Abstract
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.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Casper H. Nannes, Politics in the American Drama, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1960: 120.
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.
Arthur Marwick, The Sixties, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998: 16–17
John C. McWilliams, The 1960s Cultural Revolution, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000: 15–18, 94.
Mel Gussow, “Much Ado About Mac,” Newsweek 69 (Feb. 27, 1967): 99.
Barbara Garson, MacBird!, New York: Grassy Knoll Press, 1966: Prologue.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, in David Bevington (ed.), Four Tragedies, New York: Bantam Books, 1980: 710; and Garson: 56.
Barbara Garson, “The Stealth Socialist; I’m Running Too—So Won’t Somebody Ask Me About NAFTA?” Washington Post, Nov. 1, 1992: C5.
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.
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
Robert Graham Kemper, “A Plague on Both Houses,” Christian Century 84 (May 31, 1967): 725.
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
Walter Kerr, “MacBird! at the Village Gate,” New York Times, Feb. 23, 1967: 38.
Robert Brustein, “MacBird! on Stage,” The New Republic 156 (Mar. 11, 1967): 30–32
Dwight Macdonald, “Birds of America,” New York Review of Books 7 (Dec. 1, 1966): 12–14.
Peter Brook, “Is MacBird! Pro-American?” New York Times, Mar. 19, 1967: D1.
Dan Sullivan, “M’Bird! Gets Off to Flying Start,” New York Times, Feb. 22, 1967: 22.
For example, see Peter Marks, “ ‘60s Satire MacBird! Lays a MacEgg,” Washington Post, Sept. 13, 2006: C02.
Jay Tolson, “Ten Worst Presidents: Introduction,” U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 16, 2007, http://www.usnews.com; “C-SPAN 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey,” http://www.c-span.org, accessed Feb. 16, 2009
Robert K. Murray, The Harding Era: Warren G. Harding and His Administration, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press: 1969: 418.
Kenneth Tynan, “Thunder on Pennsylvania Avenue,” The New Yorker 35 (Oct. 10, 1959): 125.
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.
Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaigns, Revised edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996: 214.
Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, The Gang’s All Here, Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co., 1960: 76–77.
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.
Kathleen Allen, “Play imagines trip by Edison, Ford and, curiously, Harding,” Arizona Daily Star, Feb. 6, 2009.
Mark St. Germain, Camping With Henry and Tom, Garden City, NY: The Fireside Theatre, 1995: 15.
Vincent Canby, “American Luminaries Venture Into the Wild With Agendas in Tow,” New York Times, Feb. 21, 1995: C13.
Megan Powell, “Poker Night at the White House,” Time Out Chicago, Apr. 26, 2007
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Herbert S. Parmet, Richard Nixon: An American Enigma, New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008: 11.
Keith W. Olson, Watergate: The Presidential Scandal that Shook America, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003: 62.
Mel Gussow, “Secret Honor, Nixon After the Pardon,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1983: C4
David Sterritt, “It’s Fascinating to Watch, but Secret Honor Is No Legitimate Historic Study of Nixon,” Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 30, 1983: 35.
Janet Maslin, “At the Movies,” New York Times, Jun. 14, 1985: C12.
Vincent Canby, “Nixon Tale, Secret Honor,” New York Times, Jun. 7, 1985: C8
Roger Ebert, “Secret Honor,” http://www.rogerebert.com: Jan. 1, 1984; and Jay Carr, “Altman Humanizes Nixon,” Boston Globe, Nov. 2, 1984: 38.
Allan Havis (editor), American Political Plays: An Anthology, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001: 271.
Robert Nesti, “Writer Plays Head Games with Nixon and Kissinger,” Boston Herald, Mar. 4, 2000: 30.
Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973–1990, New York: Touchstone, 1991: 428–29.
Russell Lees, Nixon’s Nixon, New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1996: 18.
Vincent Canby, “Of Nixon and Kissinger: What Might Have Been,” New York Times, Mar. 13, 1996: C13
Liz Trotta, “Nixon’s Nixon Replays Last Night with Kissinger,” Washington Times, Dec. 8, 1995: A2.
“Frost/Nixon Interviews Hit Broadway,” Morning Edition, Apr. 20, 2007, http://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.
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
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
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.
David Greenberg, “The President Who Never Came in from the Cold,” Slate, May 27, 2007 http://www.slate.com and Ambrose 1991: 591.
Sean Wilentz, “The Worst President in History?” Rolling Stone, Issue 999 (May 4, 2006): 32–37.
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.
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.
Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004: 25–26.
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
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
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.
David Herbert Donald, Lincoln, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995: 268; and Updike: 141.
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 Ehrenpreis, “Buchanan Redux,” New York Review of Books 21 (Aug. 8, 1974): 6–8
D. Keith Mano, “Doughy Middleness,” National Review 26 (Aug. 30, 1974): 987–88.
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.
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
Fintan O’Toole, “Jackie Pretty in Pink,” New York Daily News, Nov. 11, 1997: 41.
Copyright information
© 2010 Bruce E. Altschuler
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Altschuler, B.E. (2010). The President as Anti-Hero. In: Acting Presidents. The Evolving American Presidency Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230115316_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230115316_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29249-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11531-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)