Theatre in Review: Lucky Guy (Broadhurst Theatre)

	Tom Hanks and Courtney B. Vance. Photo Joan Marcus

Lucky Guy was originally called Stories About McAlary, a title that is far more indicative of the event now taking place on the stage of the Broadhurst. In a rather bold move for 2013, the playwright, Nora Ephron, has brought back the Greek chorus, assembling a gaggle of genial tabloid hacks to hoist a few, sing a ditty or two, and pay tribute to Mike McAlary, the man who, according to Lucky Guy, best symbolizes the last stand of old-fashioned, printed-on-paper journalism. It was a time when a boozy, nicotine-stained gang of largely white, male, and Irish Catholic reporters raced around the city in search of the next big gangland rubout or drug raid, always ready to open their hearts, and notebooks, to a corrupt cop ready to sing like a canary.

That would be the 1980s (and early '90s), a rather odd subject for nostalgia, what with AIDS, crack, and racial tensions, not to mention the unlovable likes of Bernhard Goetz, Robert Chambers, and Joel Steinberg -- but, for all its apparent grit, Lucky Guy views such events through a pair of rose-colored lenses. With the attached star power of Tom Hanks, it was a foregone conclusion that Lucky Guy would burn up the box office, but the show is also coasting on the audience's residual affection for the recently deceased Ephron -- herself a great New York character, one worthy of a play -- and the media's affection for life in the newsroom in the days before the Internet screwed up everything.

Ephron was a woman of enormous accomplishments -- a gifted screenwriter, a solid film director, a noted essayist and humorist, and, by all accounts, one of New York's great hostesses. (Not for nothing was her scalding novel, Heartburn -- about the breakup of her marriage to Carl Bernstein -- dotted with recipes. In her case, revenge was a dish best served hot.) But on those rare occasions when she donned the playwright's hat, her enormous confidence seemed to desert her, and she would bring on the gimmicks. Her only other Broadway effort, Imaginary Friends, about the long-running catfight between Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy was a mash-up of sketches, literary lectures, songs, and video sequences; admittedly entertaining at times, it never really settled on a style or tone. It felt like the work of Ephron, the party-giver, a hostess rather too determined that her guests have a good time.

So it is with Lucky Guy, approximately 75 percent of which consists of direct address occasionally broken up by short scenes that tend to reiterate information already given out by the play's army of narrators. There's nothing here that you can't learn from McAlary's New York Times obituary or any preview piece about the show: McAlary's love of the tabloids; his hero worship of Jimmy Breslin; his fascination with the police; the car crash that slowed his career; the misreported rape scandal that nearly finished it off; the colon cancer that killed him; and the Abner Louima story, which netted him a Pulitzer Prize and a last hurrah. At its best, Ephron's dialogue is in the whiskey-soaked, wisecracking style that is pure New York. Speaking of a particularly pickled editor, somebody says, "If you held the guy up to the light, you could see the olive." A veteran dismisses McAlary as "a kid with a bad case of Breslinitis." There's a particularly zesty anecdote about a female cop known as Pussy Bumper Delaney, who had her own unique way of catching perverts on the subway. (You'll have to see Lucky Guy to learn more about her technique.)

But for all that Lucky Guy documents McAlary's growing stature, it never makes him into a very interesting person. As presented, he is one-dimensional figure, thoroughly driven and interested only in the next scoop. His ruthlessness is downplayed, excused as a necessary adjunct of the job; a lengthy sequence, depicting him hopscotching between New York Newsday, the Post, and the Daily News, collecting ever-increasing salaries along the way, is less engaging than Ephron must have thought. McAlary's obvious neglect of his wife, Alice, and their children, whom he dumped in a house in Bellport, Long Island that he couldn't really afford, is presented largely without comment. Maura Tierney does her best with the role of Alice, who is seen in a series of brief scenes being wifely, but it's a losing battle. It's the kind of staunch spouse role that Ephron, a withering critic of Hollywood sexism, would have dismissed with a snort of derision had the script been written by a man. Similarly, the climax -- in which an obviously dying McAlary makes a final appearance in the newsroom, Alice at his side, after winning the Pulitzer -- may be accurate, but it plays like a vintage Hollywood tearjerker. (I kept thinking of Gary Cooper as the ailing Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees.) The final scene, a boozy sing-along in memory of McAlary, is like something out of a John Ford picture.

In any case, the director, George C. Wolfe, has seen to it that Lucky Guy has the best of everything. At 57, Hanks is rather old for a character ranging between 27 and 41, but his affable presence translates well to the stage, and he nicely captures the charge of energy McAlary gets with each new scoop. He is supported by a gang of New York's finest, beginning with Courtney B. Vance, as Hap Hairston, at various times his friend, editor, or nemesis, and including, in a variety of roles, Peter Gerety, Richard D. Masur, Christopher McDonald, Peter Scolari, and Danny Mastrogiorgio. Deirdre Lovejoy, the only other woman on stage, scores in a pair of roles, as a foul-mouthed reporter and as Debby Krenek, editor of the Daily News. Stephen Tyrone Williams, seen to impressive effect earlier this season in My Children! My Africa!, at Signature Theatre, has a haunting cameo as Abner Louima, recounting in horrifying detail how racist cops violated him with a plunger handle.

David Rockwell's set design works seamlessly with the lighting, by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, and the projections of Batwin + Robin Productions, sweeping us from bars to newsrooms to diners to hospitals to suburban homes. (In contrast to the painfully slow scenic transitions in Breakfast at Tiffany's, those in Lucky Guy happen with commendable speed.) The lighting constantly reshapes the space as needed for crowd scenes or one-on-one encounters. The projections make excellent use of classic newspaper headlines of the era ("Headless Body Found in Topless Bar"), various city scenes, and video showing such iconic New Yorkers as Sue Simmons and William Bratton. Toni-Leslie James' costumes are particularly good when capturing the cheap suits worn by newspapermen who couldn't care less how they look. Scott Lehrer's excellent sound design blends bits of hip-hop, bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" at a cop's funeral, and the indelible rattle of a New York subway.

It's best to think of Lucky Guy as an event rather than a play. If it falls short in the first department, it will probably satisfy Hollywood stargazers and the many fans of Ephron's distinctive voice. If you go into it knowing that you're getting a bunch of stories about McAlary and not a full-fledged drama, there's less chance that you'll leave the Broadhurst feeing unlucky.--David Barbour