‘The Great Society’: Theater Review

Nothing represents the sad passage from postwar idealism to a culture of political cynicism and chicanery like a newly elected Richard Nixon smugly informing his White House predecessor, “What America wants, Mr. President, is honest government.” That sour closing note carries echoes from 1968 to the present ethical vacuum a half-century later, when Washington, D.C., is now swampier than ever. Playwright Robert Schenkkan picks up where he left off in All the Way to chronicle Lyndon Baines Johnson’s embattled presidency. If The Great Society often feels as much like history homework as drama, it thrums along on the engine of Brian Cox’s unimpeachably magnetic performance as LBJ.