Just having boarded the A train at the northern tip of Manhattan on a work night, I don't at all resent the journey down across the island and home to Brooklyn, for I've just been serenaded and tucked in for the night with a grand and wholesome tale of a real American dreamer and shaper.
Having bid goodnight to the almost-full moon peeking through
the looming arboreal silhouettes of Fort Tryon Park, impressions shimmer
and shift in my mind from the past hour of riveting storytelling and folk
music both heartbreaking and healing.
Sheltered and shaded by the sturdy frame of a broad oak
tree, composer and writer Ted Bushman and his unpretentious yet marvelously
skilled team of musicians and actors looked us straight in the eye -- we their
friendly audience of young adults, families, and dogs, spread across a small
grassy hill on blankets and folding chairs -- and told us the life story of
Theodore Roosevelt in the new musical, “Theodore in the Valley”.
To portray so great and complex a historical figure from
childhood to presidency in just an hour may seem ambitious or necessarily
simplistic. But the brilliantly crafted succession of scenes conveyed exactly
what the poster advertised – “the heart, the hurt, and the healing” of a man
whose legacy has protected millions of acres of American wilderness more
pristine and breathtaking even than the floral haven of Fort Tryon Park, where
we sat regaled before a backdrop of Elysian clouds and setting sun over the
Hudson River.
From the moment the performers ushered us into young Teddy's
afflicted childhood, I knew I was in for an earnest, unadulterated testament of
human life. Aside from Bushman himself, who embodied a vibrant, honest, and
eloquently musical Theodore Roosevelt, each member of the tiny cast shifted in
and out of multiple characters with ease, simplicity, and never any confusion.
This was aided by the carefully constructed script, which seemed to exude a
tender concern for the clear understanding and enjoyment of the audience
(slightly soft amplification notwithstanding!). Most remarkable of the
multi-role actors was Leslie Hobson, the beautifully and humbly soulful singer
who portrayed Teddy’s mother as well as his first and second wives with stirringly
natural humanity and easy distinctness from one character to the next.
Beginning with his solicitous high-society mother and a
father stubbornly determined to see his son grow physically strong and able,
"Show me the world you see," sang young Teddy, longing from his
constrained quarters to see the vast world, in one of the first in a whole set
of unwaveringly refined and pithy songs Bushman composed.
Every line and chorus captured a different essential
dimension of Roosevelt's journey and spirit, and stirred a different corner of
the listener's heart. I'm sure I wasn't the only audience member experiencing
repeated bodily chills as moment after moment I was overwhelmed by a confluence
of the timbre of a gently plucked guitar, uncanny bird calls issuing from a
violin, an elegantly unassuming ostinato with just enough dissonance to keep us
earthbound, a soulfully sung phrase evoking some eternal truth, or the inspired
whim of a real-live local dove who soared across the scene before contenting
itself to roost on a branch just above the action.
There were no costume- or significant set-changes, and sparingly
few props – everything was sufficient and in service of the story. My rapt
imagination had no qualms about playing a slightly more active role than usual,
and my inner child was delighted to be invited to story time by a tree. When
Roosevelt and his pioneering friends wandered toward the edges of our natural
hilly theater house, or reposed on stools at center stage, I was simultaneously
transported to Western wildernesses and ranches, and made to cherish gratefully
and more deeply the splendor of the nature around us, so easily accessible by a
Manhattan train.
Evoking the faithful spirit of its protagonist, looking ever
upward and outward, the show never failed to balance its elements and keep our
hearts and minds engaged by the essence of its message. The singers and
instrumentalists partnered in delivering their exquisite tones and lines, yet
never with virtuosic ego. And as breathtaking as was every musical moment, none
ever made a spectacle of itself, but simply conveyed and enhanced the poetry
that drove it. Even the environmentalist climax, which celebrated John
Muir and Roosevelt's presidential action to protect our wilderness, did not
cast a shadow greater than the shadow of the majestic oak before which we all
were humbled, nor did the oak’s shadow dare compete with the gentle night that descended
upon all of us with the turning of a planet whose motion carries each bird,
tree, and human, no matter the size of their deeds and dreams.
