Polly’s power on display in ‘The True’
Female force in Albany politics gets local premiere at Capital Repertory Theatre
Finally getting her time in the spotlight, Dorothea “Polly” Noonan is the subject of a recent play, “The True,” which runs in a new production April 1-24 at the Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany. During her lifetime, Noonan kept about as low a profile as possible considering that she was a close confidant, adviser and friend to Erastus Corning for the duration of his 41-year reign as mayor of Albany
“I have no power ... I’m a full-time grandmother,” Noonan once said. Ever since one of her 11 grandchildren, Kirsten Gillibrand, then a first-term congresswoman, was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2009, there’s been a swell of interest in Noonan. Playwright Sharr White became captivated with Noonan after reading in The New York Times about Gillibrand’s sudden
rise to power and its antecedents in Albany politics. It prompted White to go “down the rabbit hole,” as he puts it, researching the machine politics of yore, the historic tenure of Corning, and the deft influence of Noonan. The result is “The True,” his play in nine scenes about the personal relationship of Noonan and Corning and their political dominion. The show debuted off-Broadway in September 2018 with Edie Falco (“The Sopranos,” “Nurse Betty”) as the strategically minded and famously foulmouthed Noonan.
“Polly was never elected and yet she wielded such power. What inspired such devotion and back-scratching? I just needed to know more about it,” says White, whose previous stage works
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include “The Snow Geese” and “The Other Place,” both of which played on Broadway in 2013. White had no trouble accessing a robust amount of information on Albany politics. His primary sources were the books of William Kennedy, including “O Albany!,” and Paul Grondahl’s definitive biography “Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma,” as well as the Times Union story archive.
Maggie Mancinelli-Cahill, The Rep’s producing artistic director, says she’s responding to demand in booking “The True” and she’s never before had so many audience members ask for a specific play. “The people who ask me for it feel ownership to this story. They remember Erastus and they knew Polly Noonan,” she says. A production of “The True” during the company’s first season in its new house also makes a nice follow-up to Mancinelli-Cahill’s first season as director in 1996, which included the debut staging of Kennedy’s “Grand View,” also a play about the days of Albany’s machine politics. In a previous interview she said that show was a hit that saved the company from closure.
“The True” takes place at a pivotal time in Albany history. The year is 1977 and the powerful Democratic boss Dan O’Connell has just died at age 91. Corning, his former protege, wants to succeed him as chair of the local party, but another Corning loyalist, Charlie Ryan, is angling for the job. Meanwhile, Corning is facing a primary challenge for the first time. He’s up against a newer model, the bright young state Sen. Howard Nolan.
Into this charged situation Sharr tosses a fictional but enticing
Had she been a man she’d have been mayor of Albany without a doubt. Her power was such that though constrained by the mores of traditional female roles she still dominated.”
— Sharr White
twist: Corning tells Noonan that they must part ways. This was inspired by historical evidence that O’Connell had wanted the mayor to drop his closest ally, though the boss’s reasoning isn’t clear. It could be that Noonan