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[0:00] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Welcome to the Drama Book Show, where we bring you conversations with the writers, artists, and theater makers shaping today's stage. I'm Mark Eugene Garcia.

[0:28] Mark-Eugene Garcia: In this episode, we're joined by playwright Ellen Abrams to discuss Eleanor and Alice, her witty and deeply human play imagining the lifelong relationship between two extraordinary women, Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Though first cousins, they were often political opposites, sometimes friends, sometimes rivals, and always fascinating figures whose conversations reflected the changing landscape of 20th century America. Together, we explore the history behind the play, the challenge of dramatizing iconic historical figures, and how theater can illuminate the private relationships behind public lives. Here is our conversation with Ellen Abrams.

[1:39] Mark-Eugene Garcia: As many of you might know, Eleanor was orphaned by the time she was 10. Her mother died of diphtheria when Eleanor was only 8, and her father, who seemed to have been suffering from both alcoholism and mental illness, jumped to his death two years later. She was only 10. She lived a lonely existence up in Tivoli, New York with her grandmother and very eccentric aunts and uncles. Alice was born on February 12th in 1884, the same year as Eleanor. Two days after she was born, her mother died of undiagnosed Bright's disease, which is what we call nephritis nowadays, and her grandmother died of typhoid fever on the same day. So, this is Teddy's wife and Teddy's mother died on the same day. Very shortly thereafter, Teddy, still in a state of shock over his losses, took off for the Black Hills of the Dakotas to start a business raising cattle, leaving Alice to be raised by her beloved Aunt Bambi.

He returned to New York when Alice was two years old. Eleanor was the quintessential Democrat, Alice the most Republican of Republicans. Both were two of the most influential and fascinating women of the 20th century.

[2:53] Mark-Eugene Garcia: My rendering of the rest of their lives will be performed for you this evening by Laura Foyce, playing Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, and Megan Magee plays Alice, Eleanor's first cousin and Teddy Roosevelt's exceedingly high-spirited daughter Alice. And now let me give you a background of our actresses. Laura is a founding member of Up Theatre Company, dedicated to developing and producing new works in Upper Manhattan. She has also performed at MCC Theatre, the York Theatre, EST, Emerging Artists, Theatre for a New City, and the Lions Theatre on Theatre Row. Megan is an actor and director in theatre and film, specializing in new works. She has performed at Sherry Lane, Theatre Lab, Theatre for a New City, The Triad, and many times at the Arthur Selig Theatre at the former Drama Bookshop.

[3:56] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And now I present to you Eleanor and Alice. This setting is the wraparound porch at President Theodore Roosevelt's weekend home in Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Eleanor and Alice are 19 years old. It is 1904.

[4:37] Alice: Why, is she always late, even at her own home? It is so like her.

[4:44] Eleanor: Eleanor, darling, lovely to see you. I hope I haven't kept you waiting.

[4:49] Alice: Not for too long.

[4:50] Eleanor: I would apologize for being late, but I never apologize. That is a point of pride with me. I never do it.

[4:57] Alice: It is no surprise to hear you say so. Wonderful to see you, dearest. The last time we met was at the family reunion. I told my friend how pretty you looked. So confident, so lively.

[5:15] Eleanor: And you certainly look healthy.

[5:18] Alice: Oh, I always love it here at your Sagamore. Although it is rarely peaceful, it is so much fun.

[5:28] Eleanor: Of course it is. I live here. Remember when the cousins used to race down that hill?

[5:34] Alice: I remember I beat everyone to the bottom. Even you, despite how much longer your legs were.

[5:39] Eleanor: So energetic. Much like your father.

[5:43] Alice: That's just what I always hoped he would say.

[5:48] Eleanor: May I share something absolutely evil with you?

[5:53] Alice: If you like.

[5:54] Eleanor: After President McKinley was shot down like a big, dumb bison in Buffalo, Ted Jr. and I ran down onto the lawn right there.

[6:06] Alice: Yes?

[6:07] Eleanor: And we danced a jig.

[6:11] Alice: You did not!

[6:12] Eleanor: Oh, we most certainly did. A jolly old drunken Irish jig. And without a whiskey in sight.

[6:17] Alice: It is terribly wicked to be so delighted about a presidential assassination. Think of how poor Mr. McKinley must have suffered from that gunshot.

[6:28] Eleanor: But you can understand it, can't you? We were desolate when Father became Vice President. The end of his political career, we thought. And then, only six months later, what luck! That awful anarchist shoots a gun! And my father, your uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, becomes the 26th President of the United States.

[6:53] Alice: Why isn't the law of succession a wondrous thing?

[7:02] Eleanor: I suppose so, but celebrating a man's murder is not proper at all.

[7:08] Alice: Stop sulking about decorum. You are the favorite niece of the most popular President since George Washington.

[7:14] Eleanor: I do not know about being anyone's favorite anything.

[7:18] Alice: Don't play coy, dear. Everyone knows Father prefers you to me.

[7:23] Eleanor: Uncle Ted would never play favorites. It is not in his nature.

[7:27] Alice: The hell it isn't.

[7:28] Eleanor: Alice! Your language! He calls me guttersnipe, and he begs me to act more like you.

[7:35] Alice: I do not believe any such thing.

[7:37] Eleanor: You are more like him than I am. Performing your goody-goody works with the Junior League in the city, teaching filthy urchins to read, or whatever it is that you do.

[7:53] Alice: You could do it, too. So many less fortunate children and their families need every bit of relief we can offer.

[8:00] Eleanor: I couldn't care less about the less fortunate. And their lives are too sad, I'm sure.

[8:07] Alice: You do so enjoy shocking me.

[8:09] Eleanor: I do, indeed. But it is also how I truly feel. I'm only surprised that you and your settlement friends care so much about strangers.

[8:20] Alice: The Hebrew Bible says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

[8:31] Eleanor: Very pithy of the Hebrew Bible.

[8:36] Alice: Might I ask, what do you do with your days in Washington? I think you might enjoy settlement work.

