110 (2019-2020): Review: ONE DISCORDANT VIOLIN (seen November 8, 2019)

"Fiddling in the Dark"

While watching One Discordant Violin, a one-actor, one-musician piece at 59E59 Theaters, I couldn’t help thinking of a thematically unrelated show I’d seen the night before, Broadbend, Arkansas, even though the latter is a musical and the former a play. Broadbend, Arkansas is in two parts, each featuring one actor who sings and speaks while accompanied by a musical ensemble. The actor in One Discordant Violin doesn’t sing but the tale he tells is about music, and much of what he says is underscored by a violinist. 

Jacques Mindreau, Anthony Black. All photos: Carol Rosegg.

The substance of each work is, essentially, a tale of past events that led the characters to their present state. Broadbend, Arkansas begins with a Southern black man narrating how he became caught up in the Civil Rights movement. Its second act, years later, features the man’s now grown daughter, whose son has been beaten by the police; what she says represents how the movement’s goals remain unresolved. Remove the musical background and each half could as easily be a short story as a performance. With conflicts mainly remembered or internalized, their impact as drama is greatly diminished.

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One Discordant Violin is itself adapted from a short story (“The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin”), written by Yann Martel (Life of Pi) and adapted by its star, Anthony Black. Black, codirector of the 2B Theatre Company of Halifax, Canada, shared the direction with Ann-Marie Kerr.

Jacques Mindreau.

Its original music is by Aaron Collier and Jacques Mindreau, the latter a violinist who not only accompanies Black’s performance but gets plenty of stage time to display his virtuosity, including an opening sequence before the play proper begins.

Anthony Black.

The unit set, also designed by Black, shows a few folding chairs surrounded by rubble in what once was a beautiful theatre but is now being demolished. A background wall of translucent screens allows for haunting lighting effects designed by Nick Bottomley and Anna Shepard, as well as multiple projections created by Bottomley.

Once again, dramatic conflict is remembered rather than experienced in the present as the unnamed speaker recites his story in the first person, shifting voices (as in the first of Broadbend, Arkansas’s parts) to represent other people. The story, though fictional, contains so many enticingly authentic-sounding details it seems, at first, to be autobiographical rather than made up.

The speaker, a Canadian, tells us of an experience he had in the summer of 2001 (upped from the story’s 1988 but, oddly, with no connection to 9/11), while visiting a friend in Washington, D.C. At the time, he was a feckless young man with vague educational/career goals, leaning toward being a writer, perhaps in the vein of Joseph Conrad, who inspires a dissertation on the genius of his punctuation.

The man talks about envying his D.C. friend for having already graduated from an elite college and made a career with the accounting behemoth Arthur Andersen, a current client being Donald Trump, a reference that goes nowhere.

While exploring one of the city’s seedier neighborhoods he noticed in the window of a barber shop an announcement for a special concert at the (fictional) Merridew Theater by the Maryland Vietnam War Veterans’ Baroque Chamber Ensemble. The program would include selections from Albinoni, Bach, and Telemann, along with the world premiere of an unfinished concerto by an unknown composer, John Morton.

Anthony Black.

Although declaring himself ignorant about music (a claim the narrative belies), the speaker’s writerly curiosity convinced him to buy a ticket. In precisely detailed prose, he describes the seriously distressed theatre, the vets running the concert, and, of course, the concert itself. The latter provides Mindreau an ample showcase, supplemented by recordings of additional orchestration (Aaron Collier did the sound design).  

Despite the shabby surroundings and the amateur musicians, the man’s initial skepticism was soon erased, especially as he found himself overwhelmed with the beauty of Morton’s concerto, “mistakes” and all. He became obsessed with Morton, who conducted his own composition, but turned out, surprisingly, to be an alcoholic janitor with rather peculiar work habits. The narrative looks back on what happened after the speaker tracked Morton down, and the eventual, disappointing, fate of the concerto.

