E-Mail This Article to a Friend Bugging a Beatle The FBI listens to John Lennon BY SALLY CRAGIN

As the years go by, it’s hard to think that any corners of the life of John Lennon remain underexamined, but Ears on a Beatle (presented by Lyric Stage Company starting October 22) suggests otherwise. This taut two-man play by Mark St. Germain centers on Lennon’s travails with the FBI, which spent years trying to deport him. The play premiered last summer at Great Barrington Stage Company, and it has a special resonance this season since the FBI has released the final 10 pages from the file. Ears sheds light on a dark passage in the thinking Beatle’s American sojourn.

How did Lennon and wife Yoko Ono come under attack? It’s a long and winding road that starts with 18-year-olds getting the vote in 1971. Anticipating the impact this enfranchisement might have on the 1972 presidential election, South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond sent a memo to President Nixon noting that Lennon was an enormously influential personality. "He said it’s best if he’s not in the country at this time," explained the playwright over the phone from New York. "It was not something done for national security, it was done for political expediency."

Lennon had moved to New York in 1971, and he had vowed to make America his home. While here, he became active in the peace movement. After Thurmond sent his memo, the surveillance began. "When I first heard about him having FBI files, I thought, why did they bother?", St. Germain recalls. "But the more you read, the more it’s about votes, and 18-year-olds getting the vote. And once he made the statement that he would go around and do concerts, that would have been terrifying to the administration."

Lennon’s political power became apparent after he’d participated in a benefit concert for jailed activist John Sinclair. "Two days after that concert, Sinclair was released," St. Germain points out. "I don’t think that particular administration wanted that attention coming from John Lennon."

The play, which features neither music nor a Beatle, comes from a remarkably varied writer. St. Germain’s credits range from award-winning plays and musicals (Camping with Henry and Tom), books (Stand by Your Man: The Tammy Wynette Story), and television (The Cosby Show, Dick Wolf’s Crime & Punishment and The Wright Verdicts). He decided to shape his play around two agents (who at the Lyric will be played by Steven Barkhimer and Michael Kaye). "The older character, Howard, has dealt with unpleasant truths," explains director Paula Ramsdell. "He butts a young agent who’s a fan, and as he learns certain realities, he changes." "I was interested in the human reaction," says St. Germain. "What effect John Lennon’s philosophy would have on two people."

John and Yoko’s deportation battle concluded in 1975, when the US Court of Appeal overturned the deportation order and Lennon received residency status. The chief counsel of the INS later stated that the United States had spent millions of tax dollars on this case — more money that had been spent trying to expel Nazi war criminals. "I think that anybody who’s under the public scrutiny that he and Yoko were — to have taken the political stances they did was remarkably brave," says St. Germain. "They were very committed to world peace, and my admiration for them only grew."

Ears on a Beatle is presented by Lyric Stage Company, 140 Clarendon Street in Boston, October 22 through November 20. Tickets are $19 to $43; call (617) 437-7172, or visit lyricstage.com.