MPR’s Connie Goldman reports on play “Hell, That’s Politics” being performed at Minneapolis’s Theatre in the Round. Goldman interviews playwright Ernest Bormann, a professor at University of Minnesota, about his work and the history of Huey Long.
MPR’s Connie Goldman reports on play “Hell, That’s Politics” being performed at Minneapolis’s Theatre in the Round. Goldman interviews playwright Ernest Bormann, a professor at University of Minnesota, about his work and the history of Huey Long.
SPEAKER 1: What I'd like to do is the curtain call first, OK? Let's do it to the [INAUDIBLE] so he can see what it looks like. And we may do it again.
CONNIE GOLDMAN: The sounds in the background are a group of actors from Theatre in the Round in Minneapolis rehearsing their current production, Hell That's Politics. The play is about the flamboyant and legendary career of Louisiana politician Huey Long, and the drama deals with Long's politics, power, and charisma all in the historical perspective of his assassination at age 42 in 1935.
The author of the play is Dr. Ernest Bormann, a professor and director of graduate studies in Speech and Communication at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Bormann says that a play is a work of art and even though you take historical materials, when you make them into a play, they're no longer historical. They become art.
SPEAKER 1: Well, all right. Can we run Act I, and then do the curtain call at the same time.
Huey Long, or the character Huey in the play, represents a kind of-- a kind of a threat to the-- kind of a threat to the American system. He was able to get his way. He was able to use the system from within and without, all sorts of things, in a time when there was a great deal of unrest.
And probably, if there ever was a time when somebody could subvert the system, it was at that time. And he was shot and assassinated before we really knew whether or not the system could survive him. And I thought that was-- in a sense, it was a personal tragedy because he had a great deal of talent and ability. And in another sense, it was-- he has to live in our legends because of that.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
ERNEST BORMANN: It's the assassination.
[BACKGROUND CHATTER]
[GUNSHOT]
CONNIE GOLDMAN: That was the assassination.
ERNEST BORMANN: That's right. That's the assassination.
CONNIE GOLDMAN: The play starts where it ends,
ERNEST BORMANN: The play starts with the assassination. The bodyguards shoot the assassin there.
- The first assassination attempt on a major public figure since the attempt on the life of President Roosevelt.
ERNEST BORMANN: I think that Long was a figure that remains part of our legend, and we can't let him die out because we need somewhere, in our pantheon of heroes and villains, somebody like Huey Long who was so American, who talked the vernacular, and who--
- Ladies and gentleman.
ERNEST BORMANN: You can hear him in the background.
- [? Same ?] [INAUDIBLE] day of the president's Depression.
ERNEST BORMANN: He talked pure American in the depression.
- 29 million people unemployed. The National Debt up to 29 to 30 billions of dollars. Won't you write me tonight? Won't you write to me tomorrow? Won't you organize a "share our wealth" society. Let's make the fight. Let's make the politicians keep the promises or vote somebody into office that will keep the promise that, in this land of abundance, none shall have too much and none shall have too little.
[END PLAYBACK]
ERNEST BORMANN: He was able to catch the imagination of the American people because he was in their mythic traditions. And he talked the way Americans talked. And where the communists and the socialists and other radical groups in the Depression didn't get very far, Long, with the radio addresses like that, seven of them in 1935, got over 10 million people to send him their names and addresses.
And I think that what he did in his home state indicated that if you were really kind of a Native American political genius and knew how to use the system, that you could control it. And in the depths of the Depression, with Hitler and with Mussolini in Europe, that was a very frightening thing.
And the idea that someday, in a period of crisis, this government of ours, which will celebrate its 200th birthday in a couple of years, somehow in a period of crisis a man on a white horse can come along and subvert the whole thing, the whole experiment. That's, after all, very deeply embedded in our tradition, that this is the great experiment.
You know, Lincoln said at Gettysburg, whether this experiment, that any nation so dedicated can long endure. That's what we're testing. Well, Huey gave it a great test. And I think we've got to have that in our history, that he did test it. I think the only thing that makes it difficult is that he was shot before we really knew whether he could have made it or not.
SPEAKER 2: I want to thank you. I want to thank all of you, especially those of you who worked so hard for this. I know how hard you worked. And it wasn't for nothing. We're going somewhere. Old Huey is going to deliver.
[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]
We're going right on up.
CONNIE GOLDMAN: Dr. Ernest Bormann, discussing his play Hell That's Politics, the production offered to the public this weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, at Theatre in the Round in Minneapolis. I'm Connie Goldman.
Digitization made possible by the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.
Views and opinions expressed in the content do not represent the opinions of APMG. APMG is not responsible for objectionable content and language represented on the site. Please use the "Contact Us" button if you'd like to report a piece of content. Thank you.
Transcriptions provided are machine generated, and while APMG makes the best effort for accuracy, mistakes will happen. Please excuse these errors and use the "Contact Us" button if you'd like to report an error. Thank you.