse: 73. Lindsay and Crouse: 113. Lindsay and Crouse: 139.

184

Notes

60. Lindsay and Crouse: 141. 61. Howard Taubman, “Irving Berlin’s ‘President,’ ” New York Times, Oct. 22, 1962: 32; “Shipwreck of State,” Time 80 (Nov. 2, 1962): 82; and Henry Hewes, “There Are No Presidents Like Show Presidents,” Saturday Review 45 (Nov. 3, 1962): 40. 62. A. L. Berman letter to Lindsay and Crouse, Feb. 4, 1964, Irving Berlin Collection, Box 267, Folder 18, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington DC. 63. Robert Dominguez, “Flagging Invention,” New York Daily News, Aug. 4, 2001, www.nydailynews.com. 64. Sydney H. Schanberg, “The White House—Washington to Wilson,” New York Times, May 17, 1964: X3. 65. A. E. Hotchner, The White House, New York: Samuel French, 1964: 6–7. 66. Hotchner: 18. 67. Hotchner: 78. 68. Howard Taubman, “Theater: White House,” New York Times, May 20, 1964: 39; “Presidential Snipshots,” Time 83 (May 29, 1964): 49; and John McCarten, “Melange,” The New Yorker 40 (May 30, 1964): 78. 69. Nadine Brozan, “Chronicle,” New York Times, Mar. 3, 1995: B4. 70. Joan Peyser, Bernstein: A Biography, New York: Beech Tree Books, 1987: 445. 71. Peyser: 444. 72. Erik Haagensen, “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: The Show that Got Away,” Show Music 8 (Fall 1992): 25–32. 73. Humphrey Burton, Leonard Bernstein, New York: Doubleday, 1994: 432. Unless otherwise cited, this account is based on Peyser, Haagensen and Burton. 74. Kate Taylor, “A Bernstein Musical Revived—in Part,” New York Sun, Mar. 11, 2008: 14. 75. Haagensen: 28. 76. Peyser: 446; and Letter from Robert Whitehead to Gordon Parrish (liaison from Coca-Cola), Apr. 1, 1976, Robert Whitehead Collection, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Box 1, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington DC. 77. Both quotes are from Haagensen: 29. 78. “1600: Anatomy of a Turkey,” Time 107 (May 31, 1976): 69–70 79. Whitehead to Parrish and Haagensen: 30. 80. Clive Barnes, “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Arrives,” New York Times, May 5, 1976: 47; Jack Kroll, “Patriotic Bore,” Newsweek 87 (May 17, 1976): 96; Richard Watts, “Memories of Pennsylvania Avenue,” New York Post, May 10, 1976; 20; and Gottfried quoted in Haagensen: 30. 81. Haagensen: 32. 82. Bernard Holland, “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Tries For a Comeback in Washington,” New York Times, Aug. 13, 1992: 17.

