Personally, I enjoy a change when seeing a show when I can come away feeling like I learned something of value. And history is certainly worthwhile in my book. The captivating subject of this interview will give you just that as I spoke to Michael O Smith, who is portraying Theodore Roosevelt in the Off-Broadway premiere of THE BULLY PULPIT (www.TheBullyPulpitOnStage.org), a new play about the extraordinary life and turbulent times of Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, our 26th President. The show is written and performed by Michael O. Smith and directed by Byam Stevens and being presented at the South Ark Stage for a limited engagement through June 29.
The year is 1918. The scene is in Sagamore Hill, New York, Roosevelt's beloved home. Ten years out of office and coming to grips with his legacy, THE BULLY PULPIT takes the audience on a passionate journey behind Teddy's gruff exterior into the complex persona of a true American legend. Taking place on Teddy's 60th birthday, surrounded by mementos of his adventures as a rancher, Rough Rider, naturalist and President, Roosevelt re-examines the events of his colorful life from humorous and characteristically blunt perspective.
THE BULLY PULPIT premiered at The Florida Playwrights Festival at Florida's Studio Theatre in 2004 and has played theaters throughout the country.
Smith won three Sarasota Critics' Awards for his portrayal of Herman Goering in 2: Goering at Nuremberg. His Broadway and touring credits include Dracula, The Elephant Man, Amadeus, 1776, and is a founding member of Strasberg's Mirror Repertory with Geraldine Page and Sabra Jones. TV audiences may know Smith from "Evening Shade," "Murder She Wrote," "The Young and the Restless," "Days of Our Lives" and as a series regular on "B.L. Stryker," as Chief McGee with Burt Reynolds.
Smith and I had a very interesting conversation about one of America's greatest historical and fascinating figures.
TJ: You obviously have a great appreciation for Mr. Teddy Roosevelt.
SMITH: Yeah. You might say I feel in love with him.
TJ: What made you want to write this show?
SMITH: For about ten years, maybe about fifteen years, I have been doing a thirty to forty minute presentation as Theodore Roosevelt, the preacher and ideals. This was a little presentation for civic clubs, churches, etc. and celebrations. And an old friend, Dom DeLuise, and Burt Reynolds and Brian Keith suggested that I expand on it. I happened to expand on it and the producer at the Florida Studio in Sarasota, Florida, got a hold of it and wanted to do a thing on producing it. We did two dramatic readings of it and it was produced the next year. But I have an earlier interest in Theodore because I had done umpteen productions of the play Arsenic and Old Lace. I had grown up as the stocky character actor type. Besides that, I just fell in love with the guy and read as much as I could on him and there you go!
TJ: How long did it take you to put together this play?
SMITH: Well, I think there have been about thirty five versions of this over a three year period. A lot of research. A lot of stuff that I researched used in the play. Of course, I have used information from modern authors, such as Edmund Morris and David McCullough, who has written books on Theodore. But my main sources in the play I took basically from Theodore's own words and also people who were around him at the time he lived. His contemporaries, such as William Allen White, the Emporia Kansas editor, who was a big deal back in the early 1900's. Henry Cabot Lodge, of course and the correspondence between them. Oh, a number of individuals. HL Menken, who didn't particularly care for Theodore, nor vice versa. So I tried to pick sources that were close to Theodore. There's a wealth of information for this man who wrote about 150 personal correspondences through his life that are known about, not to mention the various books that were written about him at the time he lived. Personal memoirs of people who had known him and, of course, Theodore's own autobiography.
TJ: I hope to get to see the show soon. Tell me a little bit about the show.
SMITH: One person shows are difficult to establish why you are there and what are you doing. In the show, Theodore Roosevelt wrote his autobiography about five years before his death and so, I took an opportunity after a lot of versions of this. It is on his last official birthday. He was 60 years old on October 27, 1918 and he dies three months later. So I have a chance really to open the book of the autobiography and explain to the audience that I really want to clear the record...tell the facts because there are a lot of things, indeed historically, that there are a lot of things he excluded from his autobiography. For example, his troubles with his first daughter, Alice, who was the daughter of Theodore and his first wife, who happened to be named Alice too, but who died in childbirth.
