INTERVIEW: David Arrow ruminates on ‘Bobby’s Last Crusade’
Photo: David Arrow stars in Kennedy: Bobby’s Last Crusade at the Penguin Rep Theatre. Photo courtesy of Russ Rowland / Provided by Penguin Rep with permission.
Although 1968 may feel like a world away from 2019, actor and playwright David Arrow has found some interesting connections between the two time periods. The result of his exploration is on stage now at Penguin Rep Theatre in Stony Point, New York.
Kennedy: Bobby’s Last Crusade is Arrow’s one-man show that charts the trials and tribulations of Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign and what might have happened if the candidate wasn’t tragically assassinated.
“I was doing a play in California and had a very good time working with that particular cast,” Arrow said in a recent phone interview. “The same theater called me eight months later and said, ‘There is a play about Robert Kennedy called RFK, and would you would be interested in doing it.’ I said, ‘Sure. That sounded great.’ In preparation for that production, I had read tons of books about Bobby Kennedy, and it’s a fine play. It’s much more biographical, but that gave me an introduction to Bobby in a profound way rather than just being a history bug’s previous knowledge.”
So he had a solid foundation in Kennedy’s historical significance and had taken part in a production of RFK, but what truly inspired him to pen his own 90-minute show was when he was listening to the political talk in the United States in spring of 2017.
“I was listening to the news and listening to the rhetoric of not only the current occupant of the White House, but people on both sides of the political spectrum, hearing what was being said, and it struck me that in my research I read a lot of speeches that Bobby had made,” he said. “I said, wow, it’s so interesting that so many of the ideas and issues that are being talked about now were major issues in 1968, but the way Bobby Kennedy spoke about them were to me much more profound and much more both eloquent.”
Arrow appreciated how Kennedy (and his other famous family members) were able to personalize civic responsibility, letting the populace know what the government will do for them and what the government expects in return.
“I thought, wow, here we are dealing with the same stuff 50 years later, but certainly not in as an effective of a manner,” Arrow said. “Then a little lightbulb went off that that may be a very different play than the one I had already been familiar with. The play would be focused solely on his run for the presidency, the issues of 1968, the issues that mattered to Bobby and to the country at that time in perhaps arguably the most turbulent time in our country’s history since the Civil War. We approach the current time with impending turmoil, not maybe yet approaching the divisiveness of the Vietnam War, but there’s divisiveness in the country right now growing and growing. And all these parallels seem to work. I thought, well, there’s a story about Bobby’s run and what he was trying to do.”
Arrow is an actor who has built an impressive résumé with numerous off-Broadway credits, including Vacuum at the Cherry Lane Theatre and performances at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and HERE Arts Center. Writing for the stage was a relatively new adventure for him; however, he found success with the show.
The piece has already played off-Broadway at the Theatre at St. Clements, and it continues at Penguin Rep through July 7. From the earliest drafts to what audiences will catch in Stony Point, there have been some changes to the look and feel of the play.
“The basic structure is the same, but having had the opportunity to revisit it, the director and I, Eric Nightengale, sat down and said, what things worked, what things did we feel didn’t work so well,” Arrow said. “So I made some structural changes to the very beginning of the play primarily, just in terms of Kennedy’s connection to the people he’s talking to, changed that a little bit in order to make it a little bit more easy to have that relationship. Then we made some other changes. It’s a different visible space, so things change because of that.”
He added: “Each time we look at it — and hopefully we’ll have more opportunities — we’ll always say, well, what did we learn from last time. I mean really there’s something about the theater in general. You go night after night saying, well, what did I learn from last night, and what can I do better the next night. Even when you’re doing it eight times a week for six months, that’s an attitude that you ought to have.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Kennedy: Bobby’s Last Crusade, written by and starring David Arrow, plays through July 7 at the Penguin Rep Theatre in Stony Point, New York. Click here for more information and tickets.
