“The Great Society” played at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre until November 30. It told part of the story of Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency.
The play starred Brian Cox as Johnson. He did a masterful job as the former president.
The play itself was interesting, but overwhelming with all the facts and events thrown into it.
The first act covers Johnson’s state of the union address in 1965 to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.
This play is a sequel to “All the Way” which also played on Broadway and starred Bryan Cranston as Johnson. Obviously I’m not sure how that play turned out, but this doesn’t cover Johnson’s full presidency from beginning to end.
It seems as though the end of Johnson’s presidency didn’t end too well. There were riots he had to deal with as well as the Vietnam war. The death toll of the war is projected on the back of the set throughout various points in the play and the number continues to grow higher and higher.
These are things that of course actually happened. They affected Johnson, but it’s not always easy to see how. As soon as one point in history is brought up another follows quickly behind it.
The Vietnam war continues due to bad information the president receives from his defense secretaries. J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King also play roles in Johnson’s presidency, but it’s hard to keep track of what or how they did.
There is a lot happening at once. There are also a lot of characters and many of the actors play more than one. Unless you were alive during that particular time in American history, it’s hard to keep up. This is the biggest flaw in the play as the effects of all these events are rushed in an effort to cover everything.
Johnson is also hardly in the play. We see him react to a new bit of information and we see him panic or make a choice on what to do then he disappears as something else starts happening. I wish we had gotten more time with him to truly see how he felt. I wanted to see more of his thought processes and the toll everything took on him.
We see how Johnson ensured that some of his proposals passed. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s hard to see a three dimensional person behind those decisions. He knows how to get the American Medical Association’s support in creating Medicare. With the press present he’s able to get the governor of Alabama to protect the civil rights marchers.
These events tell the audience nothing that they can’t look up themselves. There were a lot of things that happened during Johnson’s presidency, way too many to fit into an almost three hour play, but playwright a Robert Schenkkan certainly tried.
While Brian Cox as Johnson was onstage the entire time, he didn’t have much to do as information was given, he made a decision and it started over again. The same with the supporting characters. They introduced information and left soon after delivering it.
There are minor moments that try to show glimpses of Johnson and who he was as a person. Overall, though that’s what I wanted more of.
Yes there is always a lot to cover in biographies. That doesn’t mean, that the aspects of that person’s character and thoughts and beliefs can’t be showcased more. Anyone can look up the events that happened to find out the causes and results, but how did those affect the man in office? Brian Cox did a wonderful job. He could have truly delved into the character even more had he been given the chance.
The few opportunities Cox is given to experience the the more emotional aspects of the character he does just. These moments are few, but we see how those moments could truly affect someone. Johnson starts off a lot more confident than he ends and in those brief moments we can understand why.
As a history fan, “The Great Society” was interesting. It’s such a shame that the characters were not fully fleshed out. Ultimately we go to the theatre to see conflict and to see that conflict resolved.
Politics I do not find interesting. Even so, I would have wanted to see what drove Johnson’s political beliefs and decisions.
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