After a lot of reading and studying a number of books about Alice, including her own autobiography, there was a relationship that was rather strained throughout the early years of her life. Theodore, of course, married again and had five children by the second wife, Edith, who is most remembered as the First Lady. Alice was sort of an outcast in the family, to put it mildly. She suffered a great deal being the daughter of his first wife. And Theodore complicated things by taking an oath never to speak of his wife again. Therefore, Alice learned all of the information about her mother secondhand from other people. This is a little area that's known about Theodore but I explore it even more to its zenith. It really had an effect on both of them.
Of course, Theodore was an ethical and moral person but in certain circumstances, he would put his foot down and not retreat. One of the things he never retreated from was mentioning his first wife's name in public. So, I covered that era and I cover parts of Theodore's depression that he went through. And, of course, at the time the show is taking place, its one month before the Armistice comes to a close in the First World War and all of Theodore's sons are serving in the First World War in France. And, in fact, he lost his youngest son in that war. So, that is also an undercurrent of the dramatic motif...that he remembers the little boy named Quentin, who was his baby boy.
His sons were very patriotic. The three sons that survived the First World War were all wounded and decorated veterans and they all served in the Second World War, where they were all wounded and decorated veterans as well. The only one missing was the baby boy Quentin.
TJ: You've really become an officiando of this guy.
SMITH: Well, I suppose you might say I fell in love with the guy a long time ago and have just read everything I could get my hands on. I have stood at the Lincoln Memorial and Lincoln's birthplace and I just don't have the same emotion as when I am at Sagamore Hill. It's a dry read for people who are not really interested in Theodore, but he lived such an exciting and varied life. Not only was he President, he was Civil Service Commissioner. He was Police Commissioner of New York City. He used to make the rounds here and find cops sleeping on the beat and reprimanded them. And then he was a hero soldier in the Spanish American War. Even before that, when his first wife died, his big thing was to physically exhaust himself in the wild or the wilderness. To overcome his grief from his first wife, he went west for a couple of years as a cattle rancher and a cowboy concerned with old time cattle drives and fights with a cattle baron, who wanted to take over the smaller ranches in the Dakota territory. He was deputy sheriff...he was president of the Stockman's Association. What varied life and an adventuresome life.
TJ: Sounds like he was a very resilient man.
SMITH: He was indeed. At sixty years of age, his body was really giving up. He was blind in one eye, he was deaf in one ear and had constant bouts with malaria and certain other diseases such as arthritis. So they took its toll on his glorious very active body and that's what the show is about.
TJ: Having done the show since 2004, it must be secondhand nature to you to perform this role.
SMITH: Well, I suppose it gets that way in some regards but I still salivate going to the theatre every night because I have been given such a great opportunity by a number of people and appreciated all the help I've gotten along the way. Rhoda Herrick, the producer. I can't fail to mention my wife and two children, who have put up with me for years with this ambition to do something on Theodore Roosevelt while trying to make a living as an actor. I've been very fortunate in that regard.
And I am just elated to be up here doing. Whether it goes on from here, I really don't know but this has been just tremendous. It's been a crowning glory in my forty year career as an actor in show business.
TJ: How has the audience reaction been to this?
SMITH: They've been great. Some nights you get more listeners rather than laughers.
TJ: How did you come up with the title THE BULLY PULPIT?
SMITH: Well, it came from something that Theodore said. He went to Europe and England twice when he was a youngster. He spent a year in Dresden, Germany learning German. I think he picked up the British term 'bully' for like awesome or terrific or great. Then, when he was President, a number of his critics accused him of being more a preacher to the American public...that he gave not speeches but sermons...moral and ethical sermons. And his response to that was as President, he had a bully pulpit from which to preach and he loved to preach.
TJ: Thanks for taking the time for giving us this bully interview.
SMITH: Thank you so much.
Wow! Mr. Smith is truly one of the leading sources for almost anthing you want to know about Roosevelt. I had a great time talking with him and learning so much about one of our most famous Presidents. It is highly recommended that you catch Smith's captivating performance as Theodore Roosevelt in THE BULLY PULPIT is playing at The Beckett Theatre, (410 W. 42nd Street, between 9th & 10th Ave) for a limited engagement through Sunday, June 29, 2008. Tickets can be purchased by calling (212) 279-4200, or by visiting www.TicketCentral.com. So bully to you, ciao for now and remember folks, theatre is my life.
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