this week in theater

THE REALISTIC JONESES

John Jones (Michael C. Hall) says farewell to a dead squirrel as Jennifer (Toni Collette) and Bob Jones (Tracy Letts) look on (photo by Joan Marcus)

Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through July 13, $29- $135
www.therealisticjoneses.com

In his first Broadway play, The Realistic Joneses, Will Eno is as much choreographer as writer, his words twirling, spinning, lifting, throwing, bouncing, and ricocheting among the four characters, performing an intoxicating dance of language. As in his previous two works, Title and Deed and The Open House, a kind of existential absurdity hovers over the proceedings, which delve into the deeply psychological natures of home and family. The Joneses live a rather isolated life up in the mountains, Bob (Tracy Letts) a curmudgeon suffering from a mysterious disease, Jennifer (Toni Collette) taking care of him while trying to deal with his sudden mood shifts. Their peaceful tranquility is somewhat shattered when a cheerful, energetic couple also named the Joneses move into the house down the way, John (Michael C. Hall) a repairman, Pony (Marisa Tomei) a sort of ditzy ingénue. Over the course of a few days, the four characters interact in different groupings, sharing their views on love and marriage, home and health while debating the meaning of language and communication in general and certain words and phrases specifically. “Nature was definitely one of the big selling points of here. Plus, the school system’s supposed to be good,” Pony says. “Oh, do you have kids?” Jennifer asks. “No, it’s just that John hates stupid children,” Pony responds. “We communicate pretty well, even without words,” Jennifer says about Bob, then later tells John, “I think you have a nice way with words.”

Pony (Marisa Tomei) and John Jones (Michael C. Hall) are looking forward to a new life in the mountains, but little do they know what awaits them (photo by Joan Marcus)

Eno, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for 2004’s Thom Pain (based on nothing), stealthily riffs on the old saw “keeping up with the Joneses” by equating the two couples in clever, understated ways, tantalizingly making one wonder whether they are actually different manifestations or younger and older versions of the same people. (Even though John and Pony appear more youthful than Bob and Jennifer, all four actors are in their forties, Tomei eight years older than Collette, Letts five years senior to Hall.) “We’re not so different, you and me,” John says to Bob, who responds, “I think we’re probably very different,” to which John adds, “Yeah, me too, actually.” And later, Pony tells John, “I don’t want to turn into those guys, next door.” Director Sam Gold (Fun Home, Seminar, Picnic) maintains a quick pace throughout the play’s fast-moving ninety minutes, another Eno specialty, with most scenes working well, although a meeting between John and Jennifer at the local market feels unsure of itself and falls flat. Otherwise, The Realistic Joneses is a smart, engaging comedy boasting an outstanding cast having a whole lot of deliciously infectious fun with the crazy English language.

CINCY IN NYC: CINCINNATI BALLET

HUMMINGBIRD is one of three pieces to be presented by Cincinnati Ballet in the company’s Joyce debut (photo by Peter Mueller)

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
May 6-11, $10-$59
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
www.cballet.org

Usually when you talk about Cincinnati being in New York, it means that the Reds are taking on the Mets at CitiField or the Bengals are in town taking on the Jets or the Giants at the Meadowlands. But this week it refers to Cincy in NYC, seven days of art, music, dance, theater, and food celebrating the Queen of the West. The centerpiece is the Cincinnati Ballet, returning to New York City for the first time in thirty-five years as part of its fiftieth anniversary season. The company, which features six Cuban dancers, will be presenting three recent works at its Joyce debut from May 6 to 11. Resident choreographer Adam Hougland’s 2013 Hummingbird in a Box is a piece for eight dancers, set to seven specially commissioned songs by guitar god Peter Frampton and Gordon Kennedy; Frampton, who performed the music live at the Cincinnati premiere, will be on hand to introduce the work on opening night at the Joyce. Trey McIntyre’s 2004 Chasing Squirrel is a wildly energetic and fanciful piece for ten dancers in dazzling costumes by Sandra Woodall, with raucous Latino-infused music recorded by the Kronos Quartet. And Val Caniparoli’s 2013 Caprice is an elegant piece that brings together live musicians and ten dancers to Paganini’s “Violin Caprices.” Cincinnati Ballet artistic director Victoria Morgan will participate in a Joyce Dance Chat following the May 7 show.

