You don't have to come from Massachusetts to appreciate the kind of politician Tip O'Neill was or to understand the reverence in which he's still held, more than a decade after his death. In
According to Tip, Dan Flavin's rumpled suit of a solo play about the late Speaker of the House, now at Watertown's New Rep, Ken Howard captures him perfectly: a genuinely humble man, who never forgot his working-class roots or stinted on his mission to stand up for "the little guy" -- and one who was always ready with a common-sense approach to problems, from the interpersonal to the international.

Flavin's script and Janie E. Howland's set places O'Neill at the peak of his power
-- comfortably ensco[...]