[8:44] Eleanor: Tell me, what are you fervent about?

[8:49] Alice: Fun. Every day I try fervently to have as much fun as I can fit into twenty-four hours. I make Father and Step-Mama Edith furious with my antics, which makes it even more fun.

[9:03] Eleanor: Dear, you are positively glowing. Have you found a missing jigsaw puzzle piece? Heard a naughty joke? Or have you merely been walking briskly?

[9:18] Alice: The truth is, there is something, someone, a new friend in my life.

[9:27] Eleanor: And?

[9:29] Alice: I have a favor to ask of you.

[9:31] Eleanor: My answer is yes.

[9:32] Alice: You do not even know!

[9:33] Eleanor: Does it rhyme with Cridesfade?

[9:36] Alice: Cridesnade? Yes. However did you guess?

[9:39] Eleanor: Darling, the last time we met, every sentence you uttered included an anecdote about your mysterious friend, who I assume is Cousin Franklin. Congratulations, dear girl.

[9:55] Alice: Aside from his mama, you are the first person who knows. She insisted that we keep our engagement a secret. For a year.

[10:04] Eleanor: Who could keep an engagement secret for that long?

[10:08] Alice: I think she believes, or hopes, that Franklin will have a change of heart.

[10:14] Eleanor: By Godfrey, what a witch! You're not afraid he will find someone else, are you?

[10:20] Alice: It is just, he is so handsome. He could have any girl he wants, any beautiful girl.

[10:29] Eleanor: Darling, you are the girl he wants.

[10:33] Alice: I can scarcely believe my good fortune at marrying at all, let alone Cousin Franklin.

[10:39] Eleanor: He could do so much worse than you.

[10:44] Alice: Thank you. I did not mean that quite the way it sounded.

[10:48] Eleanor: I too have set my cap for someone that Father introduced me to.

[10:52] Alice: Congressman Nicholas Longworth of the Ohio Longworths.

[10:57] Eleanor: We aren't exactly engaged yet, but that is just a matter of time and some prodding.

[11:04] Alice: I have no doubt of your success.

[11:07] Eleanor: Have you heard the story that Father has been telling?

[11:10] Alice: The one about when the writer Owen Wister visited the White House?

[11:14] Eleanor: I was dashing about like a dervish, as usual, wearing my pet snake Emily like a necklace, and Mr. Wister complained.

[11:21] Alice: And Father replied,

[11:23] Eleanor: I can run the country, or I can control Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.

[11:34] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Sagamore Hill. Eleanor and Alice are 34. It is 1920.

[11:41] Alice: What a miserable waste of good young men the Great War was.

[11:46] Eleanor: If you disliked the war so much, why did you taunt Franklin when he was running for Vice President with Mr. Cox for not joining up?

[11:54] Alice: It was a matter of being a Roosevelt. Doing the right thing when your country calls.

[12:00] Eleanor: But Franklin and Cox lost anyway. Now that I think of it, Franklin might have been lucky to have lost an election so early in his life. He can watch from the sidelines as my brother Ted and I mow down every competitor on our way back to the White House to take up Father's mantle.

[12:18] Alice: In point of fact, despite losing, Franklin is more committed to political life than ever.

[12:25] Eleanor: And what makes you think so?

[12:27] Alice: It's a private matter.

[12:29] Eleanor: Oh, a secret. I love secrets. You can always tell me a secret.

[12:35] Alice: I love them more than life itself.

[12:37] Eleanor: Not a secret. Just private. Personal.

[12:42] Alice: Another war wound, in a way.

[12:45] Eleanor: Ah, I know what you are referring to.

[12:48] Alice: You can't possibly.

[12:50] Eleanor: Of course I do, darling. You couldn't have been completely surprised. Handsome husband and father stuck in Washington while the wife and chicks head off for the summer. Your lovely secretary stays behind.

[13:06] Alice: I will forgive him. Eventually. Possibly.

[13:13] Eleanor: But I have a memory like an elephant. I will never forget.

[13:18] Alice: Come now, Eleanor. Never's a very long time. We are sophisticated people. We forgive. We forget. We move on.

[13:27] Eleanor: He deceived me in such a tawdry way.

[13:33] Alice: He was bored and lonely and one long hot summer and he fell in love with another woman.

[13:40] Eleanor: When he loved me, I knew I was worth loving.

[13:46] Alice: I once thought Nick loved me. But it turned out it was my family name he adored.

[13:53] Eleanor: He never cared two figs about me.

[13:56] Alice: I found Lucy and Franklin's love letters when I was unpacking his bags from a trip.

[14:02] Eleanor: And when I did, the bottom fell out of my world.

[14:07] Alice: The sense of betrayal nearly destroyed me.

[14:11] Eleanor: I saw them that summer, Lucy and Franklin motoring together.

[14:15] Alice: You knew? You knew and you didn't tell me?

[14:19] Eleanor: I did try, but I just couldn't.

[14:24] Alice: In any case, Franklin came back to you in the end.

[14:28] Eleanor: Mama informed Franklin that he would receive no further financial support.

[14:34] Eleanor Roosevelt: For his political career. And Mr. Howe, his campaign manager, reminded him that he could never aspire to higher office as a divorced man. Poor Franklin, he didn't have much choice then, did he? Poor Franklin, indeed. I offered him his freedom. I did not relish divorce in the least, but I insisted on one, unless Franklin renounced Lucy for good. If he had not promised me that, I could not have gone on with him. If only I could have divorced Nick in 1912, as I had wanted. But father convinced me it would have been a betrayal of the American people. So Nick and I have remained together. I hope the American people are reassured. In most circumstances, I believe divorce should be avoided.

[15:34] Alice Roosevelt: You are confident that Franklin will keep his promise to stay away from Lucy?

[15:38] Eleanor Roosevelt: Of course. He is an honorable man.

[15:41] Alice Roosevelt: You think so? I have heard it whispered that some of our relations, not me necessarily, wondered if dear cousin Franklin originally admired you because of your close relationship to his hero, my father? Is that what the family thinks?

