Tea for Three

Elaine Bromka Brings Lady Bird, Pat and Betty to Hayes Center March 15

Story by Bernadette Cahill

At the end of a recent performance of Tea for Three—Elaine Bromka’s one-woman show about three presidential wives from the 1960s and 1970s, which comes to the Hayes Center in Blowing Rock for one performance on Sunday, March 15—a man stopped and spoke to her in the lobby.

“He said, ‘I’m glad I came. I felt as if I saw six people here tonight—the three presidents and their wives,’” the acclaimed actress said in a telephone interview.

The feedback is proof that though husbands often think the play is just for women, men also enjoy it.

The play about Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon and Betty Ford speaks to everybody.

“[The audience] will really have fun. It’s a feel-good play, but it touches on a lot of topics that are weighty. You don’t have to have known the women, but it brings back memories. Corporate wives would absolutely understand,” Bromka said.

Tea for Three is about three presidential wives in a turbulent time in the nation’s history. Two came to the White House in the wake of national trauma, and the third left the White House in the wake of national trauma.

Each had to face the challenges of what Pat Nixon called “the hardest unpaid job in the world,” a statement with more than immediately obvious significance: the era of these three women in the White House meshed with a period when women began to demand more in their lives than to be what the First Ladies represented—dignified and quiet support for husbands.

The play, Lady Bird, Pat and Betty, is an outgrowth from a previous show about the presidents in which Emmy Award-winning Bromka toured with Rich Little.

“I had to impersonate the eight first ladies [back] to Lady Bird. I wanted to do it from their point of view,” she said.

“After I worked on those eight, I talked about writing a play on my own. Then a producer put me together with Eric Weinberger, Tea For Three’s co-author. He said these three women are very different [and because of the age group] I could do them for a while.”

To take on the three characters was “a huge challenge culturally,” Bromka said. “Lady Bird Johnson was such a southern lady. She really took care of L.B.J. She was like a mother hen [and] very gracious. It was Lady Bird’s nature to be very circumspect. Pat Nixon was very, very private. She was stoic, solitary, watchful. I am very moved by the stoicism of Pat. And Betty was so much fun. They are very quirky people.”

Tea for Three “is a very funny play,” said Bromka. “Lady Bird, Pat and Betty talk about their husbands and about things that matter. It’s small talk that is so humanizing. It is tremendously poignant. You really do get to see what they are going through. It’s not just boring history. I get into their motivation: what would they reveal if they could?

“It’s not so much a political play as a psychological play. How did they meet their husbands? What were their quirks? What were they afraid of? Their humanity reaches people [and audiences] just flip for it. One woman said, ‘You let me walk in their shoes.’”

Even though the play is about women who became First Lady 40 years ago, Bromka said, she performs the play at colleges and while younger people hardly know the women, “they love the transformations [of a one-person show]. It’s a fun way to get to history. There are parallels with then and now.”

One couple after a performance expressed regret that they didn’t bring their 12-year old daughter.

“Young people get a lot out of it,” said Bromka.

The versatile Bromka has given countless film and television performances and had many on-Broadway and off-Broadway credits in 30 years in show business. She has appeared as the mother in Uncle Buck with John Candy, as Stella on Days of Our Lives, and on E.R., The Sopranos, and Law & Order.

Her collaborator, Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award-nominee Weinberger, is the author of several off-Broadway plays, including Wanda’s World and Class Mothers ’68.

For more information and to reserve tickets, call 828-295-9627 or click to www.HayesCenter.org.

Brunch Before Tea

To make going to Tea for Three: Lady Bird, Pat and Betty an even more special occasion, Sunday Arts Brunch packages are available, which include two tickets plus brunch for two at Bistro Roca for $65, Glidewell’s for $65 and Crippen’s for $80, alcohol not included. For more information, call 828-295-9627.

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