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Rhinestone Hoover stewing legacy with his band
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · September 09, 2009
Herbert Hoover didn’t die.
He formed a band.
Harry Truman plays lead guitar.
Hoover — now 137 years old, balding, paunchy and decked out in rhinestones — still stews over the fact that he’s mostly remembered for the Great Depression.
But now it’s 2009, the economy struggles and Hoover sees an opportunity for a comeback.
Starting Tuesday of this week and running through Sunday, at the La Jolla (prounounced La HOY-a) Playhouse in California, “Hoover Comes Alive!” takes the stage with a mix of history, pop culture and a version of the West Branch native that’s more like Elvis than Quaker.
Elvis’ 1968 Comeback Special inspires Hoover’s rock-n-roll resurrection, according to La Jolla’s Web site.
“This time he’s going to successfully drag us out of our economic Waterloo, come hell or high water,” it reads.
It’s both a musical and a comedy, written by Sean Cunningham with songs by Michael Friedman and directed by Alex Timbers.
Timbers, who also runs Les Freres Corbusier, a company that investigates historical figures, co-conceived this idea with Cunningham. He wanted to bring Hoover to life for younger audiences and re-examine the 31st president.
“I was drawn to Herbert Hoover because he is one of the great presidents who has never received his due,” Timbers said in a phone interview with the West Branch Times.
Work on the project started two years ago, before the housing market collapse set off the recession from which America is still struggling to recover.
“We never thought we would be presenting it during this second economic Depression,” he said.
Timbers said Hoover made mistakes, like with the Smoot-Hawley Act, and in this “theatrical rock concert,” Hoover’s band members offer that counter-argument, that reality check. Still, he said, Hoover Comes Alive! tries to make a factual, fair case for a more positive Hoover legacy without being “pro” or “anti.”
“He was sort of cursed with its timing,” Timbers said of the Great Depression. “Hoover acted slowly, but he didn’t know the scope of what was going on. But (Franklin Roosevelt) enacted many of Hoover’s reforms and got us out of the Great Depression.”
For those still trying to grasp Hoover with a guitar strapped to his shoulder and a microphone in hand, Timbers compares it to Schoolhouse Rock.
Audience members in the first three rows sit on pillows on the floor and may interact with Hoover’s band, he said, similar to how Elvis had the audience right up next to and on the stage in Comeback Special.
“It’s educational in a way, but in a really fun way that’s really easy to swallow,” the director said. “It’s political and smart, both low brow and high brow.”
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum Director Timothy Walch seemed skeptical of the idea of trying to find something funny about the Great Depression, but said he would withhold judgment since he has not seen the production. La Jolla did not schedule previewing before release.
“Maybe their intent is more positive than it appears on the surface,” Walch said. “It doesn’t seem to me to be a serious assessment.”
Walch said that La Jolla Playhouse is “fairly well known,” so he does not want to trivialize what Hoover Comes Alive! tries to do.
“But Hoover deserves better than some comic relief approach to American history,” he said.
Timbers said that presidents have an edge on kings in that presidents get to see how their legacy shapes up.
“In Shakespearean times, you never got to experience that because you’re dead,” the director said.
Presidents are faced with the question: What if you could do it again?
“We saw Carter doing that thing with the despots, we saw Clinton on Larry King Live,” he said. “Hoover gets to return to retrieve his legacy.”
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