Cincy in NYC also includes University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music jazz alums performing at Lincoln Center, “Music and Words with Ricky Ian Gordon” at the National Opera House, a Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park staged reading of Cincinnati native Theresa Rebeck’s new play, Fool, at Pearl Studios, the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, seven Cincy chefs preparing a special meal at the James Beard House, the CCM Ariel Quartet playing Haydn, Berg, and Beethoven at the 92nd St. Y’s downtown SubCulture, and, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the reunion of Rembrandt’s separate portraits of a husband and wife, the Taft Museum’s “Portrait of a Man Rising from His Chair” and the Met’s “Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan.”

TWI-NY TALK: JAY O. SANDERS

Jay O. Sanders will present UNEXPLORED INTERIOR at Museum of Jewish Heritage on May 11 as part of twentieth anniversary commemoration of Rwandan genocide

UNEXPLORED INTERIOR
Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
Sunday, May 11, 12 noon, free with advance RSVP
www.mjhnyc.org
www.theflea.org

In 2004, struck by the world’s continued indifference to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, actor Jay O. Sanders attended the ten-year commemoration of the start of the mass killings in Kigali, the African nation’s capital. Moved by what he saw, Sanders, the Austin-born son of activist parents, decided to do something about it. A Shakespeare in the Park regular who has appeared in such films as JFK, The Day After Tomorrow, and Revolutionary Road and has played recurring characters on such series as True Detective, Person of Interest, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Sanders began writing Unexplored Interior, a fictionalized play that takes place immediately following the 1994 genocide, as a Hutu man and Tutsi woman fall in love, a Rwandan student in New York City sets out to make a film about what happened, and a UN peacekeeper contemplates his own life in the wake of the tragic events. The play will have its latest staged reading on May 11 at 12 noon at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (admission is free with advance RSVP) as part of the official Kwibuka20 events commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, calling for people to “remember — unite — renew.” An all-star cast will be directed by James Glossman (Trouble Is My Business; Smiling, the Boy Fell Dead), and the production in New York will be broadcast live at the new outdoor amphitheater at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center courtesy of Google+ Hangout on Air, followed by an international panel discussion and Q&A session.

twi-ny: What was the genesis of Unexplored Interior and your interest in Rwanda?

Jay O. Sanders: Let me give you the short answer. In April of 1994, my wife and I, both working actors, were cloistered in our West Village apartment with our five-week-old, first-and-only child, reflecting on what it meant to be the guardians of a life, when President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down in Kigali and the start of genocide hit. We watched the news as reports of this horrific event unfolded and repeatedly told us it was beyond our understanding. Stories began to flow of brutal, neighbor-on-neighbor mass killings and a Canadian U.N. peacekeeping commander who was calling for help but no one was being sent, and all without pictures, as no press was inside the country. Until they began to show video of hundreds and hundreds of bloated bodies floating down the rivers along the borders, caught on the rocks, going over falls. It was a mind-numbing, grotesque, and totally infuriating circus of ignorance and failure of the world to respond.

I got it in my head that if I could just see out through the peacekeeper’s eyes, as a fellow Westerner, I might at least be able to understand. I thought, I need to play him (as actors do). I watched every report I could find, yielding reports of that same man refusing to order a full withdrawal and managing to save the lives of some tens of thousands of refugees while bearing witness to the 800,000 whom he couldn’t, and finally, on returning home, attempting suicide numerous times, unable to process what he’d been through. After ten years of germination and finding myself still as ignorant as before, I was overcome with the need to find an answer I could give my son. To arm him with an understanding of this genocide of his lifetime. I felt I owed him an answer.

twi-ny: You’re a well-respected actor, familiar for your work in numerous films and plays and on television. How did your acting experience inform your writing of the play?

JOS: I started out to write a one-man show for myself as [Roméo] Dallaire, the peacekeeper. It seemed like an obvious, straightforward way to enter the story and bring it to others. So I found him in Rwanda at the ten-year commemoration, flew myself over to see for myself where all this had happened and be among those who had experienced it. I had discovered that, fortunately, he was still alive and now the author of a book about his experiences, Shake Hands with the Devil.

Again, the short version: I met him there, then spent time with him later in Quebec, and proceeded to write that play. But I soon discovered, the more I knew about what had happened, that Dallaire was actually my White Rabbit who led me into the situation, and the larger story was among the people themselves. So, I continued to study and write and emerged with a twenty-six-character play for fourteen actors which weaves many stories together, including Dallaire’s, with crossing themes on a much larger canvas.

twi-ny: How did you hook up with Google+, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center?

