Entertainment

See ‘Man’ for the women

Angela Lansbury doesn’t need a flashy role to light up the stage.

Angela Lansbury doesn’t need a flashy role to light up the stage.

The most memorable part of “The Best Man” is the women.

Gore Vidal’s 1960 chestnut may center on three powerful male politicians, but it’s the ladies hovering on the periphery who steal this new Broadway revival.

Despite smaller parts and stiff competition — this show is starrier than a cloudless mountain sky — Angela Lansbury, