ATWATER: Fixin' To Die
Sacramento may look like a cultural backwater, but don’t let its laid-back, countrified act fool you. It has a number of professional theatres, along with some terrific museums, so in addition to the Capitol building and its corrupt/inept inhabitants, you can have a laugh, or a gander, at quality theatre.
Ray Tatar, the artistic director of California Stages (25th Street, between Q and R Streets), runs three small spaces. In one of them is ATWATER, FIXIN’ TO DIE, by Robert Myers, which plays weekends until November 9th. Starring Eric Baldwin, a Sacramento fixture, and directed by Vada Russell, Myers’ one-man show explores the political and social life of the late Leroy (Lee) Harvey Atwater, a politically-conservative politico who managed the presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush in 1988, coming up with the infamous and inaccurate slogan, “No New Taxes,” and the extraordinarily racist misuse of opponent Michael Dukasis’ powers as Massachusetts’ governor to release convicts as it pertained to a vicious nutcase, Willy Horton.
The old adage that “politics and sausages do not bear watching being made” is too true for those who loathe politics as something akin to what the cat might’ve killed and dragged into one’s living room. Through the eyes of this amoral fellow who wanted power and the kinds of money it engenders, we’re allowed to see sausage made. It ain’t pretty, but it’s imperative watching because it is how our government all-too-often works. It also reinforces the old adage, “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.”
Atwater was an intelligent, middle-class southerner who worked his way up the conservative’s power pole until he was able to bask in the reflected glory of those who were elected. We are invited into his psyche and how it manifested in the shameful lying that influenced an America upset with its fading position in the world power structure. His life’s work influenced today’s conservative movement which equates grotesque lies with honorable truth-telling.
The show works, in part, because author Myers doesn’t take sides about this flawed man. He shows us a hidden side of Mr. Atwater who worshipped the Italian political mentor, Machiavelli, as well as being a trustee at the mostly-African-American Howard University in Washington, D.C. But he was also a loving husband and father, who nevertheless didn’t see the error of his ways until his fatal bout with a brain tumor. And by then it was too late to fix his legacy.
In addition to playing Atwater, actor Baldwin plays a half-dozen other characters, all cleanly delineated, including a truly bizarre David Dukes, a wacko white-supremacist. Director Russell makes it all easy to watch and the excellent (and uncredited) set-design is easy on the eyes.
Considering how difficult following politics is today, with its excremental exaggerations and outright lying, Myers’ play is a welcome addition into the ranks of grownup theatre.
At California Stages,
2509 R St
Sacramento, CA 95816
(916) 451-5822