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Few plays are more appropriate for the season than "Sunrise at Campobello," Dore Schary's chronicle of the struggle with polio that left President Franklin Delano Roosevelt without the use of his legs and nearly ended his political career.

The curtain opens at the Roosevelt's summer home on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada, in 1921, just before the future president contracted the paralytic disease.

It ends with the crowd's applause as Roosevelt walks — on his legs — to the lectern to deliver a speech that would begin his path to the presidency at the 1924 Democratic National Convention.

The Tantallon Community Players' production, directed by Randy Tusing, opens Friday at Harmony Hall Regional Center in Fort Washington, amid the fanfare of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Caroline Nyce, 17, of Bowie, who plays Roosevelt's daughter, Anna, said there are some distinct similarities.

"It gives perspective of a progressive Democrat coming up right after a Republican president," she said.

The crippled economy, punctuated this week by the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. and the bailout of AIG, the insurance giant, echo back to Roosevelt's rise to the White House in 1933, amid the tatters of the Great Depression, she pointed out.

"I'm encouraging all the kids at my school who are taking U.S. history to come out," said Nyce, a senior at the Severn School who volunteered in August at the most recent Democratic National Convention.

"There's a realness there," said Dick Reed, of Alexandia, Va., who stars as Roosevelt and is a Tantallon veteran who appeared last year as Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol."

But the microscopic lens of the play zooms closer than the political themes evoked by Roosevelt's memory to explore the private struggles of his family.

Jo Rake of Bowie, who plays Eleanor Roosevelt, said, "Everyone thinks of Eleanor as this very strong figure, but at this point she was a very shy woman. It was forced on her to go out and be Franklin's voice."

"And his legs," Reed added.

Reed said after some early debate, the players decided to overlook facts of the Roosevelts' personal lives that weren't known when the play was published in 1958, like several affairs that brought their marriage to the brink of collapse. Reed and Rake bring warmth to the private scenes tucked away in what Reed called Schary's "hagiograph to Roosevelt."

In one scene, Franklin lies on a stretcher at Campobello, smoking a cigarette and preparing for a trip back to New York.

His advisers leave the stage and he slumps back, alone with Eleanor, "How are the seas today? … West wind?" he asks.

"Yes," she replies, draping a blanket over his body and retrieving the hat he's dropped. "Franklin, are you sure you can manage this trip?" She blows him a kiss before he departs.

Charla Rowe, the artistic director of the Tantallon Community Players, chose the play and has an encyclopedic knowledge of Roosevelt's life.

"He had every advantage," she said, describing his silver-spoon upbringing in a prestigious family. "How could he lose?"

But that's exactly the point of the play, she added.

Roosevelt rose to the challenge of an era marked by tragedy at home and abroad, but also ushered the United States into a historic and hopeful role in the world, she said.

If you go

Sunrise at Campobello

-When: 8 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m., Sundays through Oct. 5

-Where: Harmony Hall Regional Center, 10701 Livingston Road, Fort Washington

-Tickets: $15, $12 for seniors and students

-Box office: 301-203-6070 or www.tantalloncommunity

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