JOS: My wife, Maryann Plunkett, and I had done a reading down at the museum several years ago and I had noted the beauty of both this center of record for not only the Holocaust but all related genocide, as well as the beauty of the theater [Edmond J. Safra Hall] itself. When I began to think about where my play began, this was perfect. When I flew over for the ten-year commemoration in 2004, I was recognized by members of the CNN team, who invited me to join them for the week, which I did, gladly, finding myself front and center at all the major official events, including the official opening of the Aegis trust Kigali Genocide Memorial. I was there as President Kagame, General Dallaire, and many, many others witnessed the lighting of the eternal flame, above a mass grave holding 250,000 victims of the genocide.

So, when I was thinking about where I wanted to connect with our event, that, again, was obvious. Then, one of my producers, my dear friend Daniel Neiden, introduced me to Paula Gil Rodriguez, who had, herself, produced several large Google+ Hangouts on Air and knew a number of people at Google. She loved the idea of the project and she and her husband, Nick Lopez, came on board. My friend James Glossman has been my director from the moment the idea hit me to write this. It all just grew and grew.

twi-ny: Who are some of the people who will be participating in the reading?

JOS: We have a brilliant family of actors — some well known to you, others who you should know. Michael McKean, presently in All the Way on Broadway, plays Dallaire; Sharon Washington, award nominated for Wild with Happy at the Public and on Broadway with The Scottsboro Boys; Arthur French, who has been in everything and most recently of The Trip to Bountiful on Broadway; Fritz Weaver, one of the most distinguished stage and film actors of his generation; Charles Parnell, whose TV series The Last Ship premieres soon; Owiso Odera, Marlyne Barrett, Clark Jackson, Craig Alan Edwards, Irungu Mutu, Matthew Murumba, Benjamin Thys, and our youngest at thirteen, Nile Bullock, lately also of The Scottsboro Boys — all fantastic, deeply dedicated to this project, and each one a reason to see the play.

twi-ny: Is a full production of the play in the works?

JOS: We are still looking for a production. I’m hoping this presentation grabs the imagination of some brave producer or producers!

twi-ny: As opposed to last year’s presentation, this one will use social media in a fascinating way. What’s your personal experience with social media? Are you a Facebook/Twitter/Google+ junkie?

JOS: My personal experience is everyday. I use Facebook regularly as an international bulletin board and have just recently ventured over to Google+ as well, because of this project. I have a Twitter account but am not very fluent with it yet. These online forums have afforded me connections beyond anything I might have come upon otherwise — people out of my past, which included a lot of traveling, so that reaches a very long way, and those I’m just now meeting with common friends and/or common interests. Also, I regularly give master classes out at my alma mater, SUNY Purchase, and social media is a place we can all stay in touch for mutual news, project updates, and personal encouragement. It has been a godsend.

twi-ny: At any given moment, there is some kind of brutal civil war or genocide going on somewhere in the world, and more often than not, the U.S. government opts not to get involved. What can we as individual, peace-loving Americans do to try to change things?

JOS: Learn. Understand as much as you can. It’s always evolving — it requires regular effort — but there are ways to make a difference through awareness, voting, challenging the machine, humanizing world issues, applying compassion in your own life. Kindness begins with each one of us, at home, at work, in our communities, with the homeless, in our voices lifted against apathy — it ripples out and grows from those seeds into and across the world.

NOW: IN THE WINGS ON A WORLD STAGE

Documentary goes around the world, following Kevin Spacey and company as they stage contemporary version of RICHARD III

NOW: IN THE WINGS ON A WORLD STAGE (Jeremy Whelehan, 2014)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
May 2-8
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.kevinspacey.com

Now: In the Wings on a World Stage, the marvelous new documentary that follows a transatlantic company as it performs Richard III around the globe, did not get its name only because it’s the first word of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy — “Now is the winter of our discontent” — nor simply because it takes place in modern times in modern dress with nods to modern technology, but also because it’s a spine-tingling celebration of the immediacy of live theater. In 2009, Sam Mendes’s Neal Street Productions, the Old Vic under the leadership of Kevin Spacey, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, led by Joseph Melillo, formed a partnership in which British and American actors would present five classic plays over three years. Dubbed the Bridge Project, the wildly successful venture concluded in 2012 with Spacey, an American living and working in London, starring in Richard III, directed by Mendes, a Brit living and working in America. It was the first time they had teamed up since 1999’s American Beauty, the Best Picture Oscar winner that also nabbed Academy Awards for Mendes (Best Director) and Spacey (Best Actor). Spacey hired first-time feature filmmaker Jeremy Whelehan, an assistant director at the Old Vic, to go behind the scenes of Richard III, following the cast and crew as they rehearse, then travel to such locations as Doha, Beijing, Istanbul, Sydney, Epidaurus, Naples, and Hong Kong before wrapping things up in Brooklyn.

