Texas Wit

Ann Richards, the famously feisty former Democratic governor of Texas, now inhabits theatrical heaven due to the new one-woman show Ann, conceived, written, and acted by Holland Taylor (who plays the acerbic mother in the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men.) Ann follows Richards from girlhood poverty to big-haired, boozy homemaker to the Lone Star State's second female governor.

The show focuses mostly on Richards' personality, not her liberal politics. Holland illustrates Richards' wit with a tale of a young Texan George Washington cutting down the family mesquite tree. George admits, "Father, I cannot tell a lie, I did it." His father replies that the family is moving to Virginia. Why? "Well, son, if you can't tell a lie, you aren't going to amount to anything in Texas." During the successful one-month run of the show at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Taylor fully and affectionately inhabited her character. Ann will be worth seeing if the show makes it to Broadway.  —Ronald Bailey