[16:02] Eleanor Roosevelt: That Franklin was drawn to me because of Uncle Ted, and not because he loved me for myself? Now don't be so dramatic. I was just being provocative. It is my particular gift, as you know.

[16:19] Alice Roosevelt: So will you take a lover?

[16:19] Eleanor Roosevelt: What a question! You know me better than that. I will continue to work with the League of Women Voters. Now that we women have the power of the vote, we must use it. Although I was no suffragist, I adore voting. It is one of my two great passions in life. Champagne is the other. Make that three. I have taken a lover.

[16:47] Alice Roosevelt: How could you do such a thing? It is immoral. You are a president's daughter.

[16:53] Eleanor Roosevelt: Why shouldn't I? Father is gone, and everyone knows what Nick is. The Congressional doorkeeper calls him the biggest womanizer in the history of the Capitol.

[17:06] Alice Roosevelt: What if, somehow, we were given the ability to go back to our girlhoods again? Before we made these marriages, would we make the same decisions, the same mistakes?

[17:20] Eleanor Roosevelt: Don't look back, dear. Just don't. The secret to my happiness is not to brood on things. Avanti, as the Italians say. Ever forward. I wish I could move on. But once a bell has been rung, it cannot be unrung. And I cannot stop thinking about it.

[17:41] Alice Roosevelt: Very sad, I'm sure. To me, it is the saddest thing in the world.

[17:51] Eleanor Roosevelt: Sagamore Hill. Eleanor and Alice are 38. It is 1922.

[17:59] Alice Roosevelt: Good God, you look awful. I hope you received my letter. I meant every word I wrote. We have all been desperately worried about Franklin. Edith and Ted Jr., too.

[18:13] Eleanor Roosevelt: I received no letter from you or Ted. Edith wrote a kind note, though.

[18:20] Alice Roosevelt: Must have gotten lost in the mail. How vexing. I said something about how happy Franklin could be now, living quietly at Hyde Park, out of the public gaze, with nothing more vigorous for him to do than to look at his stamp collection. And how sad that his political career ended quite before it started.

[18:42] Eleanor Roosevelt: Actually, Franklin does not believe his political future is over. That sort of self-deception might help keep his spirits up, no?

[19:00] Alice Roosevelt: I almost cried, too, when I heard he had contracted polio. Just such a vigorous man he was. Lovely dancer. Tall and graceful.

[19:10] Eleanor Roosevelt: Nick has no talent on the dance floor. But my husband does other things on floors, of course. Just ask Sissy Patterson, the potato-faced newspaper heiress who he seduced on my Persian rug, and who actually had the cheek to ask that her purse and stockings be returned to her.

[19:31] Alice Roosevelt: I'm sorry, what was that? What were you saying?

[19:34] Eleanor Roosevelt: Nothing very important.

[19:37] Alice Roosevelt: Have you tried prayer? They say it reassures people in distress.

[19:43] Eleanor Roosevelt: I'll pour us tea, and not speak of anything unpleasant. I do pray, in fact. Every night. I pray that Franklin will recover from this terrible affliction. But neither prayer nor medicine will make that miracle happen.

[20:02] Alice Roosevelt: Who knows about these things? Perhaps he will mend in a year or two.

[20:05] Eleanor Roosevelt: There is no possibility of that. None.

[20:09] Alice Roosevelt: Do not despair, dear. You will still manage to live very well, even if Franklin never recovers.

[20:16] Eleanor Roosevelt: Thanks to his mama's lovely lute.

[20:18] Alice Roosevelt: Is it possible that you did not understand our situation? Our family, our world, has come near to collapse. Franklin's needs are endless. I work with therapists, remove clammy sheets from his bed, monitor his children's visits. I insert catheters, empty bedpans.

[20:43] Eleanor Roosevelt: Please, no more details. Everyone needs more of me than I have to give. I fear I am failing all of them, all of the time. And I do not have the luxury of collapse or surrender, which is all I want to do.

[21:02] Alice Roosevelt: If I were you, I'd hire more help.

[21:12] Eleanor Roosevelt: The setting is Eleanor's homey little cottage, Valkill, up the road from the big house in Hyde Park, New York. Eleanor and Alice are 48 years old. It is March 1933.

[21:28] Alice Roosevelt: You must be awfully pleased with yourselves. Franklin did terribly well, didn't he? Almost 23 million votes, and he carried 42 states. The country has elected the right man for our times.

[21:49] Eleanor Roosevelt: The wrong man for any time. Hoover should have demanded a recount. How many illegal immigrants voted? How many dead Democrats? Your party has stolen what was rightfully ours. My brothers, Ted's.

[22:02] Alice Roosevelt: I am still a bit surprised that Mr. Hoover didn't lose by a greater number. One third of the country is unemployed, don't forget.

[22:12] Eleanor Roosevelt: I can't quite place which historical tyrant Franklin reminds me of most. Caesar or Robespierre?

[22:20] Alice Roosevelt: Alice, dear, you look pale. Perhaps you should lie down to recover.

[22:26] Eleanor Roosevelt: Is it true that your special friend, the lady reporter, will be spending time with you at the White House?

[22:34] Alice Roosevelt: Do you mean Miss Hickock? What are you implying?

[22:38] Eleanor Roosevelt: Everyone knows about your sapphic circle, Eleanor.

[22:42] Alice Roosevelt: I hardly think that my friend should interest anyone but me. I still have a private life to be respected.

[22:50] Eleanor Roosevelt: You cannot possibly be that naive. Washington is a bonfire of gossip. Anything that goes on in or around the White House is fuel for it.

[23:00] Alice Roosevelt: That will not be true of the Roosevelt White House.

[23:04] Eleanor Roosevelt: But my dear, it already is. And Franklin has barely taken office. Rumors are rampant.

[23:10] Alice Roosevelt: Do you have anything to do with this storytelling?

[23:19] Eleanor Roosevelt: Not very much.

