We Like Ike

Although he handily won both of his presidential elections, Dwight David Eisenhower wasn’t looked upon as a very effective chief executive a year after his term ended in the early 1960s. That’s the impetus for Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground, the new one-man show getting its first local production at the Rubicon in Ventura following well-received runs in Los Angeles and off-Broadway. Veteran stage actor John Rubinstein, who was the original Pippin in 1972 and won a Tony for Children of a Lesser God, reprises the role of Eisenhower in the play written by Richard Hellesen, portraying the ex-president as a proud and somewhat cantankerous man who grouses about a news story that sees his cultural ranking fall. Rubinstein effectively runs through Eisenhower’s years as a child and young man, where his values took root, his rising through the ranks of the military to direct the D-Day invasion that turned the tide of World War II, and eventually his time as U.S. president once Truman’s term expired. 

The show is a monologue fashioned from Eisenhower’s own words taken from his speeches, books and elsewhere, and Rubinstein turns in a true tour-de-force performance deftly personifying Ike. As history marches on and partisan politics have become an even greater divide, Ike’s retrospective ranking has steadily improved. After seeing this show, which runs through March 10, you’ll probably agree. 

This Sunday evening, March 3, the Rubicon also re-revives J for J, a remounting of Jenny Sullivan’s semi-autobiographical drama about her famous actor father Barry Sullivan and her developmentally disabled brother drawn from Barry’s journal. The recent rains kept audiences away from the benefit-staged reading with an all-star cast earlier this month. 

Info at (805) 667-2900 or www.rubicontheatre.org.