"Get a pulpit!"

John Muir, naturalist and wilderness advocate, could be dogged and relentless in his arguments to preserve the natural beauty of the American wilderness.

"Carry a big stick!"

Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. president and personal adventurer, could be enthusiastic as an adolescent when it came to bagging hunting trophies. So it might be interesting to put them together and see what sparks result.

Playwright and actor Lee Stetson does just that in his two-man drama "The Tramp and the Roughrider," playing this weekend at Hawai'i Pacific University.

Based on a historical camping trip in 1903, the show is authentic in tone, with 95 percent of the dialogue culled from the writings of the two men. Unfortunately, it's also preachy and bombastic — true to the central characters, but not always dynamic as a theater piece.

Stetson plays the naturalist and has turned the role into a cottage industry, creating five Muir productions over the last 25 years for Yosemite and Grand Canyon national parks. Understandably, it has become difficult to separate the actor from the character he has so often created. Stetson inhabits Muir in the same way that Hal Holbrook entered the persona of Mark Twain in his series of one-man productions.

This is especially clear as Muir and Roosevelt trade "bear" stories.

Muir's experience is a spiritual encounter in an open glen, in which he and the bear acknowledge each other and part without incident. In it, Stetson as Muir becomes the bear, shifting his dangerous bear paws and tilting his bear head as he describes their short and tentative interspecies connection.

By contrast, Roosevelt (played with convincing self-satisfaction by Alan Sutterfield) is more animalistic than his target, describing with great relish each mortal wound he inflicts on the animal.

If you are lucky enough to be in the part of the audience with a full view of Stetson during the story, you will appreciate why he is more than an actor in a part. His eyes show real pain while his face struggles to remain fixed, unwilling to show his abhorrence for such a brutal killing.

Muir's deference to the president keeps his poetry in check, as if it might be damaged by Roosevelt's boisterous truant schoolboy manner.

Some humorous moments arise from the men's disparate personalities. They play a "scar" game, with Roosevelt awarding points for burn marks and puncture wounds. Muir deflects a martial arts move by pretending to spot a rare bird.

Ultimately, Muir succeeds in persuading the president to rescue Yosemite Valley, but Roosevelt's pledge to create a series of national parks, preserves and monuments suggests that he didn't much convincing.

"The Tramp and the Roughrider" ends up as a two-act conversation, somewhat revealing and instructive, and satisfying in its philosophy.

'The Tramp and the Roughrider'

8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday, and 4 p.m. Sunday

Hawai'i Pacific University

$20 general; $14, seniors, students, HPU faculty and staff; $3, HPU students

375-1282

Joseph T. Rozmiarek has reviewed theater performances in Hawai'i since 1973.