[23:22] Alice Roosevelt: That is scandalous. Insupportable. How little you know about Washington. My Republicans will reveal your weaknesses and revel in doing so. And it gives me only small pleasure to say the nation will suffer because of it.

[23:39] Eleanor Roosevelt: We shall see. Won't we?

[23:56] Eleanor Roosevelt: Val Kill, Eleanor, and Alice are 60 years old. It is 1944.

[24:03] Alice Roosevelt: After the Great War, I was a confirmed pacifist. But this situation is different. Absolutely dire. All war is terrible. There's no rationale for any of them. But your Franklin manipulated the entire country into this one.

[24:20] Eleanor Roosevelt: You know very well that Franklin did not maneuver us into this war. There could be no isolationism after Pearl Harbor. We need not wage that tiresome argument between us again.

[24:33] Alice Roosevelt: The Japs only bombed us after Franklin refused to sell them the oil they needed. We should have listened to Lindbergh.

[24:40] Eleanor Roosevelt: If we had listened to Lindbergh, we would all be speaking German right now. Even your brother Ted resigned from your isolationist America First Committee the day after the attack. Can you even begin to imagine how I feel after losing him? I have no one left but my nervous, stuttering daughter Paulina.

[25:03] Alice Roosevelt: Our family's losses have been tragic. It was heroic for all three of your brothers to join up and serve their country, given their ages. In my column, I wrote about their bravery and sacrifice.

[25:18] Eleanor Roosevelt: No one I know reads your column anymore. Not after the Marian Anderson debacle in '39. Americans only want to speak about the good features of this country and to hide our problems like skeletons in the closet. Nothing good can be accomplished with that attitude.

[25:37] Alice Roosevelt: Fretting about the colored people when we were on the verge of war? Priorities, Eleanor, where were your priorities?

[25:45] Eleanor Roosevelt: We must address the issues of our day in the moment as they occur. And the issue of Negro rights is a vital concern that must be addressed now. One of the main destroyers of freedom in our country is our punishing attitude toward the colored race.

[26:02] Alice Roosevelt: You are becoming a menace, do you know that? Some of these ideas you spread about in your column, they're anti-American.

[26:13] Eleanor Roosevelt: I have over four million readers. Think of the attention I have been able to direct to the most important issues of our times.

[26:23] Alice Roosevelt: You must be raking in money hand over fist. The columns, your little articles, chatty speeches. Who wears the pants in your family anyway, you or Franklin?

[26:35] Eleanor Roosevelt: In fact, last year I did earn more than Franklin from my writing.

[26:40] Alice Roosevelt: Do your dear devoted readers know how much filthy lucre you collect?

[26:45] Eleanor Roosevelt: I donate all of it to charity.

[26:47] Alice Roosevelt: Of course you do. I see newspaper photos all the time of you pestering injured soldiers at military hospitals. Can't you just let them recover in peace?

[26:59] Eleanor Roosevelt: Some of them just want a mother to talk with, to hold their hand. There was one boy whose face had been mostly blown off by a grenade.

[27:10] Alice Roosevelt: Oh please, Eleanor, I can't listen. His entire head was wrapped in gauze with just a small portal to breathe through. How do you possibly have the mettle to do it?

[27:22] Eleanor Roosevelt: In any case, you and your husband have stayed on too long. Time for both of you to relinquish the reins.

[27:29] Alice Roosevelt: That is for the people to decide. We will be gone soon enough.

[27:38] Eleanor Roosevelt: Thou kill. Eleanor and Alice are 73 years old.

[27:42] Alice Roosevelt: Hurry, Alice, or we shall miss it. Come, the future will not wait for us. We must catch it before it flies away.

[27:50] Eleanor Roosevelt: The path outside needs attention. I almost slipped on a blanket of leaves and broke my neck. Get someone to see to it immediately. Alice, quickly!

[27:59] Alice Roosevelt: I think I see something.

[28:01] Eleanor Roosevelt: Alice!

[28:02] Alice Roosevelt: Are you sure?

[28:04] Eleanor Roosevelt: I see a bright light. Is that what you're seeing? And there it goes.

[28:12] Alice Roosevelt: And once I thought driving a car was spectacular.

[28:16] Eleanor Roosevelt: It was, back in its time. But time, it seems, has moved on.

[28:23] Alice Roosevelt: I'm shaking all over.

[28:25] Eleanor Roosevelt: You always have been the excitable type. You are not moved at the sight of such a thing.

[28:32] Alice Roosevelt: I am not even sure what we're looking at. The tail end of, what, a beach ball in space?

[28:39] Eleanor Roosevelt: Just the mere fact of it is extraordinary.

[28:43] Alice Roosevelt: I don't understand the thrill about something that doesn't actually do anything.

[28:48] Eleanor Roosevelt: I read that Sputnik means traveling companion. What a clever name.

[28:55] Alice Roosevelt: Such a waste, don't you think? Firing off something that is just going to destroy itself and end up who knows where.

[29:05] Eleanor Roosevelt: I know you are grieving for your dear Polly.

[29:09] Eleanor Roosevelt: How can I help you? Talk to me.

[29:12] Alice Roosevelt: I am completely inconsolable. I cannot even bear speaking of her, of it.

[29:18] Eleanor Roosevelt: I am desolate for you. Poor Lina was a lovely, kind, young woman.

[29:24] Alice Roosevelt: No one has paid a higher price for bad mothering than me.

[29:29] Eleanor Roosevelt: But I must thank you for the lovely, the extraordinary letter you wrote to me when she died.

[29:38] Alice Roosevelt: It was—

[29:39] Eleanor Roosevelt: She was a spirit, perhaps too fragile for this world.

[29:42] Alice Roosevelt: Please let me say it. I am not used to speaking like this, but I must tell you—

[29:46] Eleanor Roosevelt: Not necessary.

[29:47] Alice Roosevelt: It was the kindest letter I have ever received.

[29:52] Eleanor Roosevelt: So tender, so caring, I cannot tell you how deeply your words touched me.

