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.
It's all very interesting and fair-minded in a retro kind of way - and surely educational for the young. Its even-handed, centrist point of view is also distinctively out of step with the moment, a Biden-esque island in today's sea of activist progressive writing, even on Broadway. But the whole shebang nonetheless lacks bite.
Like its Broadway predecessor of 2014, which detailed Johnson's first year in office and subsequent election as President in his own right, The Great Society is again directed by Bill Rauch, employs a relatively large ensemble of 19 actors to portray more than 50 statesmen and personalities of the era, and covers a vast amount of American history within a nearly three hour-long production. Probably much too much history, as it turns out. Opening on Tuesday at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, The Great Society eventually congeals into a ponderous drama in spite of the efforts of some excellent actors who do their damnedest to inject life and excitement into a series of woeful events.
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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