According to Tip

Well, the end is in sight…

Today burly guys come and remove stuff that will be recycled or dumped… Jan will oversee as I slip away to the Newton cemetery for a brief internment service.

Last night after I picked up Jan we stayed in Boston’s MetroWest and attended the New Rep’s production of According to Tip, a one man production featuring Ken Howard telling the story of the late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. Like a fair number of folk attending the play we had dinner at Pedro’s just across from the Rep’s home at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown. (A great place if you ever find yourself in the neighborhood…)

We arrived with Jan in her work clothes and me in my standard Summer uniform, Hawaiian print shirt, shorts and tevas. While there were a few Hawaiian print shirts, there were no other guys in shorts. And there were lots of guys in ties and a fair number of suits. Ladies were all comparably nicely attired… I began to seriously suspect I may have under dressed for the occasion when I saw Representative Barney Frank standing around. Then Representative Jim McGovern. Then Tip’s eldest and namesake, former Lieutenant Governor, Thomas O’Neill. There were more politicians and high fliers there than one could shake the proverbial stick at, not to mention various of the great and the good…

I was sure I heard someone whisper “Whose the guy in the shorts?” And the response, “Oh, that’s the local Unitarian minister…” But I may have imagined it…

We ended up sitting next to Jan’s bosses’, boss and his family. He was wearing a tie.

Oh, well…

The lights went down.

It was a lovely show. I’ve always been a fan of the former Speaker. And I felt they did him right.

Ken Howard did a great job. He padded his middle, but didn’t appear to feel a need to apply makeup to give him Tip’s trademark schnoz. And once he started talking I felt carried away…

Dick Flavin’s script was great. As he said in an interview for the notes “(A)lthough (Tip’s) public life was actually fifty years, culturally he spanned the entire 20th century. He dated back to the days of the streetcar rallies and the torchlight parades and all that sort of stuff and ended up in the days of computerized politics and the multi-million dollar campaigns for even offices like mayor and congress and everything in between.” And he captured it all…

Some professional sitting in the row behind us didn’t think highly of the set, although I thought they were fine. I admit I felt there were a few rough moments both in script and delivery, but nothing that actually broke the spell. I did come away having the sense they may continue to work it a bit before taking the show on the road.

If it ends up in your neighborhood, I’d strongly recommend taking it in.

Tip’s reflections on the presidents with whom and sometimes against whom he served were worth the price of admission.

I was particularly taken with his harsh and almost certainly correct assessment of Newt Gingrich’s place at the pivot from honest fighting during the day and friendships in the evening that once marked the congress to the bitter place day and night it is today…

The only thing that marred our evening was the hour drive back to our little apartment in Providence after the curtain fall.

Bone tired I fell into a deep sleep.

Fortunately not until we got home…