Notes

185

83. Warren Hoge, “Bernstein’s Singing Presidents: A Recount,” New York Times, Mar. 31, 2008: E1, 6. 84. Thomas B. Harrison, “Teddy and Alice Starts Rough Ride to Broadway in Tampa,” St. Petersburg Times, Aug. 9, 1987: 1F. 85. Although the play was never published, a detailed summary can be found at The Guide to Musical Theatre, www.nodanw.com. 86. Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaigns, Revised edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996: 183; and Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, New York: Random House, 2001: 359–60. 87. David Richards, “Teddy’s Rough Ride; A Hackneyed New Musical, in Baltimore,” Washington Post, Oct. 2, 1987: D1. 88. Frank Rich, “A Musical, Teddy and Alice,” New York Times, Nov. 13, 1987: C3; Michael Kuchwara, “Teddy and Alice, A New Musical Opens on Broadway,” Associated Press, Nov. 13, 1987; and Thomas B. Harrison, “Critics Singing Dirge for Teddy,” St. Petersburg Times: 3D. 89. Markland Taylor, “Teddy and Alice,” Variety, Oct. 28, 1996: 79. 90. Ted Chapin interview with John Weidman at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Aug. 5, 2004, Theater on Film and Tape Archive, NYPL; Mark Eden Horowitz, Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003: 57; and Knapp: 163. 91. Knapp: 164; and Andre Bishop, “Preface” in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, Assassins, New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991: viii. 92. Sondheim and Weidman: 5–7, 14. 93. Sondheim and Weidman: 22. 94. Sondheim and Weidman: 26–28. 95. Sondheim and Weidman: 34. 96. Sondheim and Weidman: 53. 97. Sondheim and Weidman: 69. 98. Sondheim and Weidman: 81–89. 99. Jack Kroll, “The Killing of Presidents,” Newsweek 117 (Feb. 4, 1991): 72; John Simon, “Dumb, Dumb Bullets,” New York 24 (Feb. 4, 1991): 38; and Michael Feingold, “Hit After Hit,” Village Voice, Feb. 5, 1991: 87, 90. 100. David Richards, “They Shoot Presidents, Don’t They?” New York Times, Feb. 3, 1991: Section 2, p.1. 101. Knapp: 174. 102. Jeremy Sams, “America Gets His Best Shot,” The Times, Oct. 20, 1992: 29. 103. Horowitz: 66. 104. Michael Billington, “Assassins—Donmar Warehouse,” The Guardian, Oct. 31, 1992: 28; John Peter, “Suitable Cases for Musical Treatment,” Sunday Times, Nov. 1, 1992: 20; “Assassins,” Variety, Jan. 28, 1991: 78; and Matt Wolf, “Assassins,” Variety, Nov. 2, 1992: 98.

186

Notes

105. Dick Lochte, “Assassins,” Los Angeles Magazine 40 (Feb. 1, 1995): 110. 106. Jesse McKinley, “Assassins Ready Again,” New York Times, Sept. 27, 2003: B14. 107. Elysa Gardner, “Assassins: A Broadway Show Whose Time Has Come,” USA Today, Apr. 23, 2004: E1; Ben Brantley, “A Demon Gallery of Glory Hounds,” New York Times, Apr. 23, 2004: E1; Frank Rich, “At Last, 9/11 Has Its Own Musical,” New York Times, May 2, 2004: Section 2, p. 1; and John Simon, “Show Guns,” New York 37 (May 3, 2004): 64–65. 108. Stephen Holden, “First a Hobby, Now Three Musicals,” New York Times, Dec. 12, 1993: E5. 109. Michael John LaChiusa, First Lady Suite, New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1995: 13–14. 110. LaChiusa: 24. 111. LaChiusa: 32. 112. LaChiusa: 34. 113. LaChiusa: 51. 114. LaChiusa: 55–56. 115. Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One, 1884–1933, New York: Viking, 1992: 489. 116. LaChiusa: 63, 77, and 80. 117. David Richards, “Jackie, Mamie and Eleanor, Traveling to their Destinies,” New York Times, Dec. 16, 1993: C13; Michael Feingold, “Icon Game,” Village Voice 38 (Dec. 28, 1993): 98; Mary Campbell, “First Lady Suite: Musical Contains Mostly Modern Opera,” Albany Times Union, Dec. 17, 1993: C9; and John Simon, “Originals,” New York 27 (Jan. 10, 1994): 51. 118. LaChiusa: 80. 119. Kenneth Jones, “Warren G. Harding Is Star of New Musical Teapot Scandals,” Jan. 25 in Chicago,” Playbill.com, Jan. 25, 2007. 120. Jon Steinhagen (book, music and lyrics), The Teapot Scandals: A Musical Vaudeville, Brookfield, IL: Trouble Clef Music, 2005, 2007: 5. Jon Steinhagen was kind enough to supply the unpublished manuscript. 121. Steinhagen: 16. 122. Steinhagen: 52. 123. Steinhagen: 79–82. 124. Hedy Weiss, “Playfully Naughty Teapot Romps,” Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 9, 2007: 38; “The Teapot Scandals,” Time Out Chicago 103 (Feb. 15, 2007); and Barbara Vitello, Chicago Daily Herald, Feb. 11, 2007: 19. 125. Liesl Schillinger, “Death By Crab,” The New Yorker 79 (Aug. 4, 2003): 24. 126. Ben Brantley, “Old Hickory, That Emo Punk, Singing and Dancing to Fame,” New York Times, May 18, 2009: C1, 5; and David Sheward, “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson,” Backstage.com, Apr. 6, 2010.

