Holland Taylor channels Ann Richards (inset), the sassy, brassy one-time Texas governor, in the new Broadway show “Ann.” But the one-woman play isn’t as lively as the real Richards. (
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Holland Taylor’s “Ann” is a labor of love. The actress, best known for key supporting roles on “Two and a Half Men” and “The Practice,” spent about four years researching and writing this solo bio-play in which she stars as the outspoken, one-term Democratic governor of Texas, Ann Richards. “Ann” is to Taylor what “Mark Twain” is to Hal Holbrook: an all-consuming project.
Sadly, it must have been more involving for the actress to plan and perform the show than it is for the audience to sit through it. “Ann,” which opened on Broadway last night, has plenty of heart, but it lacks drama.
Which is odd, because Richards’ life was full of it, and she herself had a storyteller’s quick wit and sense of humor. She’s still remembered for a momentous speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention that included a description of George H.W. Bush as having been born “with a silver foot in his mouth.”
Taylor packs a lot of good lines in her show, but she lacks a Texan’s verve for outsize tales.
You can’t fault her performance. Strapped in one of Richards’ trademark suits, a halo of white hair perched on top of her head, she brings the late politician back to life, dropping bon mots in a light drawl.
The problems stem more from the writing. The show’s framing contrivance has Richards looking back on her life in a commencement address. This is a cradle-to-grave journey, starting in a Waco lower-middle-class family and ending with the Texan’s death of cancer in 2006, at 73.
Part of Richards’ appeal was her frankness, especially about her alcoholism. This gets Taylor some of her funnier lines, delivered with impeccable droll timing.
“I broke a barrier for politicians with an addiction in their past,” Richards recalls. “And nowadays, hell, you can’t hardly even get into a primary unless you’ve done time in rehab.”
But when Richards reaches the peak of Lone Star politics, Taylor drops the commencement device and puts us in the governor’s office in Austin. Michael Fagin’s set smartly reframes the Vivian Beaumont Theater’s vast stage — which hosted epics like “South Pacific” and “War Horse” — to a more intimate scale.
We then spend what feels like forever watching Richards on the phone as she breathlessly multitasks. At one point she fixes a loose fringe on the Texas flag while chatting with one of her sons about Thanksgiving dinner.
The brightest moments come from Richards’ exchanges with the disembodied voice of her assistant, speaking with her boss through an intercom. A pre-recorded Julie White (“The Little Dog Laughed”) delivers these lines with such wry stoicism, you can’t wait for her to buzz through again.
Imagine what the show would have been like had White actually been onstage — like politics, theater often plays better with flesh-and-blood foils.
elisabeth.vincentelli@nypost.com