In the literary climax, the narrator reads the notes in which he described what he deemed the remarkable quality of Morton’s music. The words, while vividly crafted, are themselves a kind of concerto. There’s no way, however, they can accurately describe a piece of music, which he heard only once, so that we can recreate it in our minds, especially since what he’s describing is totally fictional. It’s not as if he’s painting a word picture of something by Bach. What we get seems little more than a pretentious attempt at synesthetic prose.

Anthony Black.

One Discordant Violin, which runs around an hour and 10 minutes. touches on the transformative power of a work of art, even one as flawed as Morton’s, as well as on the eternal conflict of art and commerce. In the end, however, the initial hint at a potentially supernatural experience—as in the discovery, via dark, deserted hallways, of a once-spectacular theatre in a building without any outward signs of its existence—peters out and the narrator’s epiphany, meaningful as it is for him, remains purely personal, lacking a significant conclusion.

Anthony Black, Jacques Mindreau.

Black’s performance is fine: honest, charming, and intense. Mindreau’s musicianship adds considerably to the elegiac mood. Still, like Broadbend, Arkansas, One Discordant Violin—even with such good performances—remains somewhat out of tune.

One Discordant Violin

59E59 Theaters/Theater B

59 E. 59^th St., NYC

Through November 24

109 (2019-2020): Review: SOFT POWER (seen November 6, 2019)

"East Beats West"

Soft Power, a new, self-described “play with a musical” at the Public (after being premiered at LA’s Center Theatre Group), reminds us that, several years ago, David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), who wrote its book and music, was stabbed in the neck in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The perpetrator, like his motive, remains unknown. 

Having nearly cost Hwang his life, it became the inspiration for this ambitious show, with a score (and additional lyrics) by Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home), which satirizes a host of political and social issues in a generally entertaining but overlong and thematically overstuffed way.  

Conrad Ricamora and company. All photos: Joan Marcus.

Given the Public’s full production support, with a 22-piece orchestra (occasionally silhouetted on multiple levels behind an upstage scrim), the 14-actor show, energetically staged by Leigh Silverman, creates a semi-autobiographical, metatheatrical reality via the presence of a character called David Henry Hwang (DHH hereafter).

Like the real person of that name, DHH is America’s foremost Chinese-American playwright. He’s played by the excellent Francis Jue, who happens, however, to be nothing like the real DHH in either affect or appearance. What will become the show’s musical theatre centerpiece is meant to be happening in DHH’s imagination as he lies bleeding in the street.

Ensemble of Soft Power.

Although this is a musical, it doesn’t actually become one until about 20 minutes in, after the dramatic setup (thus: “a play with musical”). This involves a Shanghai theatrical producer, Xūe Xíng (Conrad Ricamora), who comes to New York to hire DHH as the writer for a musical based on a popular Chinese movie.

The movie tells of a married couple who, though attracted to other people, decide to stay together, following their duty rather than their hearts, a Chinese outcome the American DHH rejects. Xūe, representing the Shanghai Municipal Government, hopes to appropriate for China the art of the Broadway musical, making Shanghai the theatre capital of Asia, with DHH writing their first show.

Francis Jue.

Many issues arise, largely, but not entirely, in the musical DHH imagines, which becomes an international classic whose revival we’re watching decades later. They highlight East-West cultural appropriation and misunderstandings; American versus Chinese conceptions of marriage and family; the American-born DHH’s confusion regarding his national identity; the secondary nature of Asian characters in American theatre; Chinese versus American methods of choosing leaders; the electoral college; democracy; the 2016 election; Hillary Clinton's loss; the unexpected president whose name is never spoken; gun violence; the use of “soft power”—cultural achievements (like Catcher in the Rye and Saturday Night Fever (!)—to gain political capital (making America more like China than the other way around); and more. There are so many, in fact, some become little more than boxes on a check-off list.

