When Kandis Chappell enters as Eleanor in Mark St. Germain’s biographical play ELEANOR, she seems larger than life. And what a life it was!
JANUARY 20—LAGUNA BEACH
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. Rising from a demure debutante to a major figure on the 20th century world stage, she was the longest-serving first lady of the United States during her husband FDR’s four terms as President (1933-1945).
Through her travels, public engagement, and advocacy, she largely redefined the role and was later dubbed by Truman as the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements. And, in 1999, she was ranked ninth in Gallup’s List of the Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.
Now, in a moving, masterful one-woman show performance (under the direction of David Ellenstein), stage veteran Kandis Chappell transforms herself before our very eyes into this iconic figure, sharing largely chronological and presumptively true stories from Eleanor’s life before, during, and after her marriage to her cousin (fifth cousin, once removed, to be exact) Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As Eleanor, she addresses the Laguna Playhouse audience from the great beyond, near a bench in the cemetery where her body lies beside her husband.
The chief architect is Mark St. Germain, of course, who has given us a beautifully crafted, exquisitely structured play that gathers a wealth of complex family, world and American cultural history, and shapes it into a witty, poignant, intensely dramatic and insightful drama.
But rather than a room in the White House or their home in Hyde Park or Eleanor’s Hyde Park cottage, Val-Kill, the setting for ELEANOR is, instead, Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C. — Eleanor’s favorite place when she was alive to sit, reflect and be private, especially in the spring.
No bones about it. She is dead. “My body lies beside Franklin’s, but not my spirit,” she says. Her spirit clearly is on a journey. “For the 40 years we were married,” Eleanor says, “we not only had separate bedrooms, but separate lives.” Even in death, FDR remains a mystery to Eleanor, almost as much as she remains a mystery to herself. There is a stranger inside her, she says, a stranger she is not brave enough to want to come to know.
Her clothes — a loose-fitting gold and royal purple dress with a hem just above her ankles, rounded out with a short, wavy, vintage-gray haircut, sensible, chunky-heeled lace-up oxford shoes, and a modest pearl necklace — are a bit dowdy and understated, an apt reflection of her persona by costume designer Elisa Benzoni. Scenic designer Stephen Gifford evokes the park-like cemetery with projections on long, sheer hanging back-panels that subtly convey the changing seasons and the sentiment that this is where Eleanor comes to contemplate her life, as she did when she was alive.
As Ms. Chappell personifies Eleanor impersonating the people who had the most influence on her — many of them hurtful at that — we learn that she was denigrated for her looks by the press, her cousin Alice (Eleanor’s uncle Theodore’s daughter), and even her mean-spirited socialite mother, who died when Eleanor was eight. She idolizes her largely absent and entirely mendacious father, an alcoholic and a philanderer, who committed suicide two years later. “He was the true love of my life,” she says simply in a voice tinged with pain and disappointment. Franklin’s mother, Sara Ann Delano, was also exceptionally mean-spirited, objecting to plain Eleanor’s engagement to her handsome son. Even her own children ultimately betray her.
Theirs was an unlikely marriage of convenience, necessity, symbiosis; he a dashing figure with a promising political career; she a homely, at best, “ugly duckling” who emerges as a wondrous swan.
“I was not a pretty baby,” she says. She was, in fact, not a pretty woman. She was married to a very handsome man, and they lived a very handsome life together and apart. Hers was made handsomer — or prettier if you prefer — through her activities, her choices and her work. No first lady of the land, not Dolly Madison, Jackie Kennedy or Mary Todd Lincoln ever did as much on the world stage as Eleanor. No one sacrificed as much, worked as hard or accomplished as much. This is the truth that St. Germain's play brings to life through the delightful chatter he gives this character in the physical and verbal person of Kandis Chappell. And she is an ideal interpreter of his text, giving a vivid near-reincarnation of this woman.
“He’s got the brains, charms, look and the money to succeed, big time,” Louis Howe, FDR’s journalist-turned-political-advisor, tells Eleanor. “What he doesn’t have, you do. You can put yourself in anybody’s shoes and see the world like real people do. He’s got the head for the game and you’ve got the heart.”
Howe convinces her not to leave her husband when she discovers Franklin’s affair with his secretary, Lucy Mercer. Eleanor drives a hard bargain in the end, agreeing to stay on as Franklin’s wife, but with three major caveats — that they maintain separate bedrooms in the White House; that Eleanor live her own private life; and, most importantly, that Franklin end his affair with Mercer and never see her again. “His betrayal opened a wound that never healed my entire life,” Eleanor says in a particularly painful statement.
