Theater review: 'All the Way'

The Vietnam War was President Lyndon Johnson’s greatest debacle. The lingering damage it did to America (not to mention Vietnam) tends to eclipse his greatest achievement. The Asolo Rep’s latest production, Robert Shenkkan’s “All the Way” sets the record straight. It takes close to three hours to do it. But that’s what you’d expect of the playwright of “The Kentucky Cycle.” Terse he isn’t.

That achievement we alluded to was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Arguably, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had greater impact. But the Civil Rights Act was the foot in the door that made it possible. Like a one-two punch, these acts destroyed the legal foundation of discrimination. At least in the eyes of the law, America had no more second-class citizens. The resulting change was so profound we tend to take it for granted. As Shenkkan makes clear, victory was never a lock.

 “All the Way” is a play about a fight and the strategy and tactics behind it. But it’s mainly about the fighter. There are several parallel stories and characters. But LBJ is the main attraction.

Lyndon Johnson (Nick Wyman) calls himself the “accidental president.” An assassination, not an election, puts him in the White House in 1963. (Unelected office is not the strongest position, as Gerald Ford would tell you.) But Johnson fights like devil to pass the Civil Rights Act — in an election year. His opponents in this mismatched bout include the change-never Southern Democrats and the change-now leaders of the Civil Rights movement. Johnson fights back with the carrot of government pork, the stick of personal threats, and an Aikido master’s manipulation of congressional procedure. “The Johnson Treatment” was the name for his Machiavellian bag of tricks.

And it works. Against all odds, Johnson wins, and the Civil Rights Act becomes the law of the land. Hubert Humphrey smiles. LBJ’s reply?

“Why are you so !@@$# happy? We just lost the South for the rest of my lifetime — maybe yours.”

Now Johnson has to win America, and the presidential election is only 11 months away.

“All the Way” is primarily a character study, and the 36th president was quite a character. In Wyman’s nuanced, from-the-heart portrayal, Johnson is a combination of Bobby Fisher, Muhammed Ali and Bruce Lee—a chess master who gets blood on the chessboard. His LBJ is no Mr. Niceguy. But Mr. Niceguy would never have passed the Civil Rights Act. Wyman doesn’t try to do Rich Little-style imitation. He tries to be the man, and succeeds.

The other characters fight to escape Johnson’s shadow in this sprawling play.  It’s a case of art imitating life. Or politics.

Like Johnson, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (A.K. Murtadha) is caught between opposing forces. NAACP director Roy Wilkins (Ernest Perry Jr.) pull him towards caution; the hotheaded SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael (Sean Michael) push him towards confrontation; J. Edgar Hoover (William Dick) dogs King’s heels, taping his meetings and assignations. Unlike the volatile president, Murtadha’s King is cool and slow to anger. One false move, and America’s cities go up in flames. His character knows it. (And history proved him right.) Karl Hamilton’s Hubert Humphrey is the Little Liberal Who Couldn’t. Johnson dishes out endless put-downs and he takes it. The labor warrior compromises his larger principles to win Johnson’s daily battles. Hamilton nicely conveys the bottled-up inner conflict. You sense Humphrey suspects he’ll lose the war—and maybe his soul. Georgia Sen. Richard Russell (Joe D. Lauck) is butter-smooth as the voice of genteel, upper-class Southern racism disguised as constitutional principle. Breitbarth’s blunt-talking George Wallace is a bigot for the common man. He shares Johnson’s down-home style, but his populism is infected with racism. Denise Cormier’s Lady Bird is on her husband’s side but not under his thumb. Johnson says he loves his aid Walter Jenkins (Kevin Barber) like a son—but cuts the man loose the second he’s caught in a same-sex scandal.

Director Emily Sophia Knapp has a lot to work with here. Robert Shenkkan play’s like one of those old variety acts where the performer keeps a multitude of plates spinning in the air. Knapp deftly keeps all the elements going. She makes all the bygone issues feel timely again, and keeps the stakes clear. Events transpire in Steven C. Kemp’s fluid, semicircular set where desks or a murdered civil rights worker emerge from the floor as needed. Sarah Smith’s costumes and Shawn Sagady's rearprojections capture the look and feel of history.

Or History.

Make no mistake. “All the Way” is shamelessly epic. Don’t expect the quotidian close-ups of an Aaron Sorkin political drama. This is history — big history — and the playwright knows it. He makes the stakes clear, though occasionally ducks the implications. Does the end justify the means? The question never comes up.

This is a gripping night of theater — and the opposite of light entertainment. It’s a masterful portrait of a great man—with great flaws.

Shenkkan shows you Johnson’s achievements—and his foul mouth and bouts of self-pity as well. LBJ emerges as a brilliant strategist—and a bully and a manipulator who imposed his will by any means necessary.

Thanks to the “Johnson Treatment,” discrimination is now illegal in America.

Lucky for us, he was against it.