Much as liberal audiences will appreciate or even laugh at Soft Power’s anti-Trumpian attitudes, or the skewed view of America as seen from the outside, the humor falls largely on the heavy-handed side, not unlike an extended (two hours and 15 minutes, in fact) SNL sketch. Or maybe the idea of Clinton twerking, for example, to earn votes is more hilarious than I give it credit for. There’s even a fantasy scene set among musical theatre academics many years in the future, intended to satirize the notion that China will become the world’s musical theatre leader.

Happily, the multitalented company of actors—all except for Louis—of Asian extraction, is thoroughly delightful. Dancing, singing, playing multiple roles, and even—in two cases—roller skating, they keep the show afloat even when their material succeeds more because of its enthusiasm and spirit than its artistic quality.   

Conrad Ricamora, Francis Jue.

A visit of the DHH and Xūe to a New York revival of The King and I establishes the idea of how Western musicals about Asian cultures privileges distorted white perceptions of nonwhite societies, with non-Asian actors playing Asian characters. Thus, following DHH’s post-election stabbing, we get the alternative reality of an Asian musical about America, in which he imagines a The King and I scenario in which the “king” and “I” roles are reversed between Xūe and Hillary. 

We see America through Asian eyes, with images as misguided as those we perpetuate ourselves, showing Americans as pistol-packing, mob-like thugs, or presenting New York with a Golden Gate Bridge, or imagining McDonald’s as a fancy dining establishment, with roller-skating waiters. This fun-house mirror, however, quickly clouds over and loses its impact.

Alyse Alan Ricamora and company. 

The imaginary musical, which focuses on Xūe, who in the framing story has a white, American girlfriend, Zoe (Alyse Alan Louis), transfers this affair to a romance with Hillary Clinton (also played by Louis). It simultaneously enacts a plot about DHH writing a show based on the same story his nonmusical counterpart has been asked to concoct. And while the music often suggests pastiches of Broadway standbys like “Shall We Dance” and “The Rain in Spain,” the most memorable number is a serious love song, “Happy Enough,” sung by Xūe and Hillary.

Alyse Alan Louis, Conrad Ricamora.

Confusing as the plot may sound, it’s usually clear enough in practice as enacted in a variety of cleverly designed sets by the gifted Clint Ramos, including a jetliner pointing its nose at the audience, supplemented by Bryce Cutler’s video designs. Anita Yavich’s numerous costumes add plenty of visual wit, and Mark Barton’s expert lighting makes it all look good. With Sam Pinkleton’s well-executed choreography adding lots of fun, audiences have plenty to enjoy even when the script itself leaves something to be desired.

Alyse Alan Louis, Conrad Ricamora.

Jue brings a sweet poignancy to DHH’s dilemmas, Louis’s performances as Zoe and Hillary display her limber dancing and solid singing, although she works a bit too hard to hit the big notes in her 11 o’clock number, the invigorating, gospel-style “Democracy.” She also looks great in a Wonder Woman costume. Ricamora is an appealing and talented leading man as Xūe. Whatever his actual ethnicity, though, he doesn’t look particularly Chinese, nor have a consistently believable Chinese accent. 

This, by the way, seems ironic given DHH’s complaint about the casting of non-Asians in Asian roles, including the inauthentic accents they frequently employ. What, in this racially sensitive arena, exactly constitutes an Asian actor or qualifies a Filipino or a Thai to play a Chinese or Japanese? The same, of course, could be asked of "white" actors and the broad range of ethnicities they get to play.  

Soft Power is wonderfully performed, original, and challenging, but lacks the hard power needed to lift it to the next level.

Soft Power

Public Theater

425 Lafayette St., NYC

Through November 17

108 (2019-2020): Review: MACBETH (seen November 5, 2019)

"Macbeth and the Thane of Thrones"

For my review of Macbeth please click on THE BROADWAY BLOG.

107 (2019-2020): Review: DR. RIDE'S AMERICAN BEACH HOUSE (Seen November 4, 2019)

"When Harriet Met Sally"

For my review of Dr. Ride's American Beach House please click on THEATER LIFE.