[29:58] Alice Roosevelt: Please, no need.

[30:02] Eleanor Roosevelt: I tried so many times to reply to it, but every time I did, I just buckled.

[30:07] Alice Roosevelt: I couldn't even write her name. Only now can I speak it.

[30:11] Eleanor Roosevelt: My dear Alice—

[30:12] Alice Roosevelt: Be thankful you have never outlived a child. It is the worst thing imaginable.

[30:21] Eleanor Roosevelt: Pardon me, Eleanor, please. I had forgotten.

[30:25] Alice Roosevelt: That was so long ago.

[30:30] Eleanor Roosevelt: Forty-eight years.

[30:33] Alice Roosevelt: I still visit the baby's grave, so he is less lonely.

[30:38] Eleanor Roosevelt: When the time comes, I will be buried next to poor Lina in Washington and be with her forever.

[30:48] Alice Roosevelt: By the way, happy birthday in advance, Eleanor.

[30:53] Eleanor Roosevelt: What a strange age to be. Seventy-three.

[31:00] Alice Roosevelt: I have been feeling it lately.

[31:03] Eleanor Roosevelt: When I was young, I could envision being old, just not getting old.

[31:10] Alice Roosevelt: Everything has become a bit more difficult.

[31:15] Eleanor Roosevelt: Did it ever occur to you that in a way, you and I have always been like Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots?

[31:26] Alice Roosevelt: Rivals battling for control of a great nation.

[31:30] Eleanor Roosevelt: I never thought of us like that.

[31:32] Alice Roosevelt: They never met, of course, and we've known each other all our lives, but think of it.

[31:38] Eleanor Roosevelt: Alike, but different. Royal, but real women, too.

[31:44] Alice Roosevelt: Which of us is which? I would never have you beheaded, Alice.

[31:50] Eleanor Roosevelt: Could you promise the same to me?

[31:53] Alice Roosevelt: Ay, perhaps it is fortunate that we didn't live back then.

[32:01] Eleanor Roosevelt: Val Kill, Eleanor and Alice are seventy-eight years old. It is nineteen-sixty-two.

[32:08] Alice Roosevelt: I brought you a gift. A duplicate of the pillow I keep in my home in Washington.

[32:16] Eleanor Roosevelt: Thank you so much. What does it say?

[32:20] Alice Roosevelt: If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.

[32:29] Eleanor Roosevelt: How perfectly that captures you.

[32:32] Alice Roosevelt: It doesn't it?

[32:34] Eleanor Roosevelt: The original has pride of my place in my living room on full nasty display.

[32:39] Alice Roosevelt: I will keep it there. Hear it, Val Kill, and think of you fondly.

[32:45] Eleanor Roosevelt: Won't all your liberal friends be shocked when they see it?

[32:48] Alice Roosevelt: They will, indeed. Nobody thinks I have a sense of humor.

[32:53] Eleanor Roosevelt: Of course you do. You're just terribly good at hiding it.

[32:59] Alice Roosevelt: You and Franklin certainly achieved everything you aimed for, didn't you?

[33:05] Eleanor Roosevelt: Almost accidentally. And not without a multitude of hiccups along the way.

[33:11] Alice Roosevelt: Our two families were like sky rockets that passed each other in the darkness.

[33:17] Eleanor Roosevelt: One launched, brilliant and dazzling, and then without warning began to fade and fall.

[33:26] Alice Roosevelt: One even as the other, even more brilliant and more dazzling, soared higher and still higher into God's embrace.

[33:33] Eleanor Roosevelt: I could see it even as it was happening. It was unstoppable.

[33:38] Alice Roosevelt: You and Franklin were unstoppable, and nothing in the world made me angrier.

[33:44] Eleanor Roosevelt: You did not hide it from anyone, ever.

[33:49] Alice Roosevelt: Fate marked you for greatness, I am sure of it.

[33:52] Eleanor Roosevelt: I do not believe in fate. I believe in honesty, hard work, and caring for others.

[34:00] Alice Roosevelt: No, it was fate. Much as I tried to convince myself that they were, my brothers were not our father.

[34:10] Eleanor Roosevelt: In fact, Franklin was more like him than his own sons.

[34:14] Alice Roosevelt: Your brothers were all good men, good Roosevelts.

[34:19] Eleanor Roosevelt: But not fated for greatness.

[34:22] Alice Roosevelt: You are the Roosevelt that will be remembered.

[34:26] Eleanor Roosevelt: It should have been us, but...

[34:29] Alice Roosevelt: Life does have an unpredictable way of upending one's dreams.

[34:34] Eleanor Roosevelt: That is the galling truth.

[34:36] Alice Roosevelt: It has taken me nearly forty years to understand and almost accept it.

[34:42] Eleanor Roosevelt: I certainly don't like it.

[34:44] Alice Roosevelt: It is all in the past now.

[34:46] Eleanor Roosevelt: Time to move on from grudges and rancor.

[34:50] Alice Roosevelt: I could try, but it won't be easy.

[34:54] Eleanor Roosevelt: Someone told me, in jest, obviously, that President Kennedy nominated you for a Nobel Prize.

[35:03] Alice Roosevelt: Yes, perhaps something of the sort.

[35:06] Eleanor Roosevelt: Called you a living symbol of understanding and peace.

[35:10] Alice Roosevelt: Pointless chatter.

[35:12] Eleanor Roosevelt: Your modesty has long been an unfortunate fetish, my dear.

[35:16] Alice Roosevelt: If you say so.

[35:19] Eleanor Roosevelt: Of all the President's wives, none of us has used her position in quite the same way you have.

[35:26] Alice Roosevelt: Although I am sure I would have.

[35:29] Eleanor Roosevelt: If you had been a President's wife?

[35:31] Alice Roosevelt: If I had been President.

[35:34] Eleanor Roosevelt: Do you think we will ever have a Lady President?

[35:37] Alice Roosevelt: The twentieth century certainly seems one for miracles.