Notes

187

Conclusions 1. Darrell M. West, Air Wars: Television Advertising in Election Campaigns, 1952–2008, Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010: 65–70. 2. Lyn Gardner, “Obama on My Mind,” www.guardian.co.uk, Mar. 7, 2009; Gianni Truzzi, “No Hope for Obama on My Mind,” Seattle Post Globe, Oct. 24, 2009; Kirsten Grieshaber, “Obama Musical Set to Open in Germany,” Associated Press, Jan. 13, 2010; and Catherine Hickley, “Obama, Michelle Sing Duet, Chorus Chants ‘Yes We Can,’ ” www. bloomberg.com, Jan. 18, 2010.

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Index 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 137–41, 144, 154, 156 Abe Lincoln in Illinois, 18–24, 40, 60, 149 Abe Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party, 34 Abraham Lincoln (play), x, 7–12 Adams, Abigail, 138 Adams, John, 136 Adams, John Quincy, 136 Adamson, Harold, 131 Alden, Jerome, 55, 57, 141 Allgor, Catherine, 38 Altman, Robert, 80 Ambrose, Stephen, 75, 81, 88 Anderson, Marian, 150–51 Anderson, Maxwell, 2–3 As the Girls Go, 131, 149 Assassins, 144–49, 154, 156 Atkinson, Brooks, 3, 14, 17, 22, 27, 42, 49, 70, 105–106, 109, 113, 121–22, 125, 128, 131 Bamman, Gerry, 83–84 Barnaba, Bix, 54–55 Barnes, Clive, 30, 122, 140, 143–44 Benet, Stephen Vincent, 38–39 Benjamin, Sean, 74 Bennett, Lerone, Jr., 7 Berlin, Irving, 72, 131–32, 134–35, 154 Bernstein, Carl, 80 Bernstein, Jamie, 138, 141 Bernstein, Leonard, 137–40, 146 The Best Man, 78, 110–14, 117, 156 Billington, Michael, 87, 93, 94, 147–48 Bishop, Andre, 144–45 Blair, Tony, 89–94, 102

Blix, Hans, 92–94 Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, 153 Boller, Paul, 68, 142 Boone, Richard, 25, 27 Booth, John Wilkes, 13, 145–46, 155 Brantley, Ben, 87, 94, 100–101, 148 Brennan, Jack, 85–86 Brook, Peter, 66–67 Brown, John Mason, 22 Brownsville raid, 57–58 Brustein, Robert, 66–67 Buchanan, James, 89, 95–99 Buchanan Dying, 96–99 Bully!, 55, 141 Burns, James MacGregor, 48 Burr, Aaron, 36–38, 45 Bush, George H. W., 61, 95 Bush, George W., 62, 75, 84, 88–95, 114, 148, 153 Byck, Samuel, 145–46 Camping With Henry and Tom, 71–74 Canby, Vincent, 24, 73, 81, 83 Carter, Jimmy, 61 Chapin, Benjamin, 4–5 Cheney, Richard, 92–93, 95, 157 Clark, Bobby, 131 Cleveland, Grover, 136 Clinton, Bill, 61–62, 113, 153 see also impeachment Clurman, Harold, 27, 77, 109–10, 131 Cohan, George M., 119, 127, 147 Coleman, Anne, 96–98 Collins, William, 139 Conkle, Ellsworth, ix, 16–18 Cook, Blanche Wiesen, 50–51 Cook, Raymond, 7

