Tipping point

A new one-man show about late House speaker O'Neill seeks a broad-based constituency

Ken Howard knows playing Tip O'Neill, a god of gods in our political firmament, carries the risk of doom.

"Am I intimidated?" he asks. "No. I think, though, this is the first time in a long, long time that I'm a little scared. It's a daunting task."

Howard, all 6 feet 5 of him, will personify the longtime Speaker of the House in the one-man show "According to Tip," which makes its world premiere starting June 22 at New Repertory Theatre in Watertown. He knows that his core audience - pols, press, and Bostonians of a certain age, wise guys of all stripes from City Hall and Beacon Hill - will be a brutal audience.

They will weigh his every word. They will listen for tone. They will look for their truth in his Tip O'Neill, his rhythms and mannerisms. They will rule early if his version of O'Neill's North Cambridge accent cuts it. Howard knows he's got to grab them fast.

"This is not an impersonation," cautions Howard over a late hotel breakfast. "Rich Little or Frank Gorshin would do this differently," he says of the two impressionists. "That's about seeing how skillfully someone can impersonate someone else. I want to capture the heart and soul of Tip, his presence."

Howard, 64, has a good shot at taming this crowd because the 112-page script is written by Dick Flavin, a close observer of Boston's political wars, a member of the Irish tribe, and a veteran raconteur. Flavin, a vibrant 71, has been a political humorist since the Big Bang and served as Mayor Kevin White's press secretary for a spell.

He revels in the noise and the heat of it all. He has the ear. He has the love. He brings authentic voice and warmth to the production, along with huge dollops of blarney. And he's spent seven long years trying to bring O'Neill's story to the stage.

Entertainment and edge

Flavin takes us on a gentle ride through O'Neill's life, from his youth near Barry's Corner through state politics to Congress and on into retirement. Along the way, he does yeoman service honoring the man's humor and penchant for song. The show contained six tunes at the start of rehearsals, including the fabulous "The Irish Were Egyptians Long Ago," which begins: "It must have been the Irish who built the pyramids."

Flavin couldn't resist a man like O'Neill, willing to stake his reputation for his beliefs. "I've always had a soft spot for pols when they put their identities on the line," he says over coffee. He also has been sensitive to the O'Neill family and gained its approval for the play after explaining what he had in mind. No one from the family, he says, has asked to see his script.

But the biggest challenge facing the production is this: How do you get a 30-year-old to come to the show? The core audience will only take you so far. O'Neill died in January 1994, and to many younger Bostonians, he is either a distant memory or a complete cipher.

Rick Lombardo, the producing artistic director of New Rep and director of this play, comes close to calling the 30-something crowd a lost theatrical cause. But he says that if the reviews and buzz are good, they will come for a particular project. If this show is to have legs, it needs them.

The play itself will rise or fall on the balance it strikes between the "entertainment" both Flavin and Howard say they envision and the edge Lombardo wants in it to avoid delivering a big wet kiss.

"It will only be full if we get into his failures and disappointments," says Lombardo. "It can't just be an entertainment. What drew me to the play for the Rep is that it speaks to this transformation in American politics. Tip at the end of his career was a little bit of a fish out of water. Ultimately, this is an homage to a giant of a figure in American politics, but it would be a disservice if we only idealize the man."

Is there a dark side to O'Neill? "The dark side is the family," says Howard. "He was always haunted that he didn't bring his family with him to Washington." Flavin includes O'Neill's guilt over this and the difficult relationship he had with one of his sons, Michael, who died from alcohol and drugs.

"God I wish I'd moved them with me when I first got to town," O'Neill tells the audience. "Every time there was a family crisis, it seemed that I was away in Washington and Millie had to do the jobs of both parents."

The play begins with O'Neill engaged in verbal fisticuffs over legislation on the phone with Ronald Reagan. But they always followed "the 6 o'clock rule," laying down their arms at that time and spending pleasant evenings swapping stories as one Irishman to another.

It is this sense that Lombardo wants to accentuate in the play - to frame O'Neill in his later years as speaker watching the courtesies of politics such as the 6 o'clock rule evaporate. That's one reason we see him lash out at fire-eater Republican Newt Gingrich, who succeeded him as speaker. (O'Neill also tells us he couldn't stand Bobby Kennedy.)

As for Howard's portrayal, Lombardo is clear. "Ken shouldn't disappear in the role," says the director. "The actor should never disappear. His personality and Tip's should meet in the middle."

In bringing O'Neill to the stage, the bible for Howard and Flavin is Jack Farrell's definitive biography, "Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century." Howard has also seen tapes of O'Neill and listened to him speak, but at the start of rehearsals he said he needed to absorb a lot more.

One concern for Howard is O'Neill's breathing: "He talked in a run that would take him into a middle of a word or sentence, wherever he needed to breathe. The breath is where the break is."

Another is the shambolic walk. And then comes the accent, impossible to replicate, which he will take a good shot at. "The worst thing is to overdo it," he says.

'A 19th-century guy'

Flavin is rolling over with joy like a porpoise simply to get this thing onstage. He began writing the play in January 2001. "I wanted to see if I can replicate his blarney and his wonderful genius for people," he says.

He had a draft six months later, but has been on a wild ride since. "It was at the 2-yard line a couple of times before," he says.

His big swan dive occurred at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, which had rented him its Zero Arrow Theatre to stage it in 2005. Flavin failed to come up with the money to meet the contract, and the play was canceled. He falls on his sword for his failure and says the money he personally lost was in the six figures.

"I'm not good with the grown-up side of life," he says about the business end of things.

Flavin first approached homeboy comedian Lenny Clarke for the role. He was either too busy with his own television work or didn't pan out, depending on whom you talk to. Flavin says he then sent the script to George Wendt of "Cheers" fame, who wasn't quite right, and Brian Dennehy, who never responded.

Howard received the script in 2005. He instantly loved its flavor and has stayed with the project ever since. The Tony Award-winning actor has Boston connections: He has acted at the ART and taught acting at Harvard.

Howard also played a former Boston College basketball player in his TV series "The White Shadow." BC was so enamored with Howard's prime-time BC credentials that it held a parade for him on campus in 1980, giving him a plaque as an honorary alumnus and a letter sweater. More recently, Howard played a former Boston policeman on the NBC series "Crossing Jordan."

Howard's Rosetta stone in understanding O'Neill is his own late father, a strong figure of great integrity. "At the core of the man, there are a lot of things that make me think of my father," he says. "There was a natural warmth to him that was almost a need. My father also needed to be out there among people.

"Tip's very much of a 19th-century guy," he adds. "There was a certain kind of rough-edged decorousness about him." Howard's father was raised during the Depression in the Bronx and, like O'Neill, as a Catholic. But he eventually left the church. ("He didn't fall from it," says Howard. "He walked out on his own two feet.")

"It bothered my father that people are so mean and rotten to each other," he says. "He was particularly troubled when people went off to war and came back with the same old nastiness." (He was so irritated by Richard Nixon's cheesy "Checkers" speech that he threw a chicken pot pie at the television screen.)

If "According To Tip" flies, Flavin and co-producer Paul Boghosian have plans to take it on the road - first to Dublin in the fall, followed perhaps by Washington and off-Broadway in New York. (The most natural venue is Chicago, home of the Daleys and Dan Rostenkowski.) None of this is firm yet.

If it fails lift-off, Flavin will always be remembered fondly for capturing some of O'Neill's cluelessness about the world beyond politics. Consider his line when he met Sophia Loren: "I loved you in 'Bridge on the River Kwai.' "

Sam Allis can be reached at: allis@globe.com.