‘Ann’ (Richards, of course) @ WaterTower Theatre
Performance photos by Paris Marie Productions
(Center row, Morgana Shaw; bottom row, understudy Krista Scott)
—Martha Heimberg
What a joy to go back in time to 1990 and spend an evening with Texas Governor Ann Richards, the firebrand feminist with a folksy sense of humor, a taste for dirty jokes, and a home-grown, deeply rooted belief in the fundamental goodness of ordinary people. Compared to current Governor Greg Abbott’s misogynist, regressive agenda, Richards’ daring, get-it-done approach to government for the people practically qualifies her for sainthood. Well, maybe her taking-the-Lord’s-name-in-vain streak might interfere with that: Miss Ann does cuss some when she gets heated up.
You can feel that heat for yourself in WaterTower Theatre’s fast-moving production of Holland Taylor’s Ann, directed by Susan Sargeant and starring Morgana Shaw. (Talented understudy Krista Scott took on a performance—or two?—early in the run.) This can’t-miss collaboration pumps fresh life into Taylor’s award-winning play, in which she regularly starred until very recently. Sargeant was the founder and producing artistic director of Dallas’ WingSpan Theatre for its 25-year history of acclaimed shows. Shaw is a Dallas-born stage, TV, and film veteran who just starred in her own one-woman play about movie legend Bette Davis. The polished and very funny outcome of this partnership is no accident.
Shaw brings vitality and a fierce grit to her embodiment of the determined, crowd-savvy woman who became only the second female governor of Texas. (And there hasn’t been a third…yet.) The first was Ma Ferguson, Shaw’s Ann explains. In a short call-and response bit with Saturday night’s sold-out crowd, she tells us “Ma” sorta inherited the job from her late husband, the previous governor, and we all shout “Pa” when she cups her ear and waits for the answer she knows she’ll get.
Shaw handles her admiring audience with the same deft confidence throughout the show, whether she’s standing at the podium recalling her early rallying years as the wife of a Democratic activist in Austin, or seated at her desk in Kae Styron’s handsomely detailed capitol office.
We meet Ann first through a video clip designed by Lowell Sargeant, excerpting lines from the famous 1988 Democratic Convention speech that introduced her earthy, funny style to the nation. From the video, the immediate shift to the actor onstage is seamless. There’s Ann, standing short and tough in the lights, with her coiffed white “Republican hair” and a pale pink suit. Michael B. Moore designed the wig, and Jessie Wallace designed her costume.
With a wry smile and a sense of shared confidences, Ann tells us about her childhood with a mama “as tough as the nails” that held their hand-built clapboard house together. Her daddy, who loved his only child with all his heart, she recalls as “pure sunshine.” She says she inherited her personality from both parents.
When Shaw’s Ann talks about the years of alcoholism and recovery, her gratitude for AA is made clear through her strong mezzo voice, quietly poignant recalling painful memories, then hilariously buoyant remembering the crazy shenanigans of her career. “I was the poster child for a functional alcoholic,” she tells us, her smile growing suddenly thin. Still, she laughs remembering how she once got drunk and “crossed the line” when she “dressed as a tampon” on Halloween.
Shaw is terrific on the phone, whether she’s yelling or pleading or teasing or tricking somebody into doing what she wants. Her offstage secretary Nancy, voiced by a convincing Constance Parry, remains calm as Ann takes call after call. She addresses President Clinton as “Darlin” and cusses out some underling for f---ing up and costing her a small personal fortune over a plane-fare fiasco. Then she orders him a pair of cowboy boots she’s had designed to reward employees for doing a really good job. She’s trying to stop gun-carrying, and debating giving a stay to the death penalty of a painfully abused young man who committed a murder. At one point she tells us “politics is a contact sport.” Everybody around this pistol of a governor must have agreed.
The timing for the invisible callers’ responses is just long enough to be credible, while not slowing the depiction of the hectic pace of Richards’ job. She coaxes her shy son to overcome his fear of family charades, and tells her daughter (who just had twins) to show up at the approaching family gathering with the baked pies, as usual. Talk about relentless. Shaw changes expression and tone of voice so rapidly, the scenes have a high-wire tension. And then we laugh.
The show covers Ann’s defeat by George W. Bush in her re-bid for governor. As she recounts his stumbling through early speeches, she famously remarks that the new governor “was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” She has a love-and-hurry-it-up relationship with her speechwriter Suzanne, who can barely get the words together before the governor must deliver them. Comically, Ann says she’s tried to “let go and let God” when it comes to her speechwriter, but “even God can’t do anything with Suzanne.”
Despite her fears, Ann finds a life after Texas, and the show plays through her years in New York and her losing battle with cancer. But Shaw’s Ann keeps her humor and dignity—and the string of good jokes—right up to her exit line. What a gal.
WHEN: February 14-25, 2024
WHERE: 15650 Addison Road, Addison TX
WEB: watertowertheatre.org