190

Index

Coolidge, Calvin, 48, 122, 126 Corsaro, Frank, 139 Corwin, Norman, 24–28 Coward, Noel, 127 Cronin, Thomas, 35, 99 Crouse, Russel, 107, 109–110, 131–32 Cunliffe, Marcus, 1 Czolgosz, Leon, 145–46 Dalton, Kathleen, 57 Daugherty, Harry, 68–70, 74, 151–52 Dayton, Katherine, 104 “Deep throat,” 79–80 Dixon, Thomas, Jr., 5, 7–8, 16 Dotrice, Roy, 33 Douglas, Adele, 26 Douglas, Helen Gahagan, 79, 106 Douglas, Melvyn, 70 Douglas, Stephen, 7, 21, 25–27 Drew, Elizabeth, 87–88 Drinkwater, John, x, 8–12 Earhart, Amelia, 150–51 Eder, Richard, 58, 126 Edison, Thomas, 71–73 Eisenhower, Dwight, 76–77, 109, 132, 150–51 Eisenhower, Mamie, 149–50 Eisler, Garrett, 129–30 Ervine, St. John, 8 Evening With Richard Nixon, An, 76–78, 101, 114 Ewen, David, 119 Faison, George, 139 Farrar, John, 38–39 Federal Theatre Project, 16–18, 129, 130 Feingold, Michael, 146, 151 Felt, W. Mark, 80 Ferrell, Will, 95 First Lady, 104–106, 116 First Lady in the Land, 36–38, 155 First Lady Suite, 149–151, 154

Foner, Eric, 15 Ford, Gerald, 52, 54, 82–83 Ford, Henry, 71–73 Ford’s Theatre, 4, 11, 29, 31, 33, 109 Franklin, Benjamin, 53 Freed, Donald, 78–81 Frick, Daniel, 78 Fromme, Lynette (Squeaky), 145–46 Frost, David, 84–88,102 Frost/Nixon, 84–88, 101–102 Gallu, Samuel, 152–53 Gang’s All Here, The, 67–71, 114, 152 Gardner, Elysa, 148 Garfield, James, 136 Garson, Barbara, 63–65, 144, 156 Garson, Greer, 49 Gassner, John, 42, 46 Genovese, Michael, 35, 55, 76 Gershwin, George, 120, 122, 124 Gershwin, Ira, 120, 122, 124 Gibbs, Wolcott, 46, 49, 109, 131 Gill, Brendan, 30 Gilligan, Andrew, 89 Gilman, Richard, 23 Give ’Em Hell Harry!, 52–55 Goodman, Arthur, 13–15 Gottfried, Martin, 140 Grant, Ulysses, 11, 14, 15, 29 Greenberg, David, 75–76, 88 Guiteau, Charles, 145–46 Gussow, 31, 32, 76, 80 Haagensen, Erik, 138–40 Haig, Alexander, 79–80, 82 Hall, Philip Baker, 80 Hamby, Alonzo, 52–53 Hamilton, Alexander, 36–37, 43–47, 76, 153, 155 Hammerstein, Oscar, 119 Harding, Florence, 68–70 Harding, Warren, ix, 67–75, 83, 151–53 Hare, David, 89–95, 102 Hart, Lorenz, 127

Index Hart, Moss, 126 Hayes, Helen, 107, 127 Heavans Are Hung in Black, The, 33–34 Hewes, Henry, 49, 77, 113, 134 HIckock, Lorena 150–51 HInckley, John, 145 Holland, Bernard, 140 Hoover, J. Edgar, 66 Hope - The Obama Musical Story, 158 Hoppe, Gip, 99–100 Hotchner, A. E., 136–37 House, Edward (Colonel), 40–42 Howe, Louis, 48–49 Howe, Ryan, 66 Huston, John, 40 Hutchins, Randall, 158 I’d Rather Be Right, 126–30, 149, 154, 156 If Booth Had Missed, 13–15, 155 Impeachment, 14, 69–70, 121, 155 Clinton, Bill, 113 Johnson, Andrew, 13, 138 Nixon, Richard, 82 In Time to Come, 40–43, 156 Isherwood, Charles, 101 Jackie: An American Life, 99–101, 151 Jackson, Andrew, 38–40, 96, 153, 155 Jarrow, Kyle, 153 Jefferson, Thomas, 36–37, 43–46, 55, 60, 155 Johnson, Andrew, 13, 138 Johnson, Lyndon, 61, 63–67, 96, 99 Julian, Patrick, 129 Kalem, T. E., 54 Kaufman, George S., 104, 106, 120–24, 126, 129 Keach, Stacy, 67 Kennedy, Edward, 64 Kennedy, John, 35, 49, 64, 76–77, 81, 99–101, 111, 114, 132, 135, 146, 149, 151

