(Posted October 24, 2004)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – "I didn't want to work as a domestic. I wanted to make music," Alonzo Fields tells us early in the American Negro Playwright Theatre production of Looking Over the President's Shoulder.

Barry Scott's rendering of the first African American chief butler at the White House sings as only a virtuoso actor's performance can. James Still's script is often flat with facts,but his dramatic composition is a compelling introduction to Fields' life and times as presented by ANPT.

The play is set just outside the White House gates on the day in 1953 when Fields' tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue came to an end. While waiting for a bus, he starts to tell us about his life, first describing how he came to work for presidents Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Indiana native had been studying music in Boston while making ends meet by serving as butler to MIT President Dr. Samuel W. Stratton. Stratton died suddenly, but Mrs. Hoover remembered Fields from a party that she and President Hoover had attended and offered him a job. With a wife and step-daughter to support, Fields felt he had no choice but to accept, figuring he would only stay for a short time. That short stay turned into a 21-year career.

Fields goes on to tell us several stories about the First Families he served, as well as letting us know about the nicknames the staff gave to various famous residents: Herbert Hoover was called "Smiley" because "he never did," and Eleanor Roosevelt was "Alice in Wonderland" because she was "always on the go and in a world of her own." He also paints anecdotal pictures of some of the people who came to the White House, including statesmen like Winston Churchill and celebrities like Errol Flynn.

The play touches on themes of race and personal dignity, but Still does not explore such themes very thoroughly. We learn, for example, that while the Roosevelts were glad to hire blacks as White House servants, they couldn't eat with the white servants on visits to the family's home in Hyde Park, New York. We also find out that racist comments were part of the discussion when Roosevelt was preparing to appoint former Ku Klux Klan member Hugo Black to the Supreme Court of the United States. But, as with Fields' disappointment over his never-realized musical career, we're not allowed to delve too deeply into Fields' perspective on the matter by Still's script.

Scott's performance thankfully makes Looking Over the President's Shoulder take flight when it could have been grounded by all of the anecdotes and trivia Still gives the actor to say. His powerful stage presence commands our attention for the two hours he's onstage alone, and his emotionally nuanced characterization clearly reveals not only the pride but the pain within Fields' dignified, intelligent and articulate persona.

Director Robert Guillaume, best known as the star of the long-running TV series BENSON, helms with a deft hand. He gives Scott the freedom to deliver his acting aria while rhythmically pacing the show so that its dramatic progress never loses the beat. 

Paul Gatrell's elegant but unpretentious set design is another sterling contribution to this show, with its ornate columns and chairs which represent each of the four Presidents that Fields served. Scott Leathers' lighting design makes transitions in the play smooth by subtle shifts of focus, color and intensity.

Looking Over the President's Shoulder could be a stronger scripted composition if it more deeply explored Fields' perspective on the themes it approaches. The overall production nevertheless makes beautiful music in TSU's sparkling Performing Arts Center Theatre by utilizing the talents of Scott, Guillaume, Gatrell, Leathers and others to take Still's play and add notes of emotional dignity and dramatic grandeur to it.

To See The Show…

Looking Over the President's Shoulder ended its run at Tennessee State University's Performing Arts Center Theatre on Nov. 7. American Negro Playwright Theatre is the professional theater in residence at Tennessee State University.