T. Charles Erickson Photo
The Second Mrs. Wilson, now playing at Long Wharf Theater through May 31, is both timely and old-fashioned.
In the last few years of its first half-century, the Long Wharf Theater and its artistic director, Gordon Edelstein, have been doing their damnedest to revive a dying dramatic genre — the history play. One-person biodramas will never go away — they’re easy to produce and attractive for celebrities. But ensemble pieces based on true life events? Lavish period pieces reliant on real research? Revisionist histories? They don’t write ‘em like they used to.
In the 2012 – 13 Long Wharf season, Edelstein directed the world premieres of Satchmo at the Waldorf (Terry Teachout’s one-actor three-character portrait of Louis Armstrong) and Ride the Tiger (William Mastrosimone’s retelling of the intricate relationship of John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, and Sam Giancana in the mid-20th century). Now he helms the world premiere of Joe DiPietro’s The Second Mrs. Wilson, about Woodrow Wilson and his second wife Edith, whom he married while he was serving as president of the United States. President Wilson also had a stroke while in office, and the play shows how Edith assumed control while he slowly recuperated.
Joe DiPietro would seem well suited to writing this play. He’s versatile, popular, and adept at breathing new life into old dramatic forms. He sought to update the old-school family melodrama with Over the River and Through the Woods, the romantic sketch revue with I Love You… You’re Perfect… Now Change (which premiered at Long Wharf prior to its long Off-Broadway run), and the Gershwin musical with Nice Work If You Can Get It on Broadway (and a very similar project, They All Laughed, at the Goodspeed Opera House).
DiPietro makes sure this political history lesson-slash-love story is brisk and upbeat and relentlessly charming. He’s got cabinet members speaking in snappy dialogue that wouldn’t be out of place in an Abbott & Costello routine, and there are gags about such modern wizardry as telephones and automobiles. It’s a comfortable, brisk, amiable show about a chapter in American history that’s only become more interesting as times and attitudes have changed. While keeping things firmly in the there-and-then, The Second Mrs. Wilson makes you fully aware of all the ironies and advancements inherent in a tale of a woman holding presidential power nearly a century before Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.
This obviousness and tight focus lead to an oversimplification of the history being presented. DiPietro’s whole plot hinges on President Wilson’s desire to get the League of Nations approved by Congress. It makes it seem that the idea was all his, rather than an international plan that preceded his involvement by years. It also gives you the impression that the U.S. attempts to join the League roundly failed. Indeed, you might leave the play thinking that the League never formed at all.
It’s a whole lot more complicated than that. There were other things on Wilson’s mind as well when he was in office, and those are treated even more lightly. What’s important to DiPietro, clearly, is the human element. He shows Wilson — played ebulliently by the great John Glover with a raspy voice reminiscent of the golden age radio comedian Fred Allen (and maybe a touch of The Wizard of Oz’s Frank Morgan) — falling passionately in love with the assured, forthright Edith Galt. The relationship irritates the old boys’ network of politicos who seem permanently planted in the president’s office.
Gordon Edelstein stages the first act without letting anyone in the nine-person cast leave the stage, adding an air of constant scrutiny to the love affair.
It gets even more intense after intermission, when Wilson has suffered a stroke and goes into seclusion for a period of months. His opponents naturally exploit the situation, while his wife and friends must find time for compassion and caregiving while also covertly taking on all the duties of the head of state.
When you hear it described that way, The Second Mrs. Wilson sounds a lot more lively than it actually is. As bright and light as the dialogue can be, it’s also wordy and repetitive. And Glover — whose previous outings as a major world leader include technocrat Lionel Luther, father of Lex, on TV’s Smallville — has to act stroke-ridden and paralyzed for so many scenes that it stops seeming bold and starts to descend into bad taste.
DiPietro and Edelstein make a good team, however. The writer keeps things light, and the director keeps them real. A lot of the script involves somebody saying something strident and someone looking aghast, or rolling their eyes, or saying harrumph or something. Edelstein keeps all those reaction shots from becoming a vaudeville show — there are numerous references to early 20th-century pop culture in the script — and keeps a sense of presidential decorum throughout.
The cast, with the exception of two locals whose purpose is to stand around and look ominous (a trick Edelstein also used in a much different Long Wharf production, of Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra back in 2002), is from hardy Broadway character-actor stock. Beyond Glover (whose New York theater triumphs include Love! Valour! Compassion and the 2009 Roundabout Theatre of Waiting for Godot), there’s Harry Groener (last seen at the Long Wharf in Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver), Stephen Barker Turner (seen last season in the Yale Rep’s Arcadia), Nick Wyman (whose Broadway acting gigs include Phantom and Les Mis, and who also happens to be president of the Actors Equity Association) and Fred Applegate (who’s been Max Bialystock in The Producers). Steve Routman, accomplished at playing the meek and bald (as we’ve seen at the Long Wharf with The Underpants and Our Town), plays the ineffectual, overlooked Vice President Thomas Marshall.
As the title character, Margaret Colin exudes warmth and grace as First Lady Edith Wilson. As good (and as presidential) as Glover is, this is Colin’s play and she holds it firmly at its center. Everyone else revolves around her. Her hubby Woodrow is the only one allowed to show upbeat emotions. The rest of the men are simply there to demoralize and disgust her with their patriarchal platitudes.
There aren’t enough plays like The Second Mrs. Wilson anymore for this one to be dismissed. It has history, humor, and charm. It does lack depth and imagination. But that’s what some historians say about Woodrow Wilson.
The Second Mrs. Wilson is at the Long Wharf Theater, 222 Sargent Dr., through May 31.