Guest review 17 (2019-2020): AESOP'S FABLES

“Slow and Steady Wins the Stage”*****

by Elyse Orecchio (guest reviewer)

We’re all familiar with Aesop’s stories, but what about the story of Aesop? In the New Victory Theater’s delightful production of the Isango Ensemble’s Aesop’s Fables, Aesop’s journey from slave to free man in ancient Greece is told through a South African lens, meaning nary a toga is seen. Weaving in characters and themes from Aesop’s classic fables, this lively, exciting, family opera features marimba music inspired by gospel and traditional African song.  

All photos: Keith Pattison.

“The historical figure of Aesop was indeed a slave, and through bringing out this angle we aim to give the original fables a new sense of urgency and vitality,” says director Mark Dornford-May, who cofounded the Isango Ensemble in 2000 with the goal of hiring performers in communities surrounding Cape Town. They’ve since traveled the world reinventing Western classics. Created by playwright Peter Terson and co-music directors Paulina Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis, Aesop’s Fables is presented in English and enhanced with lyrics in Xhosa, Tswana, and Zulu.

As with all productions at the New Victory, the fun starts way before curtain time. Kids are invited to the lobby to learn about fables and the morals they are known for. There’s something for every kid—the one who wants to play an instrument in an enactment of a fable, the one who wants to take a deep dive into Aesop lore, or the one who prefers to write a fable from scratch. I am always impressed with the level of the staff’s commitment and engagement to the educational pre-show programming. 

Entering the theatre, we find the ensemble already on stage interacting among themselves on stage, creating an inviting, communal welcome in keeping with the performance that follows. It feels is as if we’ve been invited to a village square to be told stories with minimal props and costume pieces. The actors are elevated on an angled wooden platform and wear simple (but adorable) items like a green shell or bunny ears (“The Tortoise and the Hare”), or a cool lion mask (“The Lion’s Share”). The performers alternate between playing marimbas on either side of the platform and portraying characters from Aesop’s fables on stage, like the enchanting musicians-turned-storytelling ants. Lungelo Ngamlana’s bright choreography adds another layer of joy to the performance.  

Vibrant and exuberant as Aesop’s Fables is, parents ought to heed the age recommendation of seven and up—it is, after all, the story of a slave. On the run from his master Escallywags (Zamile Gantana), Aesop is on a journey to Mount Olympus to ask Zeus for his freedom. Siphosethu Hintsho, marvelously charming as Aesop, is the lone youth in a cast of adults. Little ones might be upset seeing a child in chains about to be beaten (the boy remains shackled throughout)—but happily, as part of the plot, he loses a link in his chains with each lesson he learns from the animals he encounters! 

In this way, the production is both silly and serious, like the fables themselves. Just because Aesop’s plight is life-or-death doesn’t mean the kid behind me won’t giggle “they’re in their underwear!” when the frogs come out in costumes that do indeed look like unmentionables. 

Of course, no production based on Aesop’s Fables would be complete without a moral. Aesop learns that “liberty comes with responsibility”—in the end, his first act of freedom is to show forgiveness to his former captors by granting them their own freedom from the shackles bestowed on them by an angry Zeus.  

I really appreciated my refresher-course on classic fables reminding me to look before I leap and that where there’s a will there’s a way. These stories, although familiar to me, were new to the young niece who joined me. As a slave, Aesop was probably illiterate and these fables that originated in Greece circa 600 B.C. were passed down orally (with known written accounts coming centuries later). Now, they are retold to my niece through theatre (by a South African ensemble, at that!).

Thanks to groups like the Isango Ensemble breaking barriers on what’s possible in storytelling, we don’t know how the next generation will be taught Aesop’s fables. For me, it’s enough to know that they will. 

