American Presidents Attend
the Theatre
The Playgoing Experiences of Each Chief Executive
Thomas A. Bogar |
t
A Potomac Stages Pick for an endlessly
entertaining survey of theatergoing throughout American history
Published 2006 - 114 photographs
433 Pages - index, bibliography and notes
McFarland & Company
List price $75
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Click here to buy the book
www.mcfarlandpub.com
800-523-2187 |
Potomac Stages often designates shows as Potomac Stages Picks because we are
confident that a majority of our readers would
thank us for recommending they take the time and trouble (not to mention the
expense) to see them. We've never designated a book a Potomac Stages Pick,
however . . . until now. A local theater lover, resident of Silver Spring,
professor at Hood College in Frederick Maryland and Helen Hayes Award Judge,
Paul Bogar, has produced a volume filled with information we are confident
our readers will find fascinating, presented
in a highly readable, enjoyable and well laid out fashion that allows either
dedicated reading or quick checking for a fact, a story or a date. Bogar
started on his research in order to answer a question from one of his
students. "Did any other presidents go to the theater as often as Lincoln?"
became a three year voyage of discovery, and the delight he felt over each
new revelation as he dug through a wide range of sources comes through on
each of his 362 pages of text and in his well constructed index, chapter
notes, bibliography and even his afterword in which he calculates the
relative frequency of theatergoing among our nation's chief executives.
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Contents: The theater going habits of
everyone who ever served as President of the United States is described in
bright and breezy detail, including the shows they attended before, during
and after their Presidencies. The theaters they frequented, the shows they
saw and their attitudes toward the experience are blended with a general
history of the country and of the Presidency itself, as well as an
enlightening history of the development of the American theater. Each
element puts the others in perspective.
Bogar's survey is arranged chronologically but he doesn't confine himself to
discussions of the theatergoing experiences of the Presidents during their
terms. He starts with a young George Washington attending his very first
theatrical performance as a nineteen year-old visitor to Bridgetown,
Barbados. In a style that becomes a hallmark for the entire book, Bogar
quickly gives a glimpse of the setting as well as of the production,
including the fact that it was a "balmy November evening," that the audience
sat on backless benches and that the play was The London Merchant by
George Lillo. Often, in the pages that follow, Bogar summarizes the plot of
the play or assesses the strengths and/or weaknesses of the performance
being discussed. ("The London Merchant; or, The History of George
Barnwell is a cautionary tale. It chronicles the tragic ruination of an
innocent eighteen-year-old apprentice entangled in the seductive wiles of a
courtesan who neglects his duties, embezzles from his employer and murders
his uncle" he informs us with a further discussion of the plot and its place
in the tradition of theater of the day.)
The portraits of the presidents that emerge from these
pages are as fascinating as are the descriptions of the theaters here in
Washington and those Presidents attended elsewhere. He covers the evolution of
today's National Theatre (where JFK arrived late for the opening night of
Irving Berlin's Mr. President because he was in the White House
watching the Floyd Patterson-Sonny Liston heavyweight boxing match on TV).
He gives glimpses of the old Belasco on Lafayette Square where
Woodrow Wilson attended Jerome Kern's Very Good Eddie on the night
Congress declared war on Germany to mark America's entrance into World War
I. He even provides the fascinating image of the secret service agent asking Ford's Theatre's Artistic
Director Frankie Hewitt about prior visits by a President to her theater in
preparation for Gerald Ford's attendance at James Whitmore's Give 'Em
Hell, Harry, the first time a President entered that hall since the
night Lincoln was shot. Performances inside the White House are covered as
well, including the night that Ted van Griethuysen played Troilus before the
Kennedys and the Johnsons in the East Room. The personalities of the
Presidents emerge as well. It seems from Bogar's chapter on William Howard
Taft that any modern day theatergoer would enjoy his company and would love
to be in the theater party that included both Taft and Theodore Roosevelt
(before their falling out, that is). Presidents ranged from those with
little or no interest in theater such as Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson and
our current president to well-informed enthusiasts like John Quincy Adams, Lincoln
and Jimmy Carter, who had an impressive knowledge of drama. (Carter
even spotted a one-word insertion in the text of Eugene O'Neill's Anna
Christie. Of course, the fact that the insertion was a reference to
peanuts added specifically for his attendance might have alerted him, but he
told the actor, John Lithgow, after the show that he had re-read the play
before attending and didn't remember peanuts in the phrase "stinking of pigs
and peanuts and dung.")
As you might expect since the Presidency has been
housed here in the Potomac Region lo these two hundred and six years, the
book is filled with local theater lore. You might not expect the extent to
which Bogar has gone, however, to capture the highlights of local interest.
Not only will you find George W. Bush attending The Little Theatre of
Alexandria when his sister-in-law Margaret appeared in Proposals,
you'll find Harry and Bess Truman attending LTA's production of Farquhar's
The Beax's Stratagem before they moved into their current house on
Wolfe Street. (That performance was given in Gadsby's Tavern.) Truman also
traveled north within the Potomac Region to attend the pre-Broadway tryout
of An Evening with Bea Lillie at Olney Theater. Bogar details the
fact that the performance happened to be on the very day that Lillie's good
friend Gertrude Lawrence had died and that the Truman's helped keep the
death a secret from the star when they visited backstage during
intermission. Such details are studded throughout the volume, making each
page an adventure.
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