A `BRIGHT' TAKE ON ROBERT MCNAMARA.Byline: Katherine Karlin Correspondent Robert McNamara For the figure skater, see . Robert Strange McNamara (born June 9, 1916) is an American business executive and a former United States Secretary of Defense. McNamara served as U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, during the Vietnam War. , one of John F. Kennedy's ``best and brightest,'' is an unlikely subject for comedy. This is the man, after all, who is roundly credited with the country's clumsy entrance to Vietnam, and whose life has already been mined in Errol Morris' 2003 film, ``The Fog of War.'' But while Morris' documentary exposes a dry-lipped McNamara recounting well-known historical events with shockingly little insight, Katy Hickman's new play, ``Bright Boy: The Passion of Robert McNamara,'' gets to have a little fun with the former defense secretary's inscrutable persona. Mark up one point for the side of creative license. The McNamara of ``Bright Boy'' may not have much self-awareness, but, played with enormous appeal by Garrett M. Brown, he's a bit of a romantic. ``My spirit is wild and loose, but my body is Presbyterian,'' he declares. He's a high-level number-cruncher, an efficiency man with a touch of poetry who is stunned stun tr.v. stunned, stun·ning, stuns 1. To daze or render senseless, by or as if by a blow. 2. To overwhelm or daze with a loud noise. 3. to find himself at the center of one of the era's greatest controversies. Everything he did, he declares, he did for love. McNamara has returned to his birthplace, Northern California Northern California, sometimes referred to as NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The region contains the San Francisco Bay Area, the state capital, Sacramento; as well as the substantial natural beauty of the redwood forests, the northern - specifically to Mills College Mills College, at Oakland, Calif.; for women; est. 1852 as the Young Ladies' Seminary at Benicia, Calif., moved 1871, chartered as Mills College 1885. The first women's college in the Far West, it has programs in English literature and creative writing, foreign - to attend a memorial service for former colleague Dean Rusk David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909 – December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He was the second-longest serving Secretary of State, behind Cordell Hull. . It's 1995, and the country, obsessed ob·sess v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es v.tr. To preoccupy the mind of excessively. v.intr. with the O.J. Simpson trial, has fallen into an intellectual stupor stupor /stu·por/ (stoo´per) [L.] 1. a lowered level of consciousness. 2. in psychiatry, a disorder marked by reduced responsiveness.stu´porous stu·por n. ; McNamara learns he is blamed for, among other things, the AIDS epidemic. ``He's sorry, but he's not sorry,'' says the graduate student who accompanies him, and this summary pretty much captures the arrogance of a man who refuses to harbor regrets. There are comic situations involving the college president, who has lost a large sum of money, her shell-shocked Vietnam vet brother, and three addled ad·dle v. ad·dled, ad·dling, ad·dles v.tr. To muddle; confuse: "My brain is a bit addled by whiskey" Eugene O'Neill. See Synonyms at confuse. students who can't seem to find their way through the fog of postmodernism. The comedy does not always pan out: James Eckhouse's direction is uneven. But Brown's McNamara remains a fascinating central character. This is an American story, but very much a California story, too. When he climbs Mount Whitney to purify himself, McNamara's view is dominated by the former internment camp at Manzanar. Some wounds, it seems, cannot heal. BRIGHT BOY: THE PASSION OF ROBERT McNAMARA - Three stars Where: The Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice. When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday; through May 7. Tickets: $22; call (213) 368-9552. In a nutshell: A fanciful take on a dead-serious statesman. |
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