Kevin Spacey gets ready to take the stage as Shakespeare’s most treacherous villain

Whelehan and editor Will Znidaric let the plot of the play unfold in chronological order over the course of the epic tour, which ranges from the Epidaurus Amphitheatre, the fourth-century BCE architectural wonder that seats fourteen thousand and has breathtaking acoustics, to dazzlingly modern venues in Qatar and China. In each city, the participants — which also include Gemma Jones as Queen Margaret, Haydn Gwynne as Queen Elizabeth, Chuk Iwuji as Buckingham, Jeremy Bobb as Sir William Catesby and the second murderer, Simon Lee Phillips as Norfolk, Jack Ellis as Hastings, and Annabel Scholey as Lady Anne — discuss their approach to their roles, how audiences react differently in different countries, and what it’s like to be on this theatrical journey. Whelehan shows them experimenting with different methods, applying their own makeup, joking around backstage, and enjoying some of the local culture: boating in Italy, walking along the Great Wall of China, and rolling down sand dunes in the desert. But what shines through it all is their intense love of theater, of taking this splendid production around the world, growing richer as actors and as people, forming a unique kind of special family, with Spacey as the central father figure. Spacey, who played Buckingham in Al Pacino’s 1996 documentary, Looking for Richard — and employs Richard’s style of directly addressing the audience in his hit Netflix show, House of Cards — is clearly having a blast, and his insurmountable joy and dedication are infectious. Theater is notoriously difficult to bring to the big screen, but Whelehan captures the moment, with no discontent, making viewers feel like they are onstage with the actors yet also jealous of the deep bonds they have formed. Now, which had its world premiere last month at the Tribeca Film Festival and opens at the IFC Center on May 2, will have you salivating to see — or perhaps even get involved in — live theater, which ultimately is Spacey’s goal, one that he majestically achieves. Spacey, who also is the executive producer of the film, will be at the IFC Center opening night for Q&As after the 7:00 and 7:30 shows and to introduce the 9:15 screening.

A RAISIN IN THE SUN

Walter Lee Younger (Denzel Washington) and Ruth (Sophie Okonedo) are just trying to survive day to day in stellar revival of A RAISIN IN THE SUN (photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 15, $67 – $149
www.raisinbroadway.com

Broadway revivals are often about star power, still-relevant socioeconomic or –political issues, or inventive staging of a familiar classic. But Kenny Leon’s new version of A Raisin in the Sun goes back to the very creation of this fifty-five-year-old American drama, celebrating its fascinating author, Lorraine Hansberry. As patrons enter the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, an interview with Hansberry, the first African American woman to have a work produced on Broadway, is being broadcast on the sound system. Each Playbill comes with an additional pamphlet that reprints “Sweet Lorraine,” James Baldwin’s 1969 Esquire remembrance of Hansberry — who died in 1965 at the age of thirty-four — in which he writes, “Black people ignored the theater because the theater had always ignored them. But, in Raisin, black people recognized that house and all the people in it — the mother, the son, the daughter, and the daughter-in-law — and supplied the play with an interpretative element which could not be present in the minds of white people: a kind of claustrophobic terror, created not only by their knowledge of the streets.” Leon’s production, and the extremely talented cast, honors every word of the play, which doesn’t feel old-fashioned in any way.