191

Kennedy, Robert, 64, 67, 100 Kennedy (Onassis), Jacqueline, 99–101, 132, 149, 151 Kern, Jerome, 119 Kerr, Walter, 49, 66, 70, 77, 122 Kingsley, Sidney, 43–47 Kissinger, Henry, 81–83 Knapp, Raymond, 119, 123, 144, 147 Koch, Howard, 40 Kroll, Jack, 77, 140, 146 Krutch, Joseph Wood, 3, 14–15, 22, 106, 125 Ku Klux Klan, 53 Kuchwara, Michael, 24, 94, 143 LaChiusa, Michael John, 149–51 Lahr, John, 94, 116 Langella, Frank, 87 Last Days of Lincoln, The, 28–30 Lawrence, Jerome, 67–68, 70, 73, 102 Lee, Robert, 67–68, 70, 73, 102 Lees, Russell, 81–84 Lerner, Alan J., 137–140 Lerner, Max, 27–28 Let ’Em Eat Cake, 124–26 Letts, Quentin, 87, 93 Levitt, Saul, 31 Lincoln, Mary Todd, 4, 6, 9, 14, 16, 18, 20–23, 30–32, 136, 155 Lincoln (play), 31 Lincoln, Abraham, xi, xiii, 1, 3–35, 55, 60, 80, 89, 96–98, 99, 113, 136, 155, 157 images of, 3, 27, 32, 33 racial views, 7, 15, 27–28 Lincoln at the White House, 4–5 Lincoln Mask, The, 30–31 Lindsay, Howard, 107, 109–110, 131–32 Longhi, V. J. 30–31 Longworth, Nicholas, 104, 141–43 Luckinbill, Laurence, 58–59 MacArthur, Douglas, 53–54 MacBird!, 63–67, 71, 78, 95, 96, 100, 114, 130, 137, 144, 156

192

Index

MacDonald, Dwight, 66 Madison, Dolley/Dolly, 36–40, 155 Madison, James, 35–39, 44, 110, 155 Madness of George Dubya, 95 Mamet, David, 114–16 A Man of the People (play), 5–8 man of the people (president as), 3, 8, 18, 27, 29–32, 46, 50, 52, 54, 56, 60, 71, 77, 82, 107, 111, 128–29, 135 Mantle, Burns, 11, 17 Marwick, Arthur, 63 Massey, Raymond, 22, 25, 27 McCain, John, 157 McCarter, Jeremy, 87, 94, 116 McClellan, George, 6 McCulloch, David, 54 McHugh, Jimmy, 131 McWilliams, John, 63 Miller, Merle, 51–52 Miller, Scott, 119, 130 Mister Lincoln, 31–33 Mitgang, Herbert, 31–33 Moore, Sara Jane, 145–46 Morgan, Peter, 84–88 Moses, Gilbert, 139 Mr. President, 131–35, 141, 143, 144 Nagourney, Adam, 113 Nannes, Casper, xii, 61, 71 Nathan, George Jean, 46, 128–29 Nichols, Lewis, 46 Nixon, Richard, xiii, 52–54, 61, 75–88, 100–101, 111, 137, 156 NIrdlinger, Charles, 36–38 NIxon’s Nixon, 81–84, 101, 157 Norton, Elliot, 132 November, 114–16, 117, 156 Obama, Barack, 33, 62, 157–58 Obama: TheMusical, 157 Obama on My Mind, 157–58 O’Connor, John J., 123 O’Neill, Paul, 90 O’Toole, Fintan, 101, 113

