Historical debate

Saturday, Sept. 3, 2005 | 2:50 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

September 3-5, 2005

Performance times for Boulder City Chautauqua

All performances are in the Historic Boulder City Theatre, 1225 Arizona St.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for students under 17. Advanced tickets are recommended, and may be purchased by calling (702) 293-7688 or by visiting Borders bookstores.

Founding father Alexander Hamilton had a horse named Riddle.

He also negotiated 4 percent interest rates with the Dutch as the first secretary of the treasury.

Those are the kind of random facts you have to memorize if you are a chautauqua performer, says Hal Bidlack of Colorado Springs, Colo., who will be portraying the "Federalist Papers" author Friday at 6:30 p.m. in the Boulder City Chautauqua.

As Hamilton, Bidlack will go "head to head" with Hamilton's greatest foil, Thomas Jefferson, played by fellow chautauqua scholar Clay Jenkinson. Both historical figures were in President George Washington's cabinet, where they "fought like cats and dogs," Bidlack said.

The chautauqua performances Friday and Saturday are designed to both educate and entertain, program director and Boulder City resident Sara Weber said. The actor-scholars each give a monologue as their characters and then allow the audience members to ask them questions in character. Then, near the end of the performance, the scholars answer questions from their own point of view.

"It's a wonderful intellectual challenge," said Bidlack, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and a professor of political science at the Air Force Academy. "You never know what is going to come."

This year's Chautauqua, the 13th for Boulder City, is called "Head to Head: Great Confrontations in American History," Weber said.

In addition to the Hamilton versus Jefferson performance, there will be a re-enactment of the Korean War showdown between Gen. Douglas MacArthur and President Harry Truman Saturday afternoon, and a portrayal of the "trust-busting" feud between President Theodore Roosevelt and super capitalist John Pierpont Morgan Saturday night.

"It is amazing how real the characters become when you are watching them," Weber said. "We always say that history comes alive onstage."

The performances get their name from Lake Chautauqua, N.Y., where they originated in 1874, Weber said.

Scholars such as Bidlack usually spend a year getting into character, reading everything they can on the figure they are portraying. They have to be able to answer from a historical perspective even if the question is after the person's time, such as what Jefferson or Hamilton would think of computers or the Internet.

"Jefferson would have been fascinated by the computer because 'Wow, what I neat contraption,' and Hamilton would have been fascinated by the computer because 'Wow, I can make money with this.' "

Bidlack said he got into chautauqua after meeting Jenkinson, who needed someone to play Hamilton to his Jefferson.

Having founded the Reno Chautauqua event while at UNR 15 years ago, Jenkinson is viewed as the nation's leading first-person interpreter of Jefferson, Weber said. He hosts the syndicated weekly radio program "The Thomas Jefferson Hour," and has written several books, including the recently released "Becoming Jefferson's People: Re-inventing the American Republic for the Twenty-First Century."

Jenkinson will be portraying both Jefferson and Roosevelt in the Boulder City performances.

Hamilton and Jefferson fought bitterly about how the government should function, with Hamilton favoring a strong, central government and Jefferson favoring as little as possible, Bidlack said.

"Their fundamental difference was their judgment on human nature," Bidlack said. "Jefferson believed that people were basically good but sometimes do bad. Hamilton believed they were bad and sometimes did good."

Noel Pugach, a University of New Mexico history professor, will portray Truman's controversial decision to fire MacArthur during the Korean War. MacArthur, Pugach said, was trying to dictate U.S. military policy to Truman, which is a major mistake in a democracy founded on civilian control of the military.

"No military official can ignore the president of the United States, plain and simple," Pugach said.

But firing the wildly popular MacArthur, who will be portrayed by UNR history professor Neil Ferguson, put Truman in "political hot soup."

The final confrontation Saturday evening will feature Frank X. Mullen Jr., a senior reporter at the Reno Gazette-Journal, as financier Morgan against Jenkinson's Roosevelt.

Morgan, Mullen said, has been immortalized as the caricature in Monopoly as the ultimate capitalist and monopolist, but he was also a visionary who established world finance as we know it.

While known for his wealth, Morgan was "not driven by money, money, money, money" as other robber barons were, Mullen said.

"Morgan was more into the power of being in charge. He controlled more than he owned," Mullen said.

Morgan's struggles with Roosevelt came after the president "found him to be a convenient foil for his anti-trust activities," breaking up Morgan's Northern Securities company.

In truth, the two men "cooperated more than they were at each other's throats."

The ultimate goal of the performances is to help people understand and retain history as more than just names and dates, Weber said. She hated history as a child, but now she loves chautauqua.

"These are real people with real emotions and real passions," Bidlack said. "We do our real history a disservice when we think of them as only names and dates. So we try to bring history alive."