Broadway Review: ‘The Great Society’ Starring Brian Cox

Raise your hand if you know who Wilbur Mills was. Extra points if you can name the state he represented in Congress or the stripper in the sex scandal that would force his reluctant retirement. But even if you happen to be conversant with all this stuff, chances are you will lose sight of the Arkansas congressman among the parade of politicians who crowd the stage in “The Great Society,” Robert Schenkkan’s sweeping political drama about LBJ’s nerve-wracking efforts to get the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed.

Brian Cox, the much-lauded stage and film actor currently starring as Logan Roy on HBO’s “Succession,” seems an odd casting choice as Lyndon Baines Johnson, who served as the 36th president of the United States after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Although Cox nails Johnson the political animal who charmed and bullied Washington’s pols – which is the side of the character on constant display here — the actor shows not a hint of LBJ the larger-than-life Texan who gave interviews while on the toilet seat. (Bryan Cranston won a Tony for his performance in Schekken’s first play about LBJ, “All the Way.”)