And this was the Times' theatre critic:
A PRESIDENTIAL PERFORMANCE
There's astonishingly little of the actor about Barack Obama, and that's meant as a compliment. He doesn't soar or reach for rhetorical climaxes.
He doesn't twist his audiences' heartstrings even when he's talking of matters close to his heart. When he speaks of his wife or his “precious daughters”, there's no throb in his voice. And does this make him bland or dull? Quite the opposite.
Somehow he has mastered the art of conveying feeling, strong feeling, without seeming emotionally manipulative. He stands there in his sober suit. His voice is firm, his body-language surprisingly still. He makes few, if any, movements with his hands or arms. In terms of delivery, he's as far from the Rev Jeremiah Wright, the old preacher he manages to berate without disowning, as it is possible to be. And all this combines to reinforce his basic message: I have a black face, but I am capable of representing the nation in all its diversity.
Indeed, you might almost say that he's leadership incarnate. Never, even for a moment, does Obama lose a sense of quiet power and effortless authority. He radiates dignity and decency. Myself, I didn't see all his speech, but I saw him tackle difficult subjects: Rev Wright, the “stain” of slavery, Israel and “the perverse and hateful ideology of radical Islam”, the supposedly “wild and wide-eyed liberals” who mistake his candidacy for a form of affirmative action, the exit polls that suggest he might be a polarising force and, of course, his own ethnic origins.
Throughout, he struck me as infinitely credible and, indeed, presidential.
Remember Tony Blair's embarrassingly actorly reading of the lesson at Diana's funeral? Now imagine him in Obama's situation. The smile, the voice, the undulations of the body would be ingratiating. He would be saying, as ham actors often implicitly do: love me. Have you seen a replay of Richard Nixon's Checkers speech? Imagine how he would have dealt with the passage in which Obama talks of his multi-hued family, starting with the grandparents who gave their all to the Second World War. Then call up YouTube and look at Obama in Philadelphia.
Somehow his serious and sober charisma leaves you feeling that, not only is he the man to heal the divisions left from America's very beginnings, but that he has the assurance, the intelligence, the stature to deal with such matters as terrorism, global warming, a faltering economy. As as unactorly actor he gets five stars from me. As a president - well, perhaps the world will see.
BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE |
