[NEohioPAL] "Bully for BULLY" at Actors' Summit - Fran Heller review

[Neil Thackaberry]

*Bully for ‘Bully’ at Actors’ Summit*

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Bully - as in "fine," "very good," "well done" - aptly describes "Bully: An
Adventure with Teddy Roosevelt" by Jerome Alden, a stimulating,
thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining bio-drama about the nation's
26th president, playing at Actors' Summit through Feb. 5.



Assiduously directed by Peter Voinovich, this 95-minute one-act, one-person
show stars Actors' Summit co-artistic director Neil Thackaberry as Theodore
Roosevelt (TR) in a galvanizing performance you won't soon forget.



The play begins in 1912, when TR is being pursued by friends, cronies, and
former Cabinet members to run for president as the Republican Party nominee
in lieu of incumbent William Howard Taft. The ensuing action shifts back
and forth in time, from TR's sickly boyhood, education, and early political
career, to his term as vice president of the United States and his
ascendancy to president at age 42 - the youngest to ever hold the office -
after William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. It was a position TR held
for seven-and-a-half years.



The play sparkles with intelligence, humor and piercing insights that
reveal both the central character and the character of the nation at a
pivotal time in history not unlike our own. Amazing parallels are evident
between then and now: runaway capitalism and corporate greed, the huge
disparity between the haves and have-nots, the absence of sufficient
government control of big business, and the need for conservation and
protection of endangered species.



In the midst of this campaign season, "Bully" could not be timelier.

With his short, wavy brown hair (expert wig), jowly cheeks, wire-rimmed
spectacles, prominent mustache, boyish grin, portly frame, exuberant
demeanor, booming voice and clenched fist, Thackaberry not only inhabits
the persona of TR, he even resembles him.

Rory Wohl's handsomely appointed and well-placed office setting keeps the
action flowing and the transitions seamless. Kevin Rutan's vivid lighting,
Daniel Taylor's rich sound effects and MaryJo Alexander's pinpointed
costume design greatly enhance character, time and place.



Home-schooled as a child, the asthmatic and near-sighted TR overcame his
physical handicaps through a rigorous course of bodybuilding athletics. TR
emphasized what he called "the strenuous life": work hard, play hard. He
was a man of outsized physical and intellectual vigor, which an exuberant
Thackaberry illuminates with nonstop energy as he paces and races from one
side of the stage to the other. Childlike in nature, Thackaberry's
chameleon TR is presidential in one moment and playing hide-and-seek with
his kids in the next.



TR's triumphs were a record of firsts, including being the first president
to make conservation part of his political agenda. He created Yellowstone,
the first national park, one of five during his presidency. He won the
Nobel Peace Prize for helping to avert war between Russia and Japan.
Thackaberry's imitations of a blustery Russian statesman and timid Japanese
counterpart are very funny. Performing with his whole being, the veteran
actor's simulation of a handshake between the two unseen antagonists,
described as a moment of civility, is quite stirring, reminding me of the
landmark handshake orchestrated between Yitzak Rabin and Yasir Arafat by
then-President Bill Clinton.



Highlights of Thackaberry's bravura performance include his dressing down
of the capitalist robber barons when speaking at The Gridiron Club in D.C.;
his palpable sorrow at the loss of his first wife in childbirth (his mother
died the same day); and his admiration for his father - his mentor, role
model and best friend, who died when TR was a sophomore at Harvard. As a
grief-stricken father, Thackaberry's tearful reaction to the death of TR's
son Quentin, shot down during World War I, left me choked up as well.



Stumping for the Republican Party nomination in California, TR's prophetic
words sound a warning bell in 2012: "The sands of time are speckled with
the dead bones of great nations who did not heed the call of the future,
who did not expand to the needs of their people ... The question today is,
will America be such a one? Or, will we, with courageous leadership that
sees the vision ... continue to be a beacon for all mankind?"



Thackaberry brings the energy, vitality and prodigious intellect of one of
America's greatest presidents to remarkable life in his portrait of TR as
son, father, husband, patriot, reformer, warrior, hunter and leader. It's a
memorable and moving picture of a national hero.



Bully for "Bully" - well worth the drive to Akron.



WHAT: "Bully: An Adventure with Teddy Roosevelt"

WHERE: Actors' Summit, Greystone Hall, 6th Floor, 103 High St., Akron

WHEN: Through Feb. 5. Talkbacks following every performance with PD
television critic, author and Roosevelt scholar Mark Dawidziak

TICKETS & INFO:             330-374-7568       or www.actorssummit.org