KENNEDY: BOBBY’S LAST CRUSADE (Stream Theatre)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.stream.theatre/season/24

Available until: Livestreams on Friday 22^nd, Saturday 23^rd and Sunday 24^th at 7.30pm and on Saturday and Sunday at 2.30pm.

Stream Theatre is brilliant and even though the reason for its existence is a sad one, it is really lovely to see how it has developed from when it started out, with concerts in the London Coliseum. Since then, it has expanded to fully-staged productions of musicals, plays, pantomimes, ballets and an operetta. It has not just been a UK streaming service either. We have seen Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker and a couple of excellent plays from the USA, including this one.

Kennedy: Bobby’s Last Crusade tells the story of Robert Kennedy and his presidential campaign, which ended when he was tragically shot. I’m really quite ignorant about American history so I don’t think I’ve heard of him, but I know about his brother. I expect we all know about his brother! That is just one of the emotional strands running through this very interesting play.

The play is written and performed by David Arrow. It isn’t a story in the traditional sense – it starts at one point in Senator Kennedy’s life (I think that’s the correct way to speak about him) and ends at another point in his life and includes lots of important moments in his political and personal life. But it flows very naturally from one event to another. It’s very interesting. There are moments of excitement and moments of emotion. If you’re like me and you didn’t even know about Robert Kennedy, there is a lot you can learn from this play, but it doesn’t feel like a history or politics lesson. It feels like a play.

Mr Arrow has written it to include actual speeches made by Senator Kennedy. In between the speeches, he talks about other events in his life like state visits and his personal life. His speeches are very powerful, but they also feel very personal. It really feels like the speeches are being made by a human being who knows how to make an effective speech but also really cares about and believes in what he is saying.

The more personal moments are even better. There are confessions, like the fact he doesn’t actually like making speeches. He expects us to be surprised by that, but I’m not. The presidency isn’t a job you take on because you need to be earning money, it is more of a vocational job which you do because it’s something you feel a need to do (though you also need certain skills, ideally). But I’m sure most people in that kind of job don’t love every single part of it. I would like to be an obstetrician, but I’m sure there are parts of that job I will really hate, like giving bad news.

If anything, I think not enjoying making speeches is a good quality for a president, as long as he is still able to make them. I think maybe a president who mainly loves being looked at and listened to will not necessarily make the best president.

I also really like the way Mr Arrow has included Senator Kennedy’s personal issues as it shows him as a complete person, rather than just a man doing his job. We get to hear about his family issues and his doubts about himself.

My favourite moments of all are the ones where we see what a kind man Senator Kennedy was. He really seems to care about everyone (he is a bit wary of some of his rivals, but that is sensible). There are a few moments where he interacts with children (who are unseen, but you can imagine them from the way the senator holds their hand or looks down to speak to them) which are really lovely. He has eleven children. I love big families.

Senator Kennedy was campaigning in the 1960s, but there are a lot of issues in the play which are still relevant today. I don’t quite know if I am glad there were people who believed in racial equality in that time or sad that, in lots of ways, things haven’t moved forward very much. There is also a bit about gun crime which is interesting to compare with another Stream Theatre play also featuring an American politician (though one who did become president), Waiting for Obama.

The director is Eric Nightengale and he uses video projections by Katherine R. Mitchell to show the changes of scene. This works really well. They are photos and I don’t know if they’re genuine photos, but it looks as though they are and they really help you to imagine the events Mr Arrow is describing.

I didn’t know when I watched the play that Mr Arrow looked like Senator Kennedy or that he reproduced his personality so well, but I could see it was a really good performance. I loved the way Mr Arrow showed his character’s kindness, compassion and humanity, as well as his struggles, his determination and his hard work. He makes Senator Kennedy seem like an admirable man, but also a very human and likeable one.

It is a very good and very relevant play and a really excellent choice by Stream Theatre.