Berkshire on Stage

Acting teachers and coaches often refer to the craft of acting as a tennis match:  one actor sends a message (the ball) to another, who receives it and then responds.  How does this happen in a one-person play?   Sometimes an actor plays multiple characters who react to a certain situation, at other times an actor may receive or initiate phone calls.  But there must be a strong reason for the actor to be communicating with us alone onstage in a full-length play.  Playwright Richard Hellesen, who wrote Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground, now playing at Barrington Stage Company, has given John Rubinstein (in the title role) just such a reason—one that encourages this actor to display his formidable talent.

The play’s inciting incident is the article that Eisenhower reads in the New York Times Magazine in August, 1962 entitled: “Our Presidents: A Rating by 75 Historians.  Great, Near Great, Average, Below Average, and Failure.”  Less than two years after leaving office, at age 71, Eisenhower finds himself rated 22^nd out of 31 former presidents.  They consider him a great American but not a great president.  He is situated in the mediocre category of presidents who “were content to leave well enough alone, or [were] unwilling to fight for their programs, or were inept at doing so.”  

Needless to say, Eisenhower is so enraged that when his editor calls to ask about the project they are working on (the president has been recording his memoirs about his time in office, which they plan to turn into a book) Eisenhower is ready to cancel the whole thing.  However, his determination to justify his actions as president outweighs his anger, and the rest of the play is his attempt to record an objective view of what he did and did not accomplish and to explain the guiding principles that led to his decisions.

In the first of this two-act play, Eisenhower recounts the story of his childhood, parental influences, schooling, and his role as commanding general of the invasion of Europe in World War II—specifically D-Day.  Playwright Richard Hellesen has adapted the material from Eisenhower’s memoirs, speeches and letters with permission from the Eisenhower family.  In spite of Hellesen’s often humorous approach, well-played by Rubinstein, this act is more or less a biography.

The second act is the more gripping one:  chock full of personal stories about Generals MacArthur and Marshall, Joseph McCarthy, Governor Faubus’s battle against integration in Arkansas, and Krushchev’s visit.  Eisenhower recounts the horrors of liberating and filming his first Nazi concentration camp and the torturous decisions he faced as president: some that worked and others that had terrible consequences.  

Rubinstein, who created the title role in Pippin on Broadway in 1972 and won Tony and Drama Desk Awards in 1980 for Children of a Lesser God, has been playing Dwight D. Eisenhower for four years. Opening in October, 2022 at Theatre West in Los Angeles, Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground had an off-Broadway run in 2023, a short run at Barrington Stage Company in 2025, and has toured in states throughout the country.  Rubinstein’s 100% commitment to this project is evident in his performance.  

Cleverly directed by Peter Ellenstein in a large, comfortable, 1950s living room (tastefully designed by Michael Deegan to cover the president’s interests:  golf, painting, and reading history), the conceit of this production is the tape recorder, upstage center, which Rubinstein turns on and off as needed, freeing him to move anywhere in the room.  Although it sometimes feels as though he is breaking the fourth wall to address the audience, his occasional glance towards the tape recorder lets us know that his words will serve as material for the book.  (Meanwhile at the performance I attended, the play was in turn being videotaped on both sides of the theatre).

There is never a moment when we doubt that the blood of Eisenhower courses through the arteries and veins of Rubinstein.  For two hours, the actor undergoes a gamut of emotions–from his anger at being underappreciated, to his humor as he insults his incompetent predecessors who received higher ratings, to the painful moments in his life professionally and personally, the regrets he will have to live with for the rest of his life, and his devotion to his wife, who was always there to guide him, his children, and his grandchildren. 

Projections and sound design by Joe Huppert are not only impressive but essential in creating Eisenhower’s world.  The upstage wall shows a colorful vision of his farm:  Mamie’s roses, his cows, acres of green pasture, and a tree line separating the farm from the Gettysburg battlefield.  When a sudden thunderstorm arises black clouds gather, thunder is heard and rain falls in sheets.  Sounds of mid-20^th century: news, music, sports, and television shows open the play.  Superimposed on the landscape are black and white photos of all of the characters, historical and familial, that are mentioned in the script.  Michael Deegan and Esquire Jauchem provide the lighting design that makes all of this possible, and highlight the special moments in the play.

Because Eisenhower witnessed so many earth-shattering events in his lifetime, Hellesen’s play, although written in 2022 during the time of Trump, was able to realistically attribute these words to Eisenhower in 1962, concerned as he was about the future of democracy.  Having been snubbed by historians, he tries to figure out what makes a great president: “. . . this piece of ground that we all share. . . if we’re going to leave our young people something better, then we just can’t be complacent.  It’s going to have to be the nation we’re serving, not just ourselves.  We must never be content with half-truth when the whole truth can be ours.”

EISENHOWER: THIS PIECE OF GROUND runs from September 16-18 with John Rubinstein, and from Sept. 23-26 with David Sitler at Barrington Stage Company’s Boyd-Quinson Theater, 30 Union Street, Pittsfield.  For tickets call 413-242-6411 or online at barringtonstageco.org.

Barrington Stage Company presents EISENHOWER: THIS PIECE OF GROUND by Richard Hellesen.  Directed by Peter Ellenstein.

Cast:  John Rubinstein (Eisenhower) 

Scenic & Lighting Design: Michael Deegan; Lighting Design: Esquire Jauchem; Projection and Sound Design: Joe Huppert; Costume Consultant: Sarah G. Conly. Production Stage Manager: Michelle Vasquez.  

The production runs two hours ten minutes, including a 15 -minute intermission.