Margaret Colin feels right at home in the White House.
After all, she played Jacqueline Kennedy on Broadway in “Jackie: An American Life,” and she was the president’s spouse in the film “First Daughter.” She was also press secretary to the president in the blockbuster film “Independence Day,” surviving an alien attack and the blast that blew up of the White House.
She is now playing First Lady Edith Wilson, wife of 28th President Woodrow Wilson, in the world premiere at Long Wharf Theatre of Joe DiPietro’s “The Second Mrs. Wilson,” staged by the theater’s Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein.
The production features an impressive cast, with John Glover (Tony Award for “Love! Valour! Compassion!”), Harry Groener (three Tony nominations including “Crazy for You”), Stephen Barker Turner (Yale Rep’s “Arcadia”), Steve Routman (Long Wharf’s “The Underpants”) and Fred Applegate (Broadway’s “The Last Ship”).
Many say — and Colin agrees — that Edith Wilson was the first female president, albeit unelected. The first lady took over the management of the presidency after her husband had a stroke in October, 1919, toward the end of his second Democratic term following the end of World War I.
With the help of Wilson’s personal physician, secluding her husband in his bedroom and keeping the severity of his illness a secret, she attended to the affairs of state as he gradually regained some of his abilities, until the end of his presidency in early 1921. He died three years later. Edith Wilson led a long and active life until she died at the age of 89 in 1961, the year she attended JFK’s Inaugural.
But was Edith Wilson actually the de facto president for those many months?
“Yes!” says Coli, with no equivocation during a recent break in rehearsals at the theater.
“The reluctance to equate ovaries and testicles is ridiculous,” says Colin of male characters in the play — and elsewhere — who find women in leadership positions intolerable. “When you look at great leaders of the world, women have been a part of that, for good and for bad, just like men.”
Colin says Woodrow Wilson approved of the arrangement.
“It was Woodrow who said, ‘Sit by my side and let’s talk about politics,’ ” she says. “Up until she married Woodrow, she had no interest in politics. She was never part of the D.C. crowd. She was pulled into it by chance, but I think she immediately saw the opportunity.”
The story is a dramatic one, and it wasn’t the first time the behind-closed-doors tale was told onstage. In 2012, the world premiere of Kelly Masterson’s “Edith” was produced at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, Mass., starring Jayne Atkinson and Jack Gilpin.
Independent Woman
Colin says Edith Wilson was a charismatic, independent woman, driving her own car on the streets of D.C., buying her clothes from Paris designers and traveling the world. She also had a business sense, running her first husband’s firm after he died unexpectedly.
Wilson’s courtship of Edith began in 1915, following the death of his first wife the previous year.
The stroke occurred after the frail president’s vigorous cross-country trip promoting the creation of the League of Nations, the first global organization dedicated to collective security and disarmament agreements. But it required the participation of the world’s major powers of to succeed, and central to that was U.S. membership — and America was in an isolationist mood following the war.
“Woodrow had groomed her politically from the beginning of their marriage,” says Colin and following the stroke, “Edith made huge decisions based purely on passion for Woodrow, and she fought for what his vision was as she understood it. Her authority was that of being a wife.”
How does Mrs. Wilson manage the political establishment knocking on her door wanting to know what’s going on? “Well, she fights sometimes. Sometimes she’s a Southern lady, and sometimes she fights by throwing their logic back at her attackers. I just adore her.”
“She’s a woman in a man’s world, and I’m a woman in a man’s cast, so I don’t have to stretch too far to get that feeling right. I also have two sons and a husband, so I know what it’s like to be in a house of men, and I understand it when Edith says, ‘I’m so tired of men. I’m exhausted by them and their ambition’ and I get that. That’s my world.”
Colin points out that after Edith Wilson left the White House, “She had a taste for politics that didn’t go away. She kept alive his great vision for peace, this great Christian model, to really push for people to dialogue and work together.”
Other First Ladies
So what is there about Colin that has her being so frequently cast as intelligent, savvy women?
“I think I understand a certain decorum,” she says. “My mother and father raised me rather well. I don’t think manners and femininity are against [a woman’s] intrinsic worth. Defining your place in the world, finding out what the score is and figuring out who you’re operating against doesn’t have to go against your faith, your femininity or good breeding.”
Though Colin, 56, has a long list of credits playing well-bred women, “I’m very happy to put all that away for a down and dirty part,” she says laughing. “I can do ‘Sweet Bird of Youth,’ I can crawl on the floor and do whatever it takes.”
As for her thoughts on other first ladies, Colin is sympathetic to in that role.
“For a lot of political women, they see their role as supporting and protecting their man and when they step out of that role, then people go, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Under what authority are you doing that?’ We did that with Hillary. Nancy Reagan seemed to do that dance a little bit better.”
Colin says she finds Mrs. Clinton “very knowledgeable, very educated, and she has a ton of experience. She knows how to get things done, but she will be constantly fighting her other half in that legacy.”
And Michelle Obama?
“She’s really smart. I think Michelle Obama is someone to watch when his term is over. [As for Mrs. Obama’s political ambitions] I think it would depend on how much she wants to get the hell out of the White House. Edith wanted to get the hell out.”
‘Gossip Girl’
Though Colin has a long list of stage, film and TV credits, she is most recognized for her five years as Eleanor Waldorf in the CW television series “Gossip Girl.”
“This being a college town,” she says, “I get a lot of attention. When I go out with the cast there’s frequently a screamer and sometimes my job is to wrangle the screamer and stand with them for the selfie and answer questions about Blake and Leighton. But I also tell them that Eleanor is playing in ‘The Second Mrs. Wilson’ at Long Wharf Theatre so why don’t they come see the play? And several of them said they would come so that makes it a good thing. I’m very grateful for ‘Gossip Girl’ for exposing me to another generation.”
She says she is not part of the sequel planned for the 1996 hit film “Independence Day.’ “I’m not invited back, which is kind of baffling since I survived the alien invasion. Ask Roland Emmerich why.”
Future projects include two indie movies: “The Broken Ones” and “Stealing Chanel.”
She is also developing a screenplay about human trafficking “in which Harrison Ford will not save the day,” and another about werewolves.
Colin adds that she is also developing two plays, one called “Mama-Sapiens,” which she describes as “a look at the paleo-world and how women have evolved and become stronger, maybe because of menopause — and it’s also really funny. The other is a work by Amelia Campbell.”
THE SECOND MRS. WILSON begins previews on Wednesday, May 6, opens on May 13 and runs through May 31. Tickets are $25 to $75. Information: longwharf.org and 203-787-4282.