Walter Lee Younger (Denzel Washington) explains his questionable plans to his mother (LaTanya Richardson Jackson) in A RAISIN IN THE SUN (photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

Oscar and Tony winner Denzel Washington stars as Walter Lee Younger, a dreamer trying to lift his family out of poverty in their cramped apartment on Chicago’s South Side. Every morning there’s a battle to get to the bathroom across the hall, shared by everyone on the floor. Walter’s mother, Lena (LaTanya Richardson Jackson), is expecting a $10,000 insurance check for her recently deceased husband. While Walter wants to invest it in a liquor store with his friends Bobo (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and the never-seen Willy Harris, Walter’s hardworking wife, Ruth (Sophie Okonedo), wants to put it to far more practical use. Also awaiting the money are Walter and Ruth’s son, Travis (Bryce Clyde Jenkins), who sleeps on the couch, and Walter’s sister, Beneatha (Anika Noni Rose), who lives with them as well and wants to become a doctor. As Beneatha spends time with two different men, the assimilating George Murchison (Jason Dirden) and Joseph Asagai (Sean Patrick Thomas), who introduces her to her African roots, Lena considers moving the family to all-white Clybourne Park, leading to a visit by neighborhood leader Karl Lindner (David Cromer), setting in motion a series of events that, with a delicate balance of humor and tragedy, intelligently capture the black experience in mid-twentieth-century America. (A Raisin in the Sun was a direct influence on Bruce Norris’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Clybourne Park.)

A representative from Clybourne Park (Karl Lindner) has some surprising news for the Younger family (photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

Washington (Fences, Julius Caesar), in a role created by Sidney Poitier first onstage and then in the 1961 film, is a whirlwind as Walter, practically dancing as he weaves his way through Mark Thompson’s apartment set, his gait displaying a slight jump, his leg often shaking in anticipation of making things better for him and his family. Okonedo embodies the sadness of the everyday drudgery her life encompasses, her eyes tired before their time, heavy with what could have been. Jackson is a fireball as the caring matriarch who wants to see her children and grandson succeed. Hansberry’s words flow like poetry as the Youngers’ path is continually blocked, evoking the Langston Hughes poem that gave the work its title, “A Dream Deferred”: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun? / Or fester like a sore — / And then run?” It was only ten years ago that Leon brought A Raisin in the Sun to the Royale, with a cast that included Sean Combs, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, and Sanaa Lathan, but this stellar current production makes the previous one but a distant memory, injecting fresh new life into one of Broadway’s most historically and socially important works.

MARXFEST

Multiple locations
May 1-31, free – $35
www.marxfest.com

As legend has it, during a card game in May 1914, vaudeville monologist and mimetic comedian Art Fisher rechristened Leonard, Arthur, Julius, and Milton Marx as Chicko (Chico), Harpo, Groucho, and Gummo, respectively. (Herbert was renamed Zeppo later.) So in May 2014, Marxfest will celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of that propitious event with a series of special programs in all five boroughs, paying tribute to the New York City natives with film screenings, panel discussion, plays, parties, and a reading of an upcoming musical production of the brothers Marx’s Broadway musical debut, which was never filmed and has not been revived, until now. In addition to the below highlights, there are free film screenings every Thursday afternoon (A Night at the Opera, Monkey Business, Room Service, A Day at the Races), a Barx Brothers Dogwalk costume contest, walking tours, and more.

Thursday, May 1
The Party of the First Part, opening night party at location where Harpo spent many a night with the likes of Heywood Broun, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, and George S. Kaufman, Algonquin Hotel Blue Bar, 59 West 44th St., free admission (cash bar), 6:00 – 10:00 pm

Friday, May 2
From Angels to Anarchists: The Evolution of the Marx Brothers, with Trav S.D. discussing Marx Brothers’ transition from the singing group the Four Nightingales to a comedy act and Sarah Moskowitz performing early routines, Coney Island USA, 1208 Surf Ave., $7, 7:30

Sunday, May 4
An Evening with Groucho, starring Frank Ferrante, Williamson Theatre, College of Staten Island, $20-$25, 3:00

Wednesday, May 7
Marxes in Manhattan, with a theremin tribute by Rob Schwimmer, a re-creation of the Leroy Trio with Richard Pearson, Zachary Catron, and Kit Russoniello, a multimedia presentation on the Marx Brothers and their hometown by author and archivist Robert S. Bader, the Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal St., $24, 8:00

Friday, May 9
The Music of the Marx Brothers, with Marissa Mulder, Rebekah Lowin, Bill Zeffiro, Tonna Miller, Gelber & Manning, and special surprise guests, hosted by Dandy Wellington, 54 Below, 254 West 54th St., $25-$35 (plus $25 food and drink minimum), 11:00

Saturday, May 10
Anarchy in Astoria: The Making of the Marx Brothers’ First Two Pictures, with the American Vaudeville Theatre’s Trav S.D. discussing the making of The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, Greater Astoria Historical Society, Quinn Building, 35-20 Broadway, fourth floor, $10, 1:30

