Tale of Albany power players
Drama opening off-broadway spotlights relationship of Corning and Noonan
At center stage, a woman in her mid-50s sits behind a sewing machine, the motor thrumming as she runs fabric beneath its needle. With bouffant hair and round glasses perched precipitously on the end of her nose, she seems the very picture of a grandmother, which she is: The sewing project consists of a pair of culottes for her granddaughter, Kirsten, age 11.
But while the woman at the machine may be a grandmother, she is also prone to strong language and is arguably the secondmost powerful person in Albany politics.
She is Dorothea Noonan, known to all by her nickname, Polly. The year is 1977, and for decades Noonan has been the closest confidante and most trusted behind-thescenes operative for Erastus Corning II, who has been mayor of Albany since 1941 and now, running for his 10th term, is facing his first primary. In the roughly seven months the play covers, following
the death of legendary Democratic Party leader Dan O’connell, Noonan’s shrewd skills at marshalling the vote among Albany’s heavily Democratic electorate would be invaluable for Corning as he faces a mayoral primary challenge from state Sen. Howard Nolan. But the rumors about the nature of the Corningnoonan relationship are growing louder and more insistent, and Corning considers whether to end their association.
“She’s an amazing character — and that’s what I thought she was, a character,” said Edie Falco, who stars as Noonan in “The True,” a play by Sharr White that is getting a world-premiere production by the New Group at an off-broadway theater in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. Falco, known for playing Tony Soprano’s wife, Carmela, in the HBO series “The Sopranos” and the title role in the Showtime series “Nurse Jackie,” said, “I didn’t know at first she was based on a real woman. She’s really so extraordinary.”
Falco was chatting last week between a rehearsal and a preview performance, sitting at a cafe table outside the theater with co-star Michael Mckean (“This Is Spinal Tap,” “Better Call Saul”), who plays Corning. Previews continue through Wednesday this week, with the official opening night on Thursday. Even before it has opened, “The True” has generated so much interest that another week was added to its run; it is now due to close Oct. 28 in the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center theater complex.
“Politics is a fantastic backdrop, and it’s even more relevant because of the chaos in our country right now,” said Falco. “But this story is really about people, and that’s what gets me — and gets me interested — every time.”
At the heart of the play is the relationship between Noonan and Corning, and among Noonan, Corning and Noonan’s husband, Peter (played by Peter Scolari, of “Bosom Buddies” and “Newhart” fame). White, whose other plays include Broadway productions of “The Snow Geese” and “The Other Place” that attracted top female stars such as Mary-louise Parker and Laurie Metcalf, said in a telephone interview that he left ambiguous in the play exactly what Noonan and Corning are to one another.
“To me, she’s somewhere between his Girl Friday and his Jiminy Cricket,” said Mckean of Noonan, “except this is a Jiminy with a really, really foul mouth, who can snap a man in two from 10 yards.”
Open to interpretation by the audience, the Noonan and Corning of the play may never have been lovers, they may once have been but are no longer, or they continue to be. (In life, both always denied a romantic angle.) In any
case, on the stage, Noonan and Corning are at least emotionally intimate and certainly highly dependent on one another; Noonan and Peter have a devoted, loving marriage; and Peter and Corning are close friends who drink whiskey while watching sports on TV at the Noonan home, where, if Peter doesn’t drive him home, Corning often spends the night in a guest bedroom and takes the Noonan kids to school in the morning. (Corning’s own marriage, as understood in the play, is significantly frostier, and his wife, seen only once, briefly, never speaks.)
“I think Sharr got that so right, the relationship of the three of them — Polly, Peter and Corning,” said Scott Elliott, who is artistic director of the New Group and is directing the premiere of “The True.” Elliott said, “We talk about the ‘modern family’ a lot now, but modern families existed back then, too, and that’s what these three are. It’s really quite beautiful.”
White, who was raised and attended college in California, has in recent years lived in New York, currently in the Hudson Valley. When Hillary Clinton was named secretary of state in 2009 and a little-know first-term congresswoman from upstate named Kirsten Gillibrand was chosen to replace Clinton as New York’s junior U.S. senator, White read a newspaper article detailing Gillibrand’s family history, including how her grandmother, one Polly Noonan, had been a major force in Albany city politics for decades. (Corning died in 1983; Noonan, a decade later, at age 88.)
“I usually start a play with a character who just absolutely begs to be written about, and here was this woman who had a really foul mouth and was known to punch rival Democratic women in the ribs during rallies, and she was always referred to as having all this power, but there was no record I could find about how she wielded that power,” said White, speaking during a phone interview.
“When I tell people the play is about politics in Albany in 1977, they get a blank look on their faces, and I understand that reaction,” White said. “What turns it into a play for me was that for these characters, the minutiae of machine politics really do feel like life-and-death struggles, and the relationship between Polly and Erastus Corning and Polly’s husband, Peter, on some levels had epic proportions to it.”
White said he did significant research for the play, including reading former Times Union reporter Paul Grondahl’s 500-page biography “Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma,” published in 1997.
“When writing about real people, I owe it to them and their families to get the facts and their personas right, but the facts only take you so far,” said White. “As a playwright, I take it from there, imagine the story and the scenes behind the facts and weave my fiction.”
“I think if you’re going to use their real names, you should keep it as close to fact as possible,” said Falco. “That’s especially true when some of the people in it are still alive, and there are still a lot of family members.”
White, who said he did not consult with Gillibrand or interview family members, said he would love for her to see the play, and he hopes to see it on the stage at Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany, where an earlier play about Albany politics, William Kennedy’s “Grand View,” had its premiere in 1996.
“It belongs on the stage in Albany,” he said.
Maggie Mancinelli-cahill, Capital Rep’s artistic director and director of “Grand View,” said she is eager to see or at least read “The True.” She declined to speculate whether she would consider producing it at Capital Rep until she is better able to consider whether it would be good programming choice for the theater.
Elliott is convinced “The True” has a future beyond its eight weeks of previews and regular performances off-broadway.
“It’s so specific to a time and place, but it really is a universal story,” Elliott said. “Just about anybody who’s ever been married will be able to relate, and on another level ... it’s about facing the fact of being at a point where you’re losing your relevance. Those are very human, universal things.”
“For me,” said Mckean, “the fact is that this man needed this woman.”
Said Falco, “And vice versa.”