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By DCist contributor Rachel Kurzius

Powerful people have been extolling Marion Barry’s career and legacy since his death in late November, in what local journalist and historian John Muller calls “rhetorical flourishes.” His play, Mayor for Life: The Untold Story, is a “common man’s eulogy” to a person whose influence cast a mythic shadow over Washington, D.C.

Mayor for Life, a one-man-show that will be performed next week at the Anacostia Playhouse, features a Street Sense salesman named Ezekiel (Elliott C. Moffitt) waxing about the Barry he knew. Muller describes Ezekiel as a “loyal-to-the-soil, hometown guy” who wears a Washington football team jersey as he recounts the city’s history over the past half-century. Ezekiel got his first job from Barry’s Summer Youth Employment Program and recounts all the ways in which the politician’s life dovetails with his own.

Though this production is timely, this isn’t quite a world premiere of Mayor for Life. The Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival in 2007 featured a reading of the script with Moffitt as Ezekiel and directed by Renee Charlow, who is also returning to the production. That iteration’s tone was more satirical. It focused on the cat-and-mouse game between Barry and the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents dead-set on pinning him down.

Since then, Muller has overhauled the script, nearly doubling the length while removing most of the farce. He wanted to shift toward a more solemn mood, given the freshness of Barry’s death. But it’s not just current events that have given Mayor for Life a more personal touch. Since the first version of the play premiered, Muller began reporting east of the Anacostia River and got to know Barry. “I wrote the play in 2007 from a distance,” Muller said during a recent interview. “When Ward 8 was my beat, I got to see why people liked him.”

This tenderness is apparent in Mayor for Life. The play doesn’t sugarcoat Barry’s shortcomings, but it shows how even those failings endeared him to the people he served. Now Ezekiel bemoans that Barry’s loss will further alienate him from the changing city. “A blind person could see the symbolism of [Barry’s] send-off,” Muller said. “It’s not turning the page; it’s a totally new book” in D.C.’s history.”

Muller grew up on a horse farm in Montgomery County, though he says he would hang around D.C. with friends as a kid. When he was really young, he remembers hearing people say Barry’s name all of the time, though at first he thought they were talking about two people — Mary and Barry. As he got older, he found that Barry permeated everything in the city and wanted to investigate why people felt such unconditional love for the politician.

Ezekiel is a composite character of what Muller calls “invisible Washington, or as Barry put it, ‘the last, the least, and the lost.’” But one person influenced the playwright more than others. Henry Hackney, a homeless man Muller met in the early 2000s while working in a Starbucks, was always carrying street news. Like Hackney, Ezekiel weaves in a deep knowledge of local history with his pronouncements.

“People avoid making eye contact and talking to Street Sense vendors. They’re not lampposts or stop signs, they’re people,” says Muller, who says he made a very purposeful choice to compel the audience to listen to one such vendor. “Street Sense vendors are the town criers, but the news they’re explaining is not the news of the young professional.”

That doesn’t mean Muller wants to alienate these young professionals from the performance. Quite the opposite. He views it as an opportunity to put a spotlight on the “invisible Washington world.” While old-school Washingtonians might understand more of the references than newer transplants, other people on the stage (who do not have lines but listen to Ezekiel’s story) act as a Greek chorus that prompts Ezekiel to explain some of his more arcane references. These people also remind the audience that, while they may be listening to Ezekiel, a lot of people don’t.

But Muller never sacrifices his D.C. bona fides to provide handholds. This is a good thing. As comedian Chris Rock, no stranger to joking about Marion Barry, explained in an interview to NPR, “When I see a Woody Allen movie — and I see ’em all — there’s probably two scenes or two moments in each movie that I don’t get. But, you know, I actually like it in a weird way. It’s like, OK, this is really authentic, what I’m watching here.”

You don’t have to “get” Ezekiel’s perspective, but when you see Mayor for Life you will listen to it.

Mayor for Life plays at the Anacostia Playhouse in two performances on Monday, December 15, at 6:15 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. The 35-minute play features live music from Damu the Fudgemunk, and precedes a discussion about Barry’s legacy.