[35:41] Eleanor Roosevelt: If we have enough female voters, perhaps we can vote one in ourselves.

[35:46] Alice Roosevelt: I do not think we can count on men for that.

[35:49] Eleanor Roosevelt: It is time for the women in our family to start their own Roosevelt political dynasty.

[35:55] Alice Roosevelt: The important thing is that we meet life with courage and with the best that we have to give.

[36:00] Eleanor Roosevelt: That sounds fine, but not everyone has your courage.

[36:04] Alice Roosevelt: Well, beg pardon, what did you say?

[36:06] Eleanor Roosevelt: What was that?

[36:07] Alice Roosevelt: Well, did you say something?

[36:08] Eleanor Roosevelt: I don't believe I did.

[36:09] Alice Roosevelt: Indeed.

[36:13] Eleanor Roosevelt: We have lived extraordinary lives, haven't we?

[36:18] Alice Roosevelt: Indeed we have.

[36:20] Eleanor Roosevelt: I am so glad that we lived it together.

[36:26] Alice Roosevelt: Yay!

[36:47] Eleanor Roosevelt: Thank you so much.

[36:48] Alice Roosevelt: And now we will have a little chat with the author.

[36:52] Eleanor Roosevelt: Can we give them another hand?

[36:54] Alice Roosevelt: Please.

[37:03] David Rigano: So, hi, Ellen.

[37:05] Ellen Abrams: What a lovely excerpt.

[37:08] David Rigano: Thank you.

[37:09] Ellen Abrams: And I have been reading the play.

[37:12] David Rigano: I didn't make it all the way through.

[37:13] Ellen Abrams: But I know that there's even more delights in there.

[37:17] David Rigano: I loved the part where they're watching Sputnik.

[37:21] Ellen Abrams: I thought that driving a car was because I loved the scene.

[37:24] David Rigano: What a great line.

[37:26] Ellen Abrams: There's a line early on where she goes, oh, you don't learn how to drive a car. You just get in it and drive.

[37:30] David Rigano: And as someone who has never enjoyed driving and, in fact, does not have a license.

[37:37] Ellen Abrams: You're a true New Yorker.

[37:39] David Rigano: Yes, yeah.

[37:40] Ellen Abrams: So I want to talk to you a little bit about these two remarkable women, one of whom, of course, history really remembers. What sparked the idea for you to write about them?

[37:53] David Rigano: Did it start with Eleanor?

[37:58] Ellen Abrams: Let's see. It did start with Eleanor, as everything good does. And I read about her. I've read about her. When my first Eleanor biography I read, I was in third grade. It was like from the scholastic book. I reprimanded my parents because by the time I read it, it must have been 65-ish. And I know I'm dating myself. And I reprimanded my parents for not telling me that Eleanor Roosevelt had died. I was 63. And so that really, it set me off for many years. And I've read other biographies of her and seen movies and things like that. And then when I started developing or delving more into Eleanor, and then you find Alice. I had known about Alice as well. Alice lived until 1980. She was born in 1884 and lived until 1980. She met every president starting with Cleveland. And she did not meet Reagan because he wasn't quite inaugurated by the time she died. She didn't meet Jimmy Carter because she didn't want to meet Jimmy Carter.

[39:02] David Rigano: Oh, okay.

[39:04] Ellen Abrams: But she met JFK. She loved Jackie. She was crazy about Bobby Kennedy when he was attorney general. She was in Washington. Her father was Teddy Roosevelt. He had her foot in everything and sometimes her foot in her mouth. And she used to do an imitation of Eleanor at Republican dinner parties. And apparently it was quite cruel and yet somewhat accurate. And at some point Eleanor asked her to do an imitation of her in front of her. And she demurred. That was a little too far even for Alice.

[39:39] David Rigano: Okay.

[39:40] Ellen Abrams: So Eleanor never got to see this infamous—

[39:42] David Rigano: No, Eleanor didn't get to see it just as well.

[39:44] Ellen Abrams: But they're fascinating. They're like you can't find – it's great when you go into history and you discover two people who are the exact opposites and you can write about them. And there are stories about them and there's writing about them. And they already have this wonderful connection that's there for you to mine.

[40:04] David Rigano: Exactly.

[40:05] Ellen Abrams: They are first cousins, not third cousin. Christopher's cousin I wasn't close to, but we weren't like this.

[40:10] David Rigano: Yeah.

[40:12] Ellen Abrams: And they're just literate, interesting people who have seen the world and they are fun to write about and fun to read.

[40:20] David Rigano: So then – and it sounds like a lot of the research was done before you decided to write about them. Because I had done just general research that wasn't even research.

[40:30] Ellen Abrams: Yeah, not research, just for the fun of—

[40:30] David Rigano: Yeah, I was just reading it.

[40:33] Ellen Abrams: So what kind of research goes into writing a play like this?

[40:38] David Rigano: Yes.

[40:39] Ellen Abrams: And I had a book of Eleanor's columns. I had – Eleanor wrote a memoir, a big memoir that they divided into three parts. And then because it was so long, they republished it and they just put it into one book. So I had that one book because I didn't want to read three books. And Alice also had her memoirs, which are not nearly as entertaining as Eleanor's. And then, of course, there are all these articles.

[41:01] David Rigano: You had said to me upstairs that despite being a kind of bon vivant and a wild thing at parties, siphoning that into writing was not her talent.

[41:12] Ellen Abrams: It wasn't her talent. Her talent was being a conversationalist.

[41:15] David Rigano: Yeah.

[41:16] Ellen Abrams: And I think Nixon called her the most entertaining woman in Washington. And yes, if you could take those slings, she'd beat up on you, even if she liked you. But she was crazy for Bobby Kennedy, so I guess she didn't beat up on Bobby Kennedy.

[41:32] David Rigano: Yeah.

[41:33] Ellen Abrams: So it's just there's so much written about Eleanor, and there's enough written about Alice that you can underway through and develop her character just from things other people said. She was at some dinner party and babbling on about something or other, and another guest said, "You speak, Kev, do you remember the quote? You speak more silliness with more certainty than anyone I ever met."