Aesop’s Fables

New Victory Theater

209 W. 42nd St., NYC

Closed November 3

Elyse Orecchio studied musical theatre at Emerson College, acting at CUNY Brooklyn College, and English Linguistics & Rhetoric at CUNY Hunter College. She has worked in nonprofit communications for more than a decade. She lives in Sunnyside, Queens, with her husband Joe, kids Theo and Melody, and three cats. eorecchio@gmail.com @elyseorecchio

106 (2019-2020): Review: BELLA BELLA (seen November 1, 2019)

“Abzug-lutely”

One night after I saw The Great Society, the second play in Robert Schenkkan’s epic diptych about Pres. Lyndon Baines Johnson, the play I was watching, Bella Bella, not only heavily referenced the 36th POTUS but, even more coincidentally, quoted his famous line about not seeking the nomination of his party, which headlined my review.

Harvey Fierstein. All photos: Jeremy Daniel.

Bella Bella, at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s City Center Stage 1, is a one-man work about New York activist and politician Bella Abzug (1920-1998),written by and starring the redoubtable Harvey Fierstein. And while being far more modest than The Great Society it’s also much more entertaining.

Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy, Kinky Boots), the buzz saw-voiced actor-playwright who can do drag with the best of them, did not originally intend to play “Battling Bella,” but, given his dipped-in-New York/Yiddishkeit persona, it’s hard to think of anyone (male or female) who could more delightfully have brought her to raging life, warts and all. Still, it’s ironic that a man is playing a woman whose life was largely dedicated to giving women equal rights with men. Whoever the actress might have been, a man took her job!

Abzug, the profane, colorfully outspoken, antiwar, feminist activist and politician, known for her broadbrimmed, eye-catching hats, served productively in the House of Representatives from 1970-1976, when—seeking to break into the then entirely male Senate—she lost her run to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And not by much.

Harvey Fierstein. 

It’s unlikely that anyone not familiar with New York politics of the 60s and 70s would find the name-dropping world of Bella Bella particularly enthralling, although Abzug had a mouth on her that could have served equally well for a career in stand-up comedy. Those who remember her (what New Yorker from those days cannot?) will find Fierstein’s Abzug a sharp-tongued, very funny, and still absolutely relevant figure. She took no crap for her radical beliefs, never wavering in her support of her favorite causes.

Fierstein, smartly directed by Kimberly Senior, makes the unusual choice not to play the part in drag, or to do much to make himself particularly “feminine.” Somewhat stockier than the amply proportioned Abzug, he performs barefoot (with red toenails), in black slacks and a black shirt (Rita Ryack gets the design credit). He wears no makeup other than, perhaps, some lip rouge; his hair—no wig—is its natural silver. A large, circular red hat, not donned until the end, is prominently displayed, reminding us of Abzug’s trademark prop.

The setup places Abzug in a dressing room/cum bathroom (perfectly designed by John Lee Beatty and lit by Tyler Micoleau), in the Summit Hotel (now the Doubletree) on Lexington Avenue, at two a.m. in September 1976. As she waits to learn whether she’ll win a five-candidate, Democratic primary, giving her a shot at becoming New York’s first woman senator, she provides her narrative without saying why we’re being addressed, a problem endemic to many of these solo plays.

Abzug rambles through her memories in a digressive, "I-just-thought-of-this" manner, sometimes addressing particular spectators. She waves her hand in yenta-like “listen to this” style, tosses off politically stinging zingers, speaks with a light Eastern European-inflected intonation, and laces her lines with Yiddish, usually offering a translation. When she mentions a pishke, for example, she says it’s a tin can for collecting money, adding, “you can’t ask Jews for money in a piggybank.”

Harvey Fierstein. 

For 90 minutes, interrupted a couple of times for updates by her husband, Martin, at the door (where he remains unseen), Abzug chats about her fierce feminism, including the need to have more women in politics; her reasons for disdaining five modern presidents (like FDR, whom she accuses of having done too little to prevent the Holocaust); refers amusingly to prominent feminists like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan (who gets a wisecrack about her looks); and outlines her career as an activist and labor lawyer. 

