A well-written account of Alexanders 199397 term as head of the
National Endowment of the Arts, smoothly interwoven with tales of
her stage and screen life.Until the NEA appointment, Alexanders
only bureaucratic experience was as a politically active citizen
(although she was urged to run for public office after portraying
Eleanor Roosevelt on a television program). Her commitment to the
NEA was bolstered by her role in The Great White Hope, which earned
her a Tony Award and an Oscar nomination and was developed with an
NEA grant. The organizing principle of her 15 theatrical chapter
titles, divided into two acts and bookended by a prologue and
epilogue, smartly links Alexanders professional world onstage with
her stint in the theater of politics. The Audition, The Rehearsal,
and Curtain Up detail the intricate voyage through nomination and
confirmation. On the heels of the swearing-in comes the process of
learning the ropes and expanding her list of useful acquaintances.
The many profiles of movers and shakers, for and against the NEA,
reveal a dry authorial wit and add human interest. No sooner did
this Washington outsider learn to deal with Beltway insiders than
she was confronted with the Gingrich Congress, which turned her
plan to increase NEA funding and visibility into a battle of
containmentif not extinction. The agency survived, but a personal
tragedy and mounting disenchantment with the time-wasting
politicization of the legislative process prompted Alexander to
resign. She compares the frustrating ditherings of bureaucracy to
the results-oriented production of a play (which benefits from a
more collaborative atmosphere for settling differences). The
authors intelligence and personable quality, combined with her
large cast of political and show-business celebrities, make for an
entertaining and informative discussion of important arts issues.
(8 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Kirkus Reviews)
Jane Alexander had never been involved in mainstream politics and
was happily engaged in her acting career when she was asked to
consider becoming head of the embattled National Endowment for the
Arts in the early 1990s. When, during her first visit to the Hill,
Senator Strom Thurmond barked at her, "You gonna fund pornography?"
she knew it would be a rough ride. Nothing had quite prepared her
for the role of madame chairman. Her tenure coincided with the
ascent of the infamous 104th Congress, presided over by Speaker
Newt Gingrich, and its campaign to eliminate the Endowment
completely. In Command Performance, Alexander brings a Washington
outsider's perspective and an actor's eye for the telling human
detail to an anecdote-filled story of the art of politics and the
politics of art. And at the start of a new administration in
Washington, she reminds us why we need art and why government
should be in the business of supporting it.
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