[42:06] David Rigano: But she loved it.

[42:07] Ellen Abrams: Being called on her silliness.

[42:09] David Rigano: So from that point where you say there was enough written about Alice, how much do you have to fill in the gaps with guesswork or just purely invention and dramatization?

[42:24] Ellen Abrams: It's an interesting question because with Eleanor, there's very little you need to fill in. It's all there. But with Alice, you do have to do some filling in. And you just find what you think is the kind of way she would respond to a question or an issue. And it's not hard to find that. It's hard to find the specifics of that. And then that's when you let your imagination go crazy and say, How would she say this? She was against the war. How would she say she was against the war? And doubtless, they had conversations where she hated World War. She loved World War I until it was over. She hated World War II. As a lot of Americans did, they were eager to get into World War I, but it was such 18 months of horror. As many men, American soldiers were killed in the 18 months we were in World War I as in the years we were in Vietnam, the 8,000. It was a terrible war. And World War II, of course, millions were killed.

[43:19] David Rigano: Yes.

[43:20] Ellen Abrams: But Alice was by then against any international intervention, as were many people and many Republicans and conservative people. And, of course, she was younger during World War I. So I don't know how—

[43:33] David Rigano: So she's only 1884. In 1914, she's – can I do the math? Thirty.

[44:12] Mark-Eugene Garcia: The comment for the podcast audience was that one of the fascinating things our audience member found was that a lot of what they're talking about, it sounds like they could be talking about things going on right now, and it does sound in some ways like you chose specific issues, perhaps maybe regarding the 1932 election and how the Republicans reacted to Roosevelt. How much of that is, you know that the sort of sentiment was around, and we'll put it into language, that relates to today, and how much of it was the same issues being talked about then?

[45:20] Ellen Abrams: It's a little bit of both. Nobody thought Roosevelt, nobody accused Roosevelt of fixing the elections, nobody needed to on his broker, but Alice was very upset at Roosevelt's New Deal. In the play, in the full play, I go into more of the things that Roosevelt was doing to help people, that Alice is watching be done, the alphabet agencies, the FAA and the FECA and FEMA. And, of course, there is that great line where she says, I take no joy in saying this, but he's going to be terrible for the country, and, of course, he pulls the country out of the Depression, which, of course, I think we've heard that said about other recent presidents who wound up really yanking us out of bad situations, too, in very recent memory that I can think of.

[46:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: So was there anything regarding dead Democrats on the ballots or immigrants? That used to be a thing in New York politics.

[46:22] Ellen Abrams: When Tammany Hall ran New York politics from, what, the 1880s to the early 60s or mid-60s, there's a great Eleanor Roosevelt story about Tammany. Tammany was the Democratic machine in New York for most of the last century. And there was a congressman from the village, he was Carmine DiSapio?

[46:41] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[46:42] Ellen Abrams: He was a district leader.

[46:43] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[46:44] Ellen Abrams: Oh, he wasn't a congressman, district leader. And he had done one of her sons, she had four sons and one daughter, and he had done one of her sons dirt in politics and made sure he didn't get elected in New York City. And so she said to, I guess, her sons, or unless it was a reporter, she said, I told Carmine I would get him, and get him I did. So she destroyed his career, and just by being Eleanor Roosevelt, because she was, as she says, I have a memory like an elephant, and I don't forgive. But yeah, so in New York, there was a long history of shenanigans by Tammany Democrats, but that was on the wane by the time she had said it, and now Tammany doesn't even care.

[47:30] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Does anybody else have any questions? Mr. Baker.

[47:32] Audience Member: Do you want to talk a little bit about what happened with Alice's daughter, Pauline?

[47:39] Ellen Abrams: Oh, yes. My question is, what exactly was it that happened with Alice's daughter, Pauline?

[47:44] Ellen Abrams: All right. Now, this is, I'll try to do it briefly, but here we go. Alice and her husband, Nick Longworth, he was the Speaker of the House. He was a Republican. He was from Ohio. He was hugely popular, but he was a terrible alcoholic and womanizer. And I don't know why he married Alice, except, as I say, for her family name. But there came a time when, at the age of 40, Alice got pregnant, and her whole family, she has these brothers and another sister. They're all scratching their heads and saying, they called her sister. Did you see sister? Is she pregnant? I'm afraid to ask her. She was indeed pregnant, but it wasn't from her husband. She was having a long-term affair with a senator from Idaho, is he? William Borah. And he was the father of her child. She never told her husband that he wasn't the father. He thought, until his dying day, and he died youngish, in his early 60s, I think.

[48:52] Audience Member: Was there an issue of if he had ever sat down to do the math, he could have figured it out?

[48:56] Ellen Abrams: That's a good point. Never heard anything people talk about, in a sense.

[49:00] Audience Member: Okay.

[49:01] Ellen Abrams: As far as anyone's concerned, the benefit of the doubt, the potential was there, but she knew that-

[49:08] Audience Member: Yes.

[49:09] Ellen Abrams: Okay. But her daughter, Paulina-

[49:11] Audience Member: These are the salacious details that I go for.

[49:15] Ellen Abrams: Her daughter, Paulina, but spelled Paulina, I don't know why they pronounce it Paulina, it's a rich person's thing, I think. So everybody called her Paulina. She was very nervous. She had a stutter. Of course, she had a stutter because her mother was always over her, wanting her to talk faster and speak. And she says, I introduced her to everybody important in the Republican Party. Her daughter wasn't that type of person. Her daughter wasn't her. Her daughter was very, I'm going to use the wrong word, receding. She just wanted to be in the back. She didn't want to be in politics. But she has a mother very interested in politics, and ostensibly a father interested in politics.

[49:51] Audience Member: It sounds like either way, a father interested in politics.

