Displaying items by tag: Laurence Leamer

Chicago actress Linda Reiter plays Rose Kennedy, matriarch of the Kennedy family in the play "Rose" by Laurence Leamer, with both strength and delicacy. I have seen Linda Reiter around town in many great productions but this is truly her finest and fullest role, deserving of a Jeff Award (the Chicago version of the Tony Awards). 

Leamer, a Kennedy biographer, built the entire play on forty hours of taped interviews taken by Robert Coughlan, who was the ghostwriter of Rose Kennedy's own memoir in 1974. Leamer attained the tapes after Coughlin’s death in 1992 where the tapes found home on a shelf until just recently when Leamer finally chose "deal with them", the result being this spectacular and intimate one-woman show.

Kind of a rise and fall of the Kennedy’s from Rose’s viewpoint, I learned many interesting and sad facts from this piece that I'm sure the public is unaware of. For one, Rose mentions in the show that she felt a delay in the doctor’s arrival that caused her daughter Rosemary's "slowness" or what we would call today very mildly mentally challenged due to oxygen deficiency at birth. 

I was unaware of the circumstances and motive behind the lobotomy Rosemary was given. Apparently, the beautiful, but "slow" Rosemary was an embarrassment to Joe Kennedy so she was sent to live with some nuns in Europe - out of sight out of mind Joe thought. But when Rosemary had just barely reached adulthood she began to sneak out in the night to meet men and have adult experiences in the local towns, Joe feared she would become pregnant ruining his and his sons’ chances for political success. 

At that time only five hundred lobotomies had been performed in the world and only on the most violent of criminals. So without telling her mother Rose he took Rosemary to a doctor who supposedly specialized in such a procedure. The doctor administered some topical anesthetic to Rosemary's forehead and told her to sing a song. Beautiful Rosemary with her big eyes and full lips trustingly and with no knowledge of what the doctor's visit was for, asked her father what to sing. Joe said, “Sing Danny Boy, that's a good one." The doctor carved away at Rosemary's frontal lobe until she stopped singing. Later Joe told Rose that '"His daughter sang ...for too long." 

Rose was bound with this horrible secret and did not tell the rest of the family because she knew they would never feel the same way about their father again. Rose later wonders if she had let them know if they would have bowed to his wishes so complacently, sometimes leading eventually in some way to that child's death - either fighting at war or when Joe refused to let Kathleen marry the man she loved out of their religion. 

Sadly, Rose herself only visited Rosemary once twenty-some years later in the nunnery her daughter was returned to after the disastrous lobotomy. She said Rosemary actually recognized her and had gained a lot of weight but cursed at her, turning her back until the nuns came and said Rose must leave because her presence was upsetting her daughter.

I truly believe this one act of tortuous father to daughter betrayal in the Kennedy family was the beginning of the so called "curse" on the Kennedy clan. Reiter brilliantly describes with heart wrenching poignancy this unbelievable story along with the deaths and mourning of the rest of her children - one by one, many of whom she also gave birth to alone as Joe was usually on vacation in Florida with other women) while she was pregnant and giving birth. 

Ironically, it was Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver who started the Special Olympics, perhaps the only good thing to come of Rosemary's terribly unfair and cruel life and demise. 

Reiter, as Rose, fondly recalls her memories of Jack, who grew up sickly, still suffering from chronic pain even in his days as President. Almost dying from surgery performed in his youth, she explains how Jack defied the odds, fulfilling his destiny. She describes in detail how Jack looked up to his older brother Joe and the devastation felt upon his untimely death from a plane crash. She describes Bobby as Jack’s protector stating, “There wasn’t anything Bobby wouldn’t do for Jack.” Reiter skillfully captures the pride of a mother upon speaking of their achievements and also the worry and pain as she reminisces the family’s misfortune.      

The play is inter-cut with wonderful photos of the entire Kennedy clan including Rosemary, which I had never seen before. Throughout the play the phone occasionally rings as Rose nervously waits to hear from her son Teddy who is running later than usual. After all, he is her only remaining son as she tells her story and though Rose’s disappointment is apparent that Teddy is not on the other end of the line, the audience gets to hear her conversations with various family members including Jackie Onassis Kennedy. 

Kennedy buffs or not, historians all the same will certainly enjoy this masterful piece that Reiter executes so very well. In “Rose”, we as audience members, get an up close and personal view of the Kennedy’s rise and the many tragedies that later claimed the lives and health of one of America’s most prestigious families. Reiter performs brilliantly in this history-filled treasure, “Rose”, a part of Greenhouse Theater Center’s Solo Celebration.  

I highly recommend this beautifully crafted and factually stimulating play with Linda Reiter delivering possibly the finest performance of her life. “Rose” is being performed at Greenhouse Theater Center through September 25th. For more information on tickets and curtain times, visit www.GreenhouseTheater.org.