She gets a laugh when she says her father, a butcher, had a shop called The Live and Let Live Meat Market; tells us that she went to Columbia because Harvard didn’t accept women; reveals that she began wearing hats to ensure no one took her for a secretary; explains her outspoken anti-Vietnam War position; informs us of her work for gay civil rights; mentions her pro-Nixon impeachment stance; covers her HUAC activity; reviews the promise and tragedy of RFK; reminds us of her hand in releasing the Pentagon Papers; and, naturally, informs us of why she went into politics.

Abzug touches on numerous other people (John Lindsay, Richard Nixon, Shirley Chisholm, Paul Robeson, Ed Koch, etc., etc.) and events. Particular emphasis is devoted to her struggle between 1950 and 1951—it contributed to the pregnant Abzug’s miscarriage—to prevent the execution of Willie McGee, a black man from Mississippi accused of having raped a white woman (their affair was consensual).

By the end of her discourse, you realize that, beyond the façade of a personality, wit, and intellect that makes Donald Trump look like Donald Duck, she was a unique and awesome woman the likes of which we could use right now.  If Abzug were alive and running for president, though, it’s doubtful she’d have the wide appeal to challenge the incumbent. But, boy, would it be fun to hear her give her two cents worth.

Did I enjoy Bella Bella? As a prospective campaign button once shouted: “Abzug-lutely.”

Bella Bella

City Center Stage 1

131 W. 55^th St., NYC

Through December 1

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105 (2019-2010): Review: THE GREAT SOCIETY (seen October 31, 2019)

"When a President Would Not Accept the Nomination of His Party"

Robert Schenkkan’s bloated, panoramic, history-lesson of a play, The Great Society, is about a blustery, foul-mouthed, arm-twisting, power-hungry American president whose signature slogan blares the word “great.” His name, of course, is Lyndon Baines Johnson and he is being given a fiery, high-decibel performance by Scottish star, Brian Cox, so ruthlessly cunning as another raging autocrat, the Rupert Murdoch-like Logan Roy, on TV’s “Succession.”

Brian Cox. All photos: Evan Zimmerman.

The Great Society, Schenkkan’s sequel to his Tony-winning All the Way (2014), in which an equally memorable Bryan Cranston was closer in age (58) and appearance (although six inches too short) to the 36th POTUS than Cox (73, 10 inches shorter, and portly). But Cox is a great enough actor so that, even if we can’t forget, we eventually don’t mind the disparities too much as he rages like King Lear (which Cox has played) against the overwhelming circumstances of his tenure before they crush him and he decides not to run for a second term.

Whereas All the Way gained its potency from its focus on Johnson’s forging ahead despite awesome obstacles to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Great Society (subtitled Part II of the LBJ Plays), covers much wider territory from early January 1965 through the election of Johnson’s successor, Richard Nixon, in 1968. Thirty-seven named (and many more unnamed) characters—many of them important political figures—are played by 17 actors, supplemented by two “ensemble” members, in scenes set in Washington, D.C., Selma, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

As they used to say, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard, so the production actually provides a two-sided card listing each character with an identifying tag. Obviously, wig and costume changes (Tom Watson designed the former, Linda Cho the latter) are abundant, and distinguished actors—like Bryce Pinkham, Frank Wood, and Marc Kudisch—must rush about, playing not only significant persons but extras, like policemen or protesters.

Richard Thomas, Frank Wood, Brian Cox, Marc Kudisch, Brian Dykstra.

The Great Society, presented at the Vivian Beaumont, is played out on David Korins’s flexible thrust-stage set, with congressional-style benches to either side, a central trap that allows units like desks and sofas to appear and disappear, and a semicircular rear wall for multiple projections of period images, including information such as Vietnam War casualties.

Under the capable direction of Bill Rauch (All the Way), who staged the premiere at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the show moves swiftly, only rarely slowing down to catch its breath (and give us a breather from its informational overload), as it races through the multiple crises and personalities of the Johnson presidency.

