Theater: The Buck Stops Here
The inherent problem with one-man shows about famous figures is that the more famous the figure, the less novelty there is to the material. Unless the celebrity being impersonated on stage is larger-than-life (Tallulah Bankhead being a prime example), the evening can all too easily devolve into a dull monologue peppered with stale reminiscences and. And that is exactly whats wrong with the current revival of the 1975 show Give Em Hell, Harry!
Added to the tediousness of watching Bix Barnaba saunter around the stage, recalling his feuds with the press over his daughters musical career, his firing of General MacArthur, and his decision to drop the atomic bomb (all of which, with the possible exception of poor Margaret Truman, are still being mentioned in high schools across America) is that playwright Samuel Gallu has forced far too many one-sided conversations into the show. We see Truman discussing Nagasaki and Hiroshima with the ghost of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Truman talking to a passing neighbor in Missouri; Truman taking invisible stamps from his secretary. And all too often, Barnaba must dramatize an anecdote, rather than just delivering it.
And in addition to the decided embarrassment of watching Barnaba talk to himself (and, at one point, roll a very real lawn mower back and forth) is the confusion of Gallus script. The play opens with Truman at his desk in the White House, but the first act ends with him talking directly to the audience, about to abandon his landscaping chores for some lemonade in Missouri. He implores us to stay where we are, but when the second act begins, we find him again at his desk in the Oval Office with no explanation.
And oh! that desk. The entire set may have been pulled together on a shoestring, but surely the production team could do better than a poorly painted desk and coat rack (which may have been used in my high schools production of The Heiress), and a pathetic plastic fern perched atop a battered wooden stool. To make the whole set even more inexplicable, Trumans buttery leather desk chair would be the envy of many an office drone.
There is some charm in spending time with an American a president who seemed to generally care about his country (though nothing is mentioned of the fact that when he left office, Truman had a lower approval rating than Richard Nixon the month Nixon resigned), but Barnaba is constantly let down by the weak material. He does what he can, but its hard to imagine any actor handling the folksy closing scene with flair, including as it does Truman squatting down to address an invisible young tot and a recitation of Tennyson. By the time Barnaba flashes that requisite Dewey Defeats Truman headline, audiences have had more than enough of the thirty-third president.
Open run. St. Lukes Theatre, 308 W. 46th St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), 212-239-6200; $31.50–$56.50.