Politics on Stage
It’s a presidential election year. The election has started. About twenty five million people have already voted. I’ve voted early, and by mail. So, it seems like a good time to talk about political plays. Specifically, the Gore Vidal play, The Best Man.
The Best Man is a play about a contest for the presidency, but in the primaries, not the general election. The two leading candidates are William Russell and Joe Cantwell. The play was originally performed on Broadway in 1960, and won the Tony Award that year for best play. It was revived on Broadway twice, once in 2000, and again in 2012.
In the sixty years since the play was originally produced, some things have changed in politics – mostly for the good. Some things have not changed, unfortunately.
Then and Now
In the category of things that have changed for the better is a plot point about the character of Joe Cantwell, the presidential frontrunner. The character is gay. No one knows this. In 1960 this is considered a negative – and something that will ruin his chances in the election. But in real life, in the 2020 election, one of the candidates was openly gay. No one cared. Another point of note is that in the play only men were considered as candidates. This year, we now have the opportunity to vote for a woman on the ticket.
In the category of things that have not changed for the better is that in the play, some of the other characters want to use Cantwell’s gayness against him to bully Cantwell into dropping out of the race. Sadly, the use of personal attacks to damage a candidate is still done.
I wish that theaters were still open and that someone were producing this play this year. It still has a lot to teach us.
We need to put our principles above everything else and vote for the best man (person).