Brian Cox, Bryce Pinkham.

Included are the divide among black leaders regarding violent (Stokely Carmichael, played by Marchant Davis) or nonviolent (Dr. Martin Luther King, played by Grantham Coleman) protests; and the catastrophically accelerating Vietnam War, a result of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s (Matthew Rauch) convincing the initially reluctant president to increase American military involvement.

Either of these would have been enough for a single drama but we also get the pummeling of AMA president James Z. Appel (Kudisch) into supporting Medicare; J. Edgar Hoover’s (Gordon Clapp) unparalleled use of the FBI to surveil Americans for potential subversive activities;  Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s (Kudisch) being confronted over his discriminatory policies; tax negotiations with House Ways and Means chair Wilbur Mills (Rauch) to address the ballooning budget, etc.

Marc Kudish, Brian Cox.

There are also politically heated infusions from the likes of Robert F. Kennedy (Pinkham), George Wallace (David Garrison), Nixon (also Garrison), Hubert Humphrey (Richard Thomas), and many other once-noteworthy names. The domestic side gets some attention with the appearance of Lady Bird Johnson (Barbara Garrick), Coretta Scott King (Nikkole Salter), and Pat Nixon (Angela Pierce). In fact, a late scene between LBJ and Lady Bird, when his world is falling apart, is perhaps the play’s single most human.

Regardless of his superficial resemblances to the current president, Johnson was a far more knowledgeable and savvier political leader. On the other hand, for all his socially progressive accomplishments (“The Great Society”), it can be argued that his policies had even more troubling and bloody results than Trump’s.

The brutality associated with the Montgomery to Selma civil rights marches happened under his watch, as did the hugely destructive race riots in Chicago and Watts, while the number of Americans killed in Vietnam soared from 435 in January 1965 to 25,826 two years later. His responsibility for the quagmire along with the growing competition from Eugene McCarthy and RFK were among the factors influencing him not to seek reelection.

Brian Cox, Richard Thomas, Gordon Clapp.

So much transpires within Schenkkan’s epic drama that even those who lived through the traumatic times it depicts will have difficulty keeping up with it, or maintaining interest as it veers from one crisis to another, many of them featuring Johnson shouting vituperatively at his associates. It’s hard to imagine how anyone with little or no knowledge of this history will respond, which may be one reason the Beaumont was, perhaps not unsurprisingly, only half filled or why so many didn’t return for act two of this two-and-a-half-hour work.

Cox dominates as the Texas-accented, good ol’ boy POTUS, as ready to share a colorful anecdote as to napalm an enemy with craft or anger. Given the sketchiness of the writing, the other actors are mostly reduced to paper-thin pastiches of the people they represent. A belly-padded Marc Kudisch gets away with a decent Mayor Daley, and Grantham Coleman’s MLK is satisfactory but unexciting. But we also get Wood’s nearly invisible Everett Dirksen, Pinkham’s exaggeratedly-accented RFK, Clapp’s stiffly officious Hoover, Garrison’s cartoonish Nixon, and Richard Thomas’s wishy-washy VP Humphrey.

Grantham Coleman.

The Great Society was a program that produced socially revolutionary results that are now endangered by Donald J. Trump. The Great Society doesn’t spend much time reminding us of just what its title represents because it’s too busy describing the multiplicity of forces that ended its founder’s career. Perhaps that’s one of the many reasons that, as a play, it’s anything but great. 

Nothing in the play affected me as strongly as Johnson's speech declining to run again, Its contemporary relevance is such that more than half our country probably wishes to hear the same today. The chances are close to impossible, regardless of what the impeachment process reveals, so I offer his words as wishful thinking:

The strength of America lies in the unity of our people but there is deep division in our country. For my part, I feel strongly that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President!

The Great Society

Vivian Beaumont Theatre/Lincoln Center

150 W. 65^th St., NYC

Through November 24

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