[49:53] Ellen Abrams: Yes, exactly. A real father and a pretend father. But she did do this nutty, cruel thing. She did a really cruel thing. On her daughter's wedding day, she got it into her head that she should tell Paulina who her real father was. On her wedding day, she told her, and she had no response. And Alice thought, okay, that's good. It didn't seem to have upset her. But of course it upset her. And she married very young. She married in 1944. She was only 19, and her mother didn't want to get married. It was very soon after her brother, Ted, had died. Her brother, Ted, had died in the war six weeks after we stormed Omaha Beach in August of 1944.

[50:37] Audience Member: Alice's brother.

[50:38] Ellen Abrams: Alice's brother, Ted Jr. And so she was still mourning her brother, her favorite sibling. And she tells her daughter this horrible thing, in a way, as some sort of revenge for Paulina wanting to get married so soon after her uncle, Ted, died. So she tells her this, and it sounds like Paulina was never the same. And in the theatrical tradition, she feels like a Mama Rose, or a Violet Weston from August Osage County, or I feel like we have, or an Amanda Wingfield. I feel like we have a great tradition of domineering, sabotaging, and self-sabotaging women who find themselves in competition with their own children.

[51:27] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Absolutely.

[51:28] Ellen Abrams: And Amanda Wingfield does it from the position of weakness, but Alice is like on top of everything.

[51:33] Mark-Eugene Garcia: But Amanda does it from the position of weakness.

[51:36] Ellen Abrams: So when you have done all of this research, how do you decide, first off, what goes in the play? And secondly, how you're going to sprinkle it out so your play isn't a history lesson, it is a dramatic work that feels like something compelling to watch?

[52:03] Ellen Abrams: I wish I knew. Somehow, I managed to do it. There were certain subjects I knew I wanted to bring up. And I knew I had to bring up Paulina and her father, the real father, or the false father. I had to bring up FDR's polio. I had to bring up in the play, I go into more detail about the elections and stuff like that. And I have to go into that they're the same age, but they're very different people. And then in the back half of their lives, the time, the 20th century, what's going on then. And it was, I was writing it at one point, and I skittered over to my husband, I said, Alice is taking over this play. And he said, yes, Alice will take over the play, because she's so upfront and she's so larger than life.

She's awful, but she's larger than life. And I've had many people come up to me and say, how could Eleanor take it? She was very, and Eleanor used to make believe that Alice was just joking, but Alice wasn't just joking. She was being mean and harsh and difficult.

[53:09] Ellen Abrams: I was telling David upstairs, in 1940, Alice gave an interview to a correspondent with Time Magazine. So Roosevelt's running for his third term, unprecedented third term. And the correspondent asked Alice if she was going to vote for Roosevelt, because she was a Republican. And she said, I'd rather vote for Hitler than vote for a third term for FDR. And that's what tipped it for FDR. He said, that's it. I never want to see that woman again. And he never did. He died four or five years later. But she thought, well, she's just having some fun. That's the way she is. Everybody knows that's the way she is. But that was a jibe too far for FDR. But I think in terms of her taking over the play and in terms of her being awful, like we just said, who doesn't want to play Amanda Wingfield or Mama Rose?

And how many times has Glass Menagerie and Gypsy, and we haven't seen a major revival of August Osage County yet, but I think that we will. How many times do these plays get revived? Because we want to go and watch these women. So of course, she's going to take over.

[54:17] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yes, it is like these big, larger than life people who are, if you think of one zone film, at least my mother wasn't like that.

[54:25] Ellen Abrams: Yeah, that's the other thing. You can sit there and go, eww. She had her problems. But yes, there is this, if not for that. But you do want to see these larger than life characters who are impossible. And if you knew them in real life, you would hate them. They would drive you crazy. They would hurt your feelings. They would want you, as June does in Gypsy, run away when she's 14, when she runs away, or 15, because she gets married and you can do that. Something like that, yeah.

[54:55] Mark-Eugene Garcia: In Omaha or Nebraska, somewhere.

[54:56] Ellen Abrams: Yeah. They're out in the Midwest, in the far West. So yes, she chases people away. Alice chases her daughter away, so she gets married at 19, to a guy who was also an alcoholic, a young guy, a rich guy. And he dies very young of cirrhosis. And cirrhosis used to be a disease of old men drinkers. It's not necessarily only a disease.

[55:19] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, yep.

[55:20] Ellen Abrams: You drink enough. That's all it takes. These women drive away their children and they scratch their heads and they say, why are they running away?

[55:30] Mark-Eugene Garcia: So the thing that I want to end it on is, what do you hope for the future of this play? And is any of it maybe in an educational setting? I know that I've certainly, I said to you upstairs, I knew a good deal more about Eleanor, but I didn't know about anything that she did in the fifties and sixties, because that's not the part of history that you learn about. I, again, I know that there's a musical called Teddy and Alice, but I really didn't know any. So I've had more of an education on both of these women here today than I got in my history classes. So is, do you think that the classroom is maybe a place where this...

[56:19] Ellen Abrams: I've been collating lists of college, women's colleges and women's high schools, and I'm going to send copies of the play out to them to see if I can interest people in performance. And I send it out to other theaters to try to gin up some interest. It's surprisingly difficult, but...

[56:35] Mark-Eugene Garcia: If you are listening to this podcast at the time that it has been live, then please reach out and say, we want the play. We want it in our school library, or we want to, and thank you so much for coming tonight and for bringing this fascinating and weird little two-hander with us.

[56:56] Ellen Abrams: And thank you all so much for coming tonight.

[56:59] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And we are back. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Drama Book Show. Our thanks to Ellen Abrams for sharing the story behind Eleanor and Alice and offering a fresh perspective on two remarkable women whose lives helped shape American history. Next time, we'll be joined by acclaimed playwright Taylor Mack to discuss The Hang, a wildly imaginative new musical set in ancient Athens that blends philosophy, comedy, music, and spectacle into a uniquely theatrical celebration of community. Moderated by Obie and Whiting Award-winning writer and director Chiyok Misha Chowdhury, it's a conversation you won't want to miss. For more information on the Drama Book Show and other events, visit our website at www.dramabookshop.com.