Tony Award & Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan will return to Broadway with the second of his two exhilarating dramas celebrating Lyndon B. Johnson's legacy: THE GREAT SOCIETY.
Capturing Johnson's passionate and aggressive attempts to build a great society for all, THE GREAT SOCIETY follows his epic triumph in a landslide election to the agonizing decision not to run for re-election just three years later. It was an era that would define history forever: the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the destruction of Vietnam, and the creation of some of the greatest social programs America has ever known-and one man was at the center of it all: LBJ.
What we get less of a sense of, despite Society's largely sympathetic portrait of its still controversial subject, is the turmoil Johnson must have endured, along with other leaders he engaged. Their dialogue is often too obvious to invite reflection, so that even the most supple actors can seem as if they're reciting lines in a well-crafted reenactment of historical events. Richard Thomas, who generally makes any production worth seeing, is wasted as Johnson veep Hubert Humphrey, presented here as part dutiful aide, part convenient foil. Marc Kudisch juggles a few heavies who contest Johnson's more progressive policies, among them Chicago's Mayor Richard J. Daley, and emerge as cardboard slimeballs-accurate in spirit, perhaps, but less interesting in execution.
That's not enough to replicate the success of 'All the Way,' which won the Tony Award for best play. Mr. Cranston, whose portrayal of L.B.J. won a Tony Award as well, could carry that story, essentially a comedy, on pure skill and charisma. 'The Great Society,' a tragedy, needs more than that but instead gets less. It's bad enough that Johnson is so two-dimensional; the supporting characters have it worse. Their traits are parceled out on a one-per-customer basis: Humphrey's a patsy, King a worrier, Carmichael a hothead and Wallace a weasel.
2013 | Off-Broadway |
World Premiere Off-Broadway |
2019 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2020 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Wig and Hair Design | Tom Watson |
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