Seventy years ago there was a two-term U.S. president who battled isolationism and fascism, expanded the Social Security and unemployment programs, signed a Civil Rights Act and famously spoke against spreaders of misinformation with the words “truth is the bulwark of freedom, as suppression of truth is the weapon of dictatorship.”

In today’s divided red-vs.-blue America, it might be easily assumed that president was a Democrat. But it was Republican and four-star U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a centrist whose life story is told in Richard Hellesen’s prescient 2022 play “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground.”

The solo play, starring Tony Award-winning actor John Rubinstein in a superb performance, opened Saturday at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.

Although most of the audience members at the performance I attended were well over the age of 60 and may still remember the “We Like Ike” era, there were still audible gasps of surprise and much head-nodding from playgoers at the many parallels drawn between Eisenhower’s observations from the 1950s and what’s unfolding in Washington, D.C., in 2025.

“This Piece of Ground” is set in 1962 at the now-retired president’s farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he’s raising beef cattle, painting portraits of his grandchildren and practicing his golf put.

As the two-hour play opens, Rubinstein’s 71-year-old Eisenhower is in a furious fit of pique over a just-published survey of 75 U.S. historians, who ranked him 22nd among the nation’s 31 U.S. presidents based on their achievements in office. A great American? Yes, the historians said of Eisenhower, but not a great president.

To translate Eisenhower’s thoughts into words onstage, playwright Hellsen has him speak into a dictaphone to build an oral defense of his years in office for a future memoir. It’s an old-fashioned narrative device, but it works because Rubinstein is such a funny and entertaining actor and because director Peter Ellenstein’s production, with projection design by Joe Huppert and set design by Marty Burnett, is fast-paced, enlightening and visually engaging.

The play covers Eisenhower’s childhood in the Midwest, his long marriage to “Mamie,” the loss of their first son, his 42 years in the Army, including overseeing U.S. forces in Europe during the final year of World War II, and his leadership years at Columbia University and running NATO.

But instead of simply reciting facts, Hellesen’s Eisenhower relates interesting stories that inform all of these experiences. The play paints him accurately as an ethical, affable, intelligent and humble leader, who also had a famously bad temper.

The play’s first act lays the groundwork for the much-stronger and prophetic second act, where Eisenhower rails against his foes, the anti-immigrant isolationist Robert Taft and the “Red Scare” fabulist Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy, who turned Americans against each other with lies.

Back in 1962, Eisenhower’s unflashy “Middle Way” of moderate conservatism didn’t impress historians. But today, historians rank Eisenhower among the best presidential leaders for his selflessness, his unifying principles and his dedication to democracy for and by the people.

‘Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground’

When: 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Through Nov. 23.

Where: North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach

Tickets: $58.50-$80.50

Phone: 858-481-1055

Online: northcoastrep.org