Gore Vidal's The Best Man (2012 Tony Award nominee, Best Play Revival) is now on Broadway in an all-star theatrical event with two time Tony Award winner James Earl Jones, Tony and Emmy Award winner John Larroquette, Golden Globe Award winner Cybill Shepherd, Emmy Award nominee John Stamos, Emmy Award nominee Kristin Davis, Tony Award winner Jefferson Mays, Obie Award winner Mark Blum and Tony Award winner Elizabeth Ashley.
A play about power, ambition, political secrets and the race for the presidency, GORE VIDAL’S THE BEST MAN will be directed by Michael Wilson, who recently directed the acclaimed epic production of Horton Foote’s The Orphans Home Cycle Part I,II and III at The Signature Theatre Company as well as the recent Dividing The Estate on Broadway. GORE VIDAL’S THE BEST MAN was Vidal’s second play following the success of his international comedy hit, Visit to a Small Planet.
By the time the curtain came down on this starry but sluggish production, and a nominee had been formally announced, I did feel as if I’d endured a particularly fractious and constipated evening at a political convention. Need I add that acquiring this experience has never been one of my great ambitions? ... I’m not sure Mr. Jones’s presence can be classified as color-blind casting.But no matter: this consummate actor digs into his role with a relish you can surely sense from the back row of the balcony. He all but swamps the stage with Hockstader’s hearty bonhomie and zest for the machinations of backroom deal making, but also succeeds in inflecting his character — in the last rounds of a losing battle with cancer — with a moving sense of his mortality. He also earns robust laughs with some of Mr. Vidal’s piercingly funny lines collapsing the distance between the politics of mid-20th-century America and today.
The most prominent graphic element on the new Best Man poster is the list of names of the stars of the show. There is a general rule of thumb about movies that if the ad features numerous boxes with pictures of each star and the caption “[star] as [role]” that the movie is likely to be a dog. That is not the case here. Nearly every role is cast with thespian royalty, including Michael McKean as an aide and Jefferson Mays as a character who has dirt on one of the candidates. Even Donna Hanover, the former first lady of New York, has a small role as a reporter in her Broadway debut. Most of the actors deliver. The exceptions, though, undermine the production: Eric McCormack as the slick candidate and Kerry Butler as his catty Southern belle wife. They are not just wrong-headed but whiny-voiced and annoying. This is not comic caricature, or at least not successful caricture. They just seem the result of inadequate stage craft. That this is so is both disappointing and completely baffling.
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2000 | Broadway |
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2012 | Broadway |
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2018 | West End |
West End Limited Engagement West End |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
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2012 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play | Angela Lansbury |
2012 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Bonnie Comley |
2012 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | 0 |
2012 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Sound Design in a Play | John Gromada |
2012 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Angela Lansbury |
2012 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | John Larroquette |
2012 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Revival of a Play | 0 |
2012 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | James Earl Jones |
2012 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play | Angela Lansbury |
2012 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | 0 |
2012 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | James Earl Jones |
2012 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Gore Vidal's The Best Man |
2012 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Jeffrey Richards |
2012 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Jerry Frankel |
2012 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | INFINITY Stages |
2012 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Universal Pictures Stage Productions |
2012 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Barbara Manocherian |
2012 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Michael Palitz |
2012 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Bonnie Comley |
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