‘The Great Society’ Broadway Review: LBJ Meets His Match – Again – As Brian Cox Picks Up Where Bryan Cranston Left Off

And onto the stage come the players, a parade of them, more than 50 (played by a cast of 19), each ushering himself (and they are mostly hims) into the spotlight and Johnson’s orbit to deliver the bits assigned by history. The fluidity with which director Bill Rauch – returning from All The Way – presents this march of time is never short of impressive, often near miraculous, jarring when necessary (the Southern focus shifts to the urban tinderbox of Watts with the shock of a slap).

But like All The Way, The Great Society often feels like historical shorthand, never more so than when the increasingly guilt-ridden and tormented Defense Secretary MacNamarra periodically arrives to provide Johnson and his veep Humphrey with the latest depressing news from the front. Credit Rauch with fleshing out his character when time and Schenkkan’s exposition-heavy script meet him only halfway.