Theatre in Review: All the Way (Neil Simon Theatre)

	Bryan Cranston and the cast of All the Way. Photo: Evgenia Eliseeva

The first-night reviews for All the Way focused on Bryan Cranston's much-anticipated Broadway debut as Lyndon B. Johnson; nothing wrong with that, and we'll get to Cranston in a moment. But even more impressive is the company with which director Bill Rauch has surrounded his star.

All the Way covers Johnson's first year in the Oval Office -- a self-described "accidental president" following John F. Kennedy's assassination -- focusing on his struggle to pass a civil rights bill and win the 1964 election. It's a double-barreled scenario with a teeming cast of characters, and it calls for actors who can deliver sharply etched portraits in half a dozen lines or less. Even a partial listing of those involved reveals the riches on display. Betsy Aidem is quietly stunning as Lady Bird Johnson, holding on to her dignity even as her husband savages her in front of others. Rob Campbell scores as George Wallace, whose attempt at playing the spoiler in the election leaves him bitter and betrayed, and as Walter Reuther, UAW president, who descends on a fractious Democratic convention to play hardball. Brandon J. Dirden is a poker-faced Martin Luther King, Jr., rising to impressive oratorical heights when the moment calls for it. Peter Jay Fernandez is Roy Wilkins, head of the NAACP, who fears that the civil rights movement is being co-opted by firebrands like Stokely Carmichael (a tough, mordant William Jackson Harper).

Michael McKean is a cagey, self-righteous J. Edgar Hoover, keeping his cool even when Johnson quizzes him about homosexuality. John McMartin is Johnson's friend and mentor, Senator Richard Russell, Jr., who, blindsided by the president's maneuvers, coldly informs him that he is unleashing furies that will haunt the nation for decades. Robert Petkoff is Hubert Humphrey, his natural goodwill stretched to the limit as, strung along by promises of the vice-presidency, he is forced to act as Johnson's hatchet man. Ethan Phillips is Stanley Levison, the ex-communist adviser to King, who coolly recognizes that he must be sacrificed if the civil rights bill is to move forward. Richard Poe is the pompous, self-regarding Everett Dirksen, bullied by Johnson into delivering the GOP vote on civil rights. Roslyn Ruff is activist Fannie Lou Hamer, delivering a devastating account of southern police brutality, and Coretta Scott King, quietly imploding as she listens to a sex tape featuring her husband. Most of the above play multiple roles, undergoing full costume and wig changes in minutes -- the wardrobe crew must have nerves of steel -- and it's a thrill to see them populate the stage with multitudes. To see All the Way is to understand the incredible depth of talent available in the New York theatre.

And, yes, Cranston's Johnson is a wonder, his eccentric carriage forcing his upper body to lean back like a tree bent in the wind; his face marked by a constant gimlet-eyed squint; his jaw always in motion, as if chewing on an idea or an enemy's reputation. He is a man of action, whether putting four sugars in his coffee, kicking a chair, invading a recalcitrant senator's space, or grabbing Humphrey by the lapels by way of letting him know that he damn well better get a job done properly. He plays the good old Texas vulgarian if he thinks that will charm an adversary, but he can coldly cut loose his most devoted aide when a gay scandal threatens his electoral chances. Faced with an intractable problem, her scowls into the middle distance, deadly silent, his brain whirring on overdrive, until, with a snap of his fingers, he announces his latest plan. And when the frustrations pile up and his bile overflows, his rage is both overpowering and oddly inflected with a childlike sense of abandonment.

If no other character in All the Way is drawn in such depth, it's because the playwright, Robert Schenkkan is after the sweep of events, the interplay of conflicting forces, and the petty power grabs that drive his story. In the first act, Johnson must corral both King, whose Southern Christian Leadership Conference is splitting wide open over the effectiveness of non-violence, and a brace of Dixiecrat senators who will support equality for blacks when hell freezes over. Johnson gets his way, by flattery, threats, the occasional lie, and some good old-fashioned horse-trading, but his triumph tears his party apart, putting his electoral chances in jeopardy. And as the convention looms, his troubles pile up. The brutal murder of three young civil rights workers causes King to demand integration of Mississippi's all-white delegation, even as Wallace and Barry Goldwater woo disaffected Southern voters -- even, at one point, threatening to team up on a fusion bill. Meanwhile, reports come in of a US ship being attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam; despite the shaky intelligence, Johnson plans a military response, if only to disprove charges that he is a lily-livered liberal; it's a decision that will alter the course of his presidency.

Of course, Johnson wins the election with one of the greatest landslides in US history, but even as the confetti flies and the crowd roars, the victory is pyrrhic: "The sun will come up and the knives will come out," he says, watching his enemies reorganize. And, as All the Way makes clear, the elements are in place for the bitter reversals to come. As the audience well knows, by the end of his term, he will be a virtual prisoner in the White House, deserted by allies, vilified in the court of public opinion, and wondering when and how the cheering stopped.

Rauch's direction keeps the action moving at a thriller clip, with demonstrations and political rallies spilling out into the auditorium. Christopher Acebo's set surrounds the downstage playing area with a compressed version of the Senate chambers, allowing actors, in varied groupings, to watch the action when not involved in a scene. Thus, when Johnson mulls how far he can compromise on civil rights, the black members of the company look on impassively. And when it seems that he is finally ready to announce his vice-presidential pick, the entire company leans forward, expectantly. Jane Cox's lighting acts as a kind of camera eye, constantly reconfiguring the stage and drawing one's attention to where the next maneuver is being plotted. The projections, by Shawn Sagady with additional supervision by Wendall K. Harrington, add to the stage pictures with interestingly angled images of various locations in the White House and the Capitol and the colored-only hotels where King and his associates were forced to stay; there is also powerful footage of police violence against civil rights workers and of convention hoopla in Atlantic City. Deborah M. Dryden's costumes are both period-accurate and masterfully engineered for split-second changes. Peter Fitzgerald provides sound effects ranging from birdsong to the strains of "Hello, Lyndon!", the revamped version of "Hello, Dolly!" that was heard at the convention.

All the Way is an especially thrilling experience because Broadway today rarely offers plays of such ambition and scope. Looked at one way, it's the 21st-century version of a Shakespearean historical drama, a vast canvas loaded with an extensive cast of sharp-elbowed characters all vying to reshape American society. Considered another way, it may be the best American play ever written about the sausage-making aspects of our political system. Schenkkan's Johnson is a master of the game, but he also knows that if he ever drops his manipulative ways, he is finished forever. "This is how new things are born," he says, combining idealism, opportunism, a talent for compromise, and a knack for betrayal. Even as we marvel at his achievement, a nagging question hangs in the air: Must one become a monster to make the machinery of democracy work? To its credit, All the Way lets us make up our own minds about that.--David Barbour