Of Thee I Sing, 120–24, 126, 128, 143, 149, 154, 156 Olson, Keith, 80 one man plays, 31–33, 51–59, 78–81 Oswald, Lee Harvey, 146 Patriots, The, 43–47, 155 Peter, John, 148 Peterfy, Margit, 77–78, 113 Peterson, Merrill, 3, 5 Poker Night at the White House, 74–75 Powell, Colin, 89–95, 102 President Harding Is a Rock Star, 153 Prologue to Glory, ix, 16–18 Pulitzer Prize, 22, 43, 46, 109, 122 Quinn, Arthur Hobson, xii Reagan, Ronald, 35, 61, 79, 100, 111 Reston, James, Jr., 84–88 Rice, Condeleezza, 90 Rich, Frank, 106, 143, 148 Richards, David, 24, 143, 146–47, 150–51 Rivalry, The, 24–28, 32, 33 Rodgers, Richard, 127 Rooney, David, 87 Roos, William, 131 Roosevelt, Alice, 56, 104, 141–43 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 47–51, 150–57 Roosevelt, Franklin, xi, 33, 35, 47–51, 52, 55, 74, 89, 99, 107, 126–28, 151, 156, 157 Roosevelt, Sara, 48–50 Roosevelt, Theodore, 51, 55–59, 104, 138, 141–43 Rumsfeld, Donald, 89, 93, 95 Ryskind, Morrie, 120–22, 124, 129 St. Germain, Mark, 71–73 Saint-Subber, Arnold, 139 Sams, Jeremy, 147 Shakespeare, William, 64–66, 145

Index Schary, Dore, 47–51 Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr., 49, 98, 123, 126 Schwartz, Barry, 33 Secret Honor, 78–81, 83, 101 Sellby, David, 33 Seward, William, 9–10 Sherwood, Robert, 19–23, 40 Simon, John, 54,143, 146, 148–49, 151 Skinner, Richard, 125 Smith, Al, 47–49 Smith, Michael O., 59 Sondheim, Stephen, 144, 146–49 Sousa, John Philip, 141, 143–44, 145, 161 Stanton, Edwin, 14–15, 29 State of the Union, 107–110, 116–17, 156 Steinhagen, Jon, 151–53 Stevens, Roger, 139 Stevens, Thaddeus, 6, 13–14, 16 Stevenson, Adlai, 111 Stone, Arnold, 78–80 Strout, Richard, 54 Stuff Happens, 89–95 Sumner, Charles, 29, 97 Sunrise at Campobello, 47–51, 61, 156 Taft, William Howard, 56–57, 136 Taubman, Howard, 23, 134, 136–37 Teapot Scandals, 151–53 Teddy and Alice, 141–44 Teddy Roosevelt: The Preacher of American Ideals, 57 Teddy Tonight!, 58–59 Tenet, George, 90 Thackeray, William, 1 That Awful Mrs. Eaton, 38–40, 155 Thomas, Brook, 8 Thomas, J. Parnell, 17–18 Tragedy of MacBush, 95 Trefousse, Hans, 16

193

Trotta, Liz, 83 Truman, Bess, 150 Truman, Harry, 51–55, 111 trust in government, 61–63, 100, 130 Tynan, Kenneth, 27, 67, 70 Updike, John, 96–99 Valley Forge, 2–3 Van Doren, Mark, 28–30 Vidal, Gore, 76–78, 80, 110–11, 113, 140 Washington, George, 1–3, 35, 43–44, 46–47, 55, 60, 76–77, 89, 99, 155 Watergate scandal, 52, 54, 61, 62, 75, 78–79, 85–86, 156 Waterston, Sam, 24 Watts, Richard, 22, 27, 42, 140 Weaver, Fritz, 31 Weidman, John, 144, 147–49 Weiss, Hedy, 152 Welles, Orson, 12 West, Darrell, 157 White House Cantata, A, 140 White House, The (play), 136–37 Whitehead, Robert, 139–40 Whitmore, James, 51–55 Wilentz, Sean, 39, 89 Willkie, Wendell, 107 Wills, Garry, 1 Wilson, Woodrow, 8, 11–12, 40–43, 57, 58, 59, 136, 155–56 Wolf, Matt, 148 Wolfowitz, Paul, 90, 92, 95, 157 Woodward, Bob, 80, 93 Woolcott, Alexander, 11 You’re Welcome America: A Final Night with George W. Bush, 95, 100 Young, Stark, 39 Zangara, Giuseppe, 145