Strong and Ready

The Ballad of Billy Lee. At Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort,
Sunday, December 10.

Reviewed by Charles Donelan

As great American heroes go, George
Washington enjoys a durable preeminence. He’s a double threat, as
both a military commander and a statesman. The whole “first
President,” “father of his country” mythology still packs a wallop.
And even that wacky, apocryphal childhood story about the cherry
tree has its charm. But the general has never been much of a buddy
figure. Washington was never just one of the boys, and it can be
hard to think of him as anyone’s sidekick. Len Lamensdorf’s
remarkable new script about Washington’s slave Billy Lee succeeds
not only in putting Washington in a useful new context, but also in
managing to create a character in Billy Lee that can stand next to
Washington without disappearing in his aura.

Billy Lee is a real historical figure about whom a fair amount
is known, including the fact that he was mentioned by name, set
free, and left a lifetime remittance in Washington’s will. The
Ballad of Billy Lee begins with the marvelous Henry Brown coming
onstage and letting us know immediately that we are hearing from an
older man, who says, by way of introduction, “You shoulda seen me
when I was younger!” From there the show takes us on a wild,
unpredictable ride shoulder-to-shoulder with George Washington,
from before the battles of Concord and Lexington through life at
Mount Vernon and the entire war — including the notorious winter at
Valley Forge — all the way to the Constitutional Convention,
Washington’s inauguration in New York, and his eventual death at
home in Mount Vernon.