In the best storytelling tradition and never missing a beat, Ms. Chappell’s Eleanor delivers her narrative not only in her voice, but through vocal evocations of the myriad characters in her story — Howe; her mother; Franklin’s mother; their daughter, Sara; Winston Churchill, and her FDR. Yet, through it all, St. Germain’s warts-and-all narrative doesn’t hold back on Eleanor’s own sex life either — her relationship with a handsome bodyguard and, more meaningfully, with a “dear friend,” Lorena Hickock; “Hick” as Eleanor refers to her.
Eleanor embraces her independence fully, becoming activist first lady, traveling widely, writing magazine and newspaper columns, appearing on the radio, and having her own romances as FDR works his way through a succession of secretaries. And this is the shattering part of St. Germain’s play. While Eleanor remains an inspiring figure of integrity who perseveres even as others try to put her down, the much-idolized FDR has his reputation taken down more than a few pegs.
A true humanitarian, Eleanor champions society’s underdogs, pressing her husband to admit German Jewish children as refugees into the US, advocating for better treatment of African-American members of the military and the passage of anti-lynching legislation, and decrying the internment of Japanese-Americans. She even resigns from the DAR when the organization refuses to allow famed opera singer Marian Anderson to perform at the organization’s Constitution Hall due to the color of her skin. She later helps arrange Anderson’s historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, a performance that is broadcast throughout the nation. Yet Franklin remains unmoved by her efforts on behalf of the downtrodden. And near the end of his life, he commits the ultimate betrayal, complicating Eleanor’s grief even further.
Ms. Chappell’s character is witty, exposed, feisty, outspoken, fiercely principled, vulnerable, poignant, humorous, and even self-deprecating. We also see her lonely, isolated, deeply wounded and scarred by betrayal at the hands of people — her husband, her father, her daughter — to whom she presumably was closest.
It may seem remarkable that Kandis Chappell (Broadway: Neil Simon’s RUMORS; GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER) can completely transform herself so easily into the iconic first lady with no trace of her personal self in the role. Fortunately, Ms. Chappell’s extensive stage experience ensures much dimension and interest, a tribute to her acting skills. Her timing is flawless; her pauses, transitions meaningful and full. Her soft, reflective account of the onset of FDR’s polio during a vacation at the Roosevelt family home on the island of Campobello in New Brunswick, Canada, is deeply moving. Ms. Chappell shines as a treasure all her own.
Coupled with esteemed director, David Ellenstein (with better than five decades of professional directorial credits as well as over three dozen film and TV episodes), Mark St. Germain’s ELEANOR is a perfect storytelling medium at its very best, bringing to the surface the first lady’s profound humanity, dignity, grace, strength, intelligence, and humor.
Simply put, Ms. Chappell delivers such an exquisite work here at the center of such a seamless, exquisitely orchestrated production that it is a complete, full-theater experience in every way — a work of surprising visceral force, raw courage, emotion, memory and imagination.
LAGUNA PLAYHOUSE PRESENTS, ELEANOR; Written by MARK ST. GERMAIN (Camping With Henry and Tom - Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards; Out of Gas on Lover's Leap; Forgiving Typhoid Mary; Ears on a Beatle; The God Committee; The Collyer Brothers at Home; The Gifts of the Magi; The Book of the Dun Cow; Johnny Pye and the Fool-Killer - winner of AT&T’s New Plays For The Nineties Award; Jack's Holiday; the award-winning children's book Three Cups; and Stand By Your Man: The Tammy Wynette Story). Directed by DAVID ELLENSTEIN, ELEANOR Stars KANDIS CHAPPELL with Scenic Design by STEPHEN GIFFORD; Costume Design ELISA BENZONI; Lighting Designer MATTHEW NOVOTNY; Sound/Projections Design by IAN SCOT; Hair/ Wig Design by PETER HERMAN; and Production Stage Manager VERNON WILLET.
Limited Engagement began Wednesday, January 15 with a press opening on January 19 and will run through February 2 at Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Drive in Laguna Beach. Performances are Wednesdays at 7:30pm; Thursdays at 2pm and 7:30pm; Fridays at 7:30pm; Saturdays at 2pm and 7:30pm; Sundays at 1pm and 5:30pm. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $51-100 and can be purchased at www.lagunaplayhouse.com or by calling (949)497-2787.
Chris Daniels
Arts & Entertainment Reviewer
The Show Report
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