Key to the craft of an actor is learning the lines. In a 70-minute solo show where the star talks non-stop, that's a lot to learn, let alone deliver convincingly, and compellingly.

Going well beyond that accomplishment, Manny Buckley is due accolades for his performance in American Blues Theater's "Looking Over the President's Shoulder."

Buckley has explored and developed his character, Alonzo Fields, who detoured from an intended opera career, to become the White house butler in chief, beginning during the Hoover administration and continuing for 21 years into the Eisenhower administration.

As the play opens, we meet Fields waiting in the evening chill at the bus stop. The play becomes a flash back through the time leading up to, and his years within, the White House. We hear it all from Fields' perspective, including encounters with Truman, Winston Churchill, and at the tail end, even Richard Nixon.

The movie, "The Butler," based loosely on the same autobiography from which this play is drawn [My 21 Years in the White House by Alonzo Fields, Coward-McMann, 1960] extended the story to a period beyond Field's actual tenure. That Hollywood telling runs through the Johnson presidency, and minimizes Fields to an everyman in the shadow of historic figures surrounding him.

'Looking Over the President's Shoulder' stays truer both to the book, and to life the way real people live it. Fields shares his interior world, and in Buckley's solid performance, we are privy to his journey, one that is at once personal, and universal.

A Bostonian who hoped to become an opera singer, Field's job running a grocery store ends as the Great Depression looms. A temporary job as a servant for a wealthy family disappears as the Crash draws nearer, and though he has aspirations to a life in music, Fields sets aside those goals for a more practical route. Eyeing the bread lines and soup kitchens, Fields takes the bird in hand to become a White House domestic, thinking of it as a temporary stopping point. But it is this career in the White House that puts Fields in the heart of domestic and world affairs, and in proximity to greatness.

As spectators, we may even see Fields position as enviable. But living his life, Fields still longed for the path not taken, while in reality he is running up and down stairs with heavy trays and hustling to set the White House dinner table. 

As the play closes, Buckley has kept our attention with his portrayal of Fields - and establishes the moment of pathos. He is retiring from the White House, President Eisenhower wished him luck, and for all his years at the side of greatness, he is now just another man, waiting for a bus on a chilly night. 

Buckley conveys the perception we have of Fields as an even tempered man who was not caught up in the swirl of political and social excitement at the White House. He relates two of proudest moments: a performance by opera great Marion Anderson at the White House (Fields played a role in funding her musical training we learn); and his own performance, singing at the White House accompanied by another butler on piano. Though the President and his family were not present, Fields bears witness to his own moment of glory, taking satisfaction in it.

Buckley enlivens the performance, mimicking his famous employers - the dour, engineer Hoover; an ebullient Franklin Roosevelt and the high-pitched and exuberant Eleanor; the no-nonsense Harry Truman. Well directed by Timothy Douglas, this one-man show has two other performances that also special deserve special credit: the stage set (kudos to Brian Sidney Bembridge), and the light design (Mike Durst), both are powerful components in this show; as are props (Amanda Herrmann).

This production of "Looking Over the Presidents Shoulder" is well worth a visit to 2257 N. Lincoln Avenue. (It's also something that school-age viewers might like.)  It plays through March 6 at  www.americanbluestheater.com