"It was a very polarized time in our country. Really opposing viewpoints with no sense of compromise. There was a lot of rhetoric and hyperbole that was over the top."
Mitch Tebo, who portrays Lyndon Baines Johnson in TheatreSquared's production of "All the Way," is not talking about this year's presidential election, though he could be.
FAQ
‘All The Way’
WHEN — 7:30 p.m. today; 2 & 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; again Aug. 31-Sept. 4, Sept. 7-11 and Sept. 14-18
Where — TheatreSquared at the Nadine Baum Studios, 505 W. Spring St. in Fayetteville
COST — $24-$40
Info — 443-5600 or theatre2.org
"It's unbelievable, on today's news when they're talking about the 2016 political campaign, how many times they refer to 1963 and 1964," says Benny Ambush, the play's director. "To LBJ, to Barry Goldwater, to [much] of the legislation that came off of LBJ's pen that [has] been weakened, like the pre-clearance provision of the Voting Rights Act ... to the whole discussion of government in American life. I mean, you name it. It is uncanny, the parallels."
Ambush says despite the similarities, he has requested the cast refrain from discussing the current political climate. "It's really important for us as theatrical story tellers to remember that we're back in 1963 and 1964. We need to spend our time and energy to get back there -- to where people were in their thinking and politics -- and try not to know more than people knew in 1963 and 1964."
Tebo immersed himself in the time period by doing extensive research, including reading the acclaimed, multi-volume biography of LBJ written by Robert Caro. Still, he says, playing a historical versus a fictional character is largely the same.
"It's great to have this wealth of material about the person ... but as an actor, no matter what knowledge is available to you, you're still going back to yourself and saying 'How am I that character, what are the events in my life that I can be in touch with that parallel what's happening with this character?'
"You can't play facts, you can't play your research. You have to play the things in you that are equal to what's going on in the character."
Tebo says that the award-winning Robert Schenkkan play manages to perfectly capture the dichotomy in Johnson's political and personal personas.
"He was a real paradox. He was a man who had a singular goal, which was to be president of the United States. Pretty much everything he did was based upon reaching that goal ... and then, of course, he was thrust into the presidency. At that point, all of that repressed empathy for the disenfranchised [came out]. He moved forward to one of the most productive periods of social legislation that we've ever experienced -- civil rights, voting rights, Head Start, HUD, National Endowment for the Arts. He was just amazing in that way and, at the same time, he was this incredibly nasty person. He was just so mean to Lady Bird and the people he worked with.
"So that's what's fun about this play and about this character, because he's Shakespearean in scope. He's this larger-than-life person with all of these conflicting emotions and agendas going on. Schenkkan's play is very good at laying out those conflicting drives in the man."
At a recent rehearsal, Tebo's LBJ prowled about the set, berating Hubert Humphrey until, in the flash of an instant, he is cajoling him, like an orchestra conductor changing course at the last second: a maestro of manipulation.
"This ain't about principles," he thunders at one point. "This is about votes! That's the problem with you liberals -- you don't know how to fight! You want to get something done in the real world, Hubert, you're gonna have to get your hands wet."
"This is Schenkkan's exploration of several titanic, historical characters in all of their nobility and flaws, as they were on a collision course at a turning point in our history," observes Ambush.
"The play is not just Johnson," agrees Tebo. "It's Martin Luther King, Jr., it's the 'southern block,' it's Hubert Humphrey, it's Lady Bird -- it's all the people who were involved in that first year to year-and-a-half [of his presidency]."
"These are all vibrant, hot-blooded human beings going at it with each other'" says Ambush. "They're all over the ideological map, and they all think they're right. They all have the answers. Does this sound familiar?"
NAN What's Up on 08/26/2016