All the Way is a gripping new play about a pivotal moment in American history. This drama will take audiences behind the doors of the Oval Office and inside the first years of Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency, and his fight to pass a landmark civil rights bill. Bryan Cranston, Michael McKean and Brandon J. Dirden will be joined by an ensemble cast playing additional roles such as Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell, Robert McNamara, Coretta Scott King, Lady Bird Johnson, Bob Moses, Roy Wilkins, Lurleen Wallace, Stokely Carmichael, Walter Jenkins, Stanley Levison, George Wallace, Ralph Abernathy and Judge Smith.
All the Way was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle and premiered at OSF in 2012. It then went on to play a sold-out and critically acclaimed run at the A.R.T. from September 13-October 12, 2013 starring Cranston. The play was awarded the 2013 inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, established through Columbia University in honor of the late Senator Kennedy, honoring new plays or musicals exploring US history and issues of the day.
A little bit U.S. Senate and a little bit New York Philharmonic, designer Christopher Acebo's spacious set, given location specificity through a parade of scenes byShawn Sagady's projections, help the free-flowing pageantry of Robert Schenkkan's exciting and energetic drama, All The Way, gallop full speed in director Bill Rauch's pulse-racing production. At the center of a top-notch ensemble isBryan Cranston, portraying our 36th president with that memorable thick Texas drawl, a commanding presence, a quick mind and a ferocious temper. He is indeed a skilled conductor; ruthlessly political, bullying, foul-mouthed and often insensitive to those who show him the most loyalty, all for the cause of promoting the sweet harmony of civil rights with a minimal amount of rioting.
Portraying America's 36th chief executive, Lyndon Baines Johnson, in Robert Schenkkan's democratic procedural drama 'All the Way,' Cranston proves so effortlessly captivating that you could imagine pulling a lever for him - or even contributing generously to whatever campaign war chest he trots out. Well, maybe 'effortlessly' is the wrong word. Because Cranston, late of TV's habit-forming 'Breaking Bad,' works like the dickens to convey in his cagey, short-fused, eternally prowling LBJ a strength of will that reveals what a political leader needs to get big things done. It's a darn good thing, too, for without him, the three-hour production, which opened Thursday night at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre, might feel like something a little duller, along the lines of a talking textbook. Perhaps in the vast cavalcade of Washington events and personalities the play covers, there was not much room left for nuanced portraits. In any event, none of the personages filling out the story, from J. Edgar Hoover (Michael McKean) to George Wallace (Rob Campbell), from Ralph Abernathy (J. Bernard Calloway) to, yes, The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham (Aidem, again), come to feel as anything more than the audience for LBJ's one-man band. Fortunately for us, though, it's Cranston who is holding the baton.
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