Fascinating play about first black White House butler

Play based on true story of White House butler to four Presidents

"Looking Over The President's Shoulder", a play based on the true story of a Chief Butler to four Presidents, is served up with White House china at the U.S. Navy Memorial's Heritage Center.

In case that's not quite enough history, its playwright James Still's new play, "The Heavens Are Hung In Black", has just reopened Ford's Theatre in time for Lincoln's 200th birthday February 12.

And in case Still's two plays are still not enough history, "Looking Over The President's Shoulder" is accompanied by a display from the largest collection of White House china outside the White House.

[Private collector Set Momjian has lent several of his Presidential china pieces -- from Polk, Lincoln, Grant, Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Clinton -- for this two-night affair, February 18 and 20.  Momjian told me that Lady Bird Johnson was "the only First Lady to give a message -- conservation and wildflowers in her china pattern." He noted that Mary Todd Lincoln was criticized for choosing the royal color purple for the band around the rim. "All First Ladies have been criticized for their choice of china patterns".]

The play tells the intriguing story of Alonzo Fields, grandson of a freed slave, who was the White House's first African-American Chief Butler and served Presidents Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower.

As Fields says in the drama, "It was like being in the front row and watching the passing parade of history." That parade included opera star Marian Anderson, whose famed Lincoln Memorial concert 70 years ago was arranged partly by Eleanor Roosevelt after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) banned the African American contralto from singing at their Constitution Hall. The parade starred also Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, Princess Elizabeth pre-Queen of England, and movie star Errol Flynn. 

In the one-man show, Brian Anthony Wilson plays many of these characters almost as convincingly as he portrays Alonzo Fields. Yes, even Eleanor Roosevelt and Churchill. Wilson is especially engaging as the British Prime Minister being spied swimming in the buff off Ft. Lauderdale while on a secret visit to meet with FDR.

Wilson told me in an interview, "It's an honor to play Alonzo Fields. I admire him as a man of principle, a man of honor. He put his dreams (of being an opera singer) on hold to take care of his wife and child, and not everyone does that. He took care of his responsibilities, and did them to the best of his abilities. I feel privileged to relive his story and tell it with humor, respect, and dignity."Wilson also tells it partially in song, performing a bit of opera and a hymn in his tour-de-force performance. 

[Although Wilson is not likely to move from the theater stage to the opera house, he has been seen often in homes on TV -- a detective on both "The Wire" (shot in Baltimore) and "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit". And you've probably seen Wilson in "See You in September", released last October. This year he'll be seen in several films including "Bamboo Shark" to be released at the end of February, "Shelter", a thriller-horror movie with Julianne Moore, and  "Explicit Ills" written and directed by Mark Webber.] 

"Looking Over The President's Shoulder" is based on Fields' diaries, other private papers, and interviews. It begins on Fields' last day at the White House when he reminisces about his 21 years serving four First Families. He asks himself, "Have I lived my life wisely?" Fields had accepted the position of butler for one winter after the Great Depression forced him to abandon his dream of becoming an opera star. Fields was soon appointed Chief Butler, and that one season turned into two decades.

Wilson said in the interview, "He was appointed Chief Butler over the heads of people who had been at the White House for years, but Fields' work ethic was above and beyond."

Playwright Still has said that Fields was guided also by a love of music and art which "taught him about serving his country, serving the Presidents and their families, and about how a job well-done was finally the reward, truly something to be proud of."

In Fields' book "My 21 Years in the White House" (Coward-McCann), Fields wrote that he told his staff "remember that we are helping to make history. We have a small part...but they can't do much here without us. They've got to eat, you know."

And you've got to see "Looking Over The President's Shoulder", a unique behind the scenes drama that makes history come vibrantly alive. It's a perfect Washington celebration of African American History Month.