Covering November 1967 to November 1968, All the Way gives a history lesson in epic theater style of how “accidental president” Lyndon B. Johnson conducted political power plays to pass the Civil Rights Bill and be re-elected. In the ominous shadow of a foreign war, LBJ wages his personal battle to satisfy his ambitions for himself and his party, only to be ultimately abandoned by his “own” Southern Democrats. In LBJ’s case, biography—as shown by playwright Robert Schenkkan—became history. Nick Wyman’s powerful LBJ dominates every proceeding, starting with the immediate aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, alternating monologues with machinations. Most concern conflicts, such as with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (played in low-key by A. K. Murtadha). He wants more action on Civil Rights and he wants it asap, yet he’s easier for LBJ to deal with than King’s usual sidekick Rev. Ralph Abernathy and NAACP’s Roy Wilkins (expressive Michael Kinsey and Ernest Perry, Jr.). Everyone’s being pushed by hotheaded students and protest leaders Stokely Carmichael and Bob Moses (strong Sean Michael and Brian Keys). In Congress, LBJ has to deal with Republican leader Everett Dirkson (Mark Jacobi, hesitant) and Southern Democrats like Byrd (Matthew McGee, distinctive), Strom Thurmond (William Dick, powerful), James Eastland and William Moore (Don Walker, effectively doubling). Among Governors, LBJ’s biggest challenge is George Wallace (David Breitbarth, who plays the perfect would-be threat to LBJ as well later as Union leader Walter Reuther). Using his potential power to name the next vice-presidential candidate, LBJ wangles cooperation from Hubert Humphrey (Karl Hamilton, likeable) and unlikely Richard Russell (Joe D. Lauck). The big man can be ruthless, as when he cuts off longtime friend and supporter Walter Jenkins (Kevin Barber, rightly emotional) when caught in a homosexual offense. In dealings with F.B.I. chief J. Edgar Hoover (slick William Dick), LBJ proves unafraid and ends being as effective as he is in handling cabinet member Robert McNamara (Joe Knispel, noteworthy). On his own homefront, LBJ acts ambivalently toward his spouse Lady Bird (Denise Cormier, who also triples as newspaper publisher Katherine Graham and Rep. Katharine St. George). He’s both loving (acknowledging his early debt to his wife) and harshly dismissive of her while he’s busy cajoling others. She’s one of only a few women shown, but an interesting parallel to Lurlene Wallace and Muriel Humphrey, both played distinctively by Kim Stephenson. The most impressive women, though, are interpreted by Tyla Abercrumbie: Coretta King and a black woman testifying about being deprived of her right to register to vote. What makes LBJ, especially in Wyman’s tour de force embodiment, so worth attention that must be paid? True, he was vain, vulgar, vitriolic. He was a man of contradictions: forceful but frightened, picky but personable; idealistic but imposing; crude but clever; expedient but expressive. Most importantly, he was controlling but compromising. And that got him the presidential victory that won Civil Rights for all Americans—especially, at its legal inception, without regard to color. If he is a tragic character, it is principally for what happened after the period of Schenkkan’s play. Because of the complexity of action in just one year, director Emily Sophia Knapp was right to follow in general the few earlier major stagings (starting with Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s premiere) in which she assisted. She judiciously kept the set with its division of the mainstage surrounded in a background of tiered wooden congressional seatings, a proscenium where most of the action occurs, the downstage center space mainly for LBJ’s monologues, and the entire house spaces for entrances and exits such as of protestors and convention delegates. The only slight directorial mishap is use of the full width of the stage, because it makes it impossible for audience members on the far end of each side of the auditorium to see all of the delegates who act and speak from their seats. My main adverse criticism is that the play, itself, is too much of a good thing. Repetitions, as in deliberations of Rev. King and his followers, as well as the lengths of LBJ’s monologues in Act I and political demonstrations in Act II, could be judiciously trimmed.
Central projections picture places, flanked like a score-card by times of action and results of voting. Every aspect of staging, not the least of which is the lighting, reinforces the reality of each situation, so well re-created by a huge cast. There’s not a weak performance.