Saturday, May 17
“You Bet Your Ass,” quiz show with host Murray Hill and announcer Jonny Porkpie, with burlesque stars Anita Cookie, Lady Scoutington, and Trixie Little & the Evil Hate Monkey, the Cutting Room, 44 East 32nd St., $14.99 in advance, $19.99 at the door, 10:00

Sunday, May 18
An Elephant in Your Pajamas . . . at the Zoo, the Bronx Zoo, meet at the south gate at noon in your pajamas, zoo admission of $13-$17, 12 noon

Sunday, May 25
I’ll Say She Is, full-length reading of first Marx Brothers Broadway musical, followed by panel discussion, the Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal St., $25, 5:00

Thursday, May 29
We’re All Mad Here: The Marx Brothers in Context, with Trav S.D. discussing the Marx Brothers’ vaudeville inspirations, Mid-Manhattan Library, 455 Fifth Ave., free, 6:30

ALL THE WAY

Bryan Cranston gives a rousing performance in Broadway debut as President Lyndon Baines Johnson (photo by Evgenia Eliseeva)

Neil Simon Theater
250 West 52nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 29, $35-$155
www.allthewaybroadway.com

Robert Schenkkan’s All the Way has come to Broadway just in time to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — as well as to make one pontificate on the recent invalidation of a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The play begins with one of the most harrowing moments in American history, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, followed by the swearing-in of Lyndon Baines Johnson (Breaking Bad superstar Bryan Cranston). The Texas politician was a far cry from the Kennedys. In his rousing Broadway debut, Cranston portrays LBJ as a gruff meat-and-potatoes guy who said whatever was on his mind, not afraid to let his pants down, even in front of the press. With his doting wife, Lady Bird (Betsy Aiden), by his side, Johnson decides to make the Civil Rights Act his central focus, much to the chagrin of his mentor, Georgia senator Richard Russell (a stalwart John McMartin). Soliciting support from mild-mannered Minnesota senator Hubert Humphrey (Robert Petkoff), with a promise to make him the vice-presidential candidate, and strong-arm labor leader Walter Reuther (Rob Campbell), Johnson masterfully works both sides of the aisle, knowing how to get things done in ways that already seem impossible today as he deals with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (Michael McKean), such congressmen as Strom Thurmond (Christopher Gurr), Emanuel Celler (Steve Vinovich), Karl Mundt (Bill Timoney), Robert Byrd (McKean), and Howard “Judge” Smith (Richard Poe), Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (James Eckhouse), and Alabama governor George Wallace (Campbell), who is running against him for the 1964 Democratic nomination. All the while, news about the escalation in Vietnam arrives with chilling regularity.

LBJ is at the center of the battle over the Civil Rights Act in ALL THE WAY (photo by Evgenia Eliseeva)

Pulitzer Prize winner Schenkann’s (The Kentucky Cycle) play is a fireball whenever Cranston, who fully embodies Johnson’s bold proclamations and folksy swagger, is onstage; it slows down significantly when a group of black activists, including SCLC head the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Brandon J. Dirden), the Rev. Ralph Abernathy (J. Bernard Calloway), Stokely Carmichael (William Jackson Harper), NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins (Peter Jay Fernandez), and COFO codirector Bob Moses (Eric Lenox Abrams), argue over the all-white Mississippi delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention and whether to continue to back Johnson. While the main action takes place, director Bill Rauch keeps various other related parties onstage, sitting in Christopher Acebo’s congressional gallery set, quietly watching Johnson as if they’re part of the audience as well. The majority of the twenty-person cast plays multiple characters, so it’s not always obvious who’s who at any given moment, but in the world of politics, that actually makes sense. Cranston gives a virtuoso performance as Johnson, a man previously portrayed onstage in one-man shows by Laurence Luckinbill and Jack Klugman, but Cranston foregoes mere impersonation, instead embodying Johnson’s inner force and determination. Christopher Liam Moore excels as LBJ’s top aide, Walter Jenkins, who is a kind of worshipful younger version of his boss. “It’s not personal, Dick. It’s just politics,” LBJ tells Russell at one point. “It’s not personal, Dick. It’s just politics,” LBJ tells Russell at one point. In the powerful yet intimate All the Way, it’s often hard to tell the difference.