Unannounced guest star of Intiman's new show: Sarah Palin
It's almost spooky to see how much Robert Penn Warren's novel based on Huey Long resonates in today's campaign. Intiman gives All the King's Men a rousing production.
Someone at Intiman Theatre had the good idea to stage All the King's Men to coincide with the 2008 presidential election. And why not? Who wouldn't enjoy a tale of a charismatic maverick who plays us-against-the-elites and rides to power?
But it's almost spooky to see how much of Robert Penn Warren's 1947 political masterpiece still resonates, especially now with the injection of Sarah Palin into public discourse. (Jonathan Raban's dissection of the Palin phenomenon is the best I've read.)
Intiman's production is a highly entertaining meditation on the power of personality, so timely that Palin is an unannounced player. She's a guest star in the mind as one watches the tale of Willie Stark, a character inspired by Louisiana Gov. Huey Long.
Watching this production a day after Palin winked and nose-wrinkled her way past Joe Biden and the soft bigotry of low expectations, I wondered just who would have won a debate between the governor from the 1930s and the governor from Wasilla. What's more appealing today? A chicken in every pot or mooseburgers on the grill? Not to overdo the comparison, but both Stark and Palin play on class resentments, celebrate the rural over the urban, call themselves reformers whose critics are enemies of change, give speeches more about passions than policies, take care of rivals with ferocity, sidestep scandals, navigate alliances, and deal with disclosures of high school pregnancies.
Intiman's production, directed by Pam MacKinnon, is based on a 1987 stage adaption of Warren's novel by Adrian Hall. John Procaccino plays Stark. Leo Marks plays Jack Burden, the newspaper reporter who quits his job to work for Stark and lives a tale of discovery and disillusionment. The story includes an array of political fixers, a gunman, soon-to-be disappointed idealists, one-timing and two-timing women, a distinguished judge with a hidden past, and a big man named Tiny.
I have some minor concerns with the script. I wonder if Hall as adapter tried to import one too many characters onto the stage. For example, Willie Stark's football-playing son is barely introduced before getting killed off. Intiman's production, however, is genuinely first rate — well-paced and clear. The Randy Newman songs, written into the text as part of Adrian Hall's adaptation, come from his 1974 album Good Old Boys. They work wonderfully, thanks to Music Director Edd Key, who created original arrangements for the actors, who double as onstage musicians. Where do I buy the cast album?
One flaw might be some of Marks' decisions about playing Jack Burden. As an actor, he commands attention, but there doesn't seem much shift in his character over time. He seems detached from everything, even from the moments where he's back in time with a high school sweetheart.
That's just a quibble regarding a very able cast. Procaccino, whose decades of strong, steady performances make him a sort of Edgar Martinez of the Seattle stage, is once again a delight to watch. If there's an Obie for best performance involving a politician rubbing his bare feet, Procaccino gets it. And any time you see him on stage with Lori Larsen, who plays the mother of Jack Burden, it's an evening well spent.
One note to theatergoers: this production is recommended for people 14 and up and includes harsh language, including frequent use the N-word. After the show, I recommend a mooseburger at the local hockey rink.
Comments:
Posted Mon, Oct 6, 7:12 a.m. inappropriate
Raising the spectre of the evils of Huey P. Long/Willie Stark totalitarian populism by using a skyhook to reach for comparisons to Sarah Palin is stretching it. What's next? Like Lizzie Borden she has ax-murdering tendencies because Ol' Lizzie was a woman too?
Hillary was right: sexism is alive and well and living in the Democrat Party.
That Gov. Palin has a unique, even extraordinary, ability to connect with ordinary people is something to be condemned? I though that was something Democrats used to claim as their exclusive province. But maybe that's the point.
Sarah Palin refuses to follow the liberal pre-scripted role of a woman in public life, so it's pull out all the stops to destroy her as an example to all the other women who might be similarly inclined. What hogwash!
And if you want class resentment, ring Joe Biden's "fairness" number for the best example of them all. During the V-P debate, Gov. Palin called him on the inevitability of an Obama/Biden attempt to redistribute wealth, which is a legalized form of theft, to pander for votes.
"Hey all you middle-class voters out there, don't worry - Barack and I will tax the smack out of the 'rich' and then give it all to you. Don't you worry about how many jobs that will crush or businesses it will destroy since there are plenty of golden-egg-laying geese out there for us to plunder and pillage all in the name of 'fairness.' Is that enough to buy your vote?"
Want something really creepy? Something reasonable people of all political stripes ought to be very concerned about? Try the increasing number of youth groups doing their chants and singing their songs pledging personal loyalty to Barack Obama - talk about a cult of personality.
You don't hear them pledging allegiance to the United States or singing of love of country, you hear them exalting one man above all others. Is Kim Jong-il getting a royalty for this stuff?
In one of them a gang of young black men in para-military attire march into a room chanting personal loyalty to Obama - it's Fearless Leader Obama who will make them into engineers or automotive technicians or whatever.
The choreographed moves, salutes of various kinds, zombie-like lockstep recitations, and lots of unison stomping of feet and swinging of fists is, for an unreconstructed, liberty and freedom loving, America-first conservative like me, genuinely scary to watch.
The videos may lack Leni Riefenstahl-like production values and grand dramatic scale, but the intended net, net, net looks to be the same.
Class resentments? Celebrating, in this case, urban sophisticates over rural rubes? Claiming an imperviouis mantle of reformer while demonizing opponents? Empty suit speeches (either in Germany or in front of a bunch of fake pillars in an outdoor sports stadium - Uff da in the comparison department)? Ferociously deride opponents? Ignore scandals (hello, Tony Rezko)? Navigate (read: parse) alliances (Rev. Wright and 'da Bomb, Bill Ayers)?
Please!
If you want to see a modern-day Willie Stark, look in your own house.
The Piper
Posted Mon, Oct 6, 6:24 p.m. inappropriate
Sorry, Sarah Palin ain't no Huey Long: Mr. Corr needs to re-read Harry T. Williams definitive bio of Huey Long to realize how unlike Palin is from the Kingfish. Long was a brilliant man who taught himself to be a lawyer and quickly went on to argue and win a major U.S. Supreme Court case. He was a master of policy details, and a mesmerizing speaker who had great command of the English language. He actually did take on and defeat hugely powerful special interests in Louisiana, and did many wonderful things for ordinary people. In many ways, he was highly qualified to run for president, unlilke Palin. Of course he was a ruthless demagogue. But Huey would have mopped the floor with Sarah in a debate. Let's forget that comparison.
Posted Mon, Oct 6, 10:31 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Sorry, Sarah Palin ain't no Huey Long: I agree there are huge distinctions between Sarah Palin and Huey Long, which is why I said the comparison should not be overdone.
Posted Tue, Oct 7, 2:56 p.m. inappropriate
GOOD YOU WARNED US: "..I said the comparison should not be overdone."
Yeah, well we noticed that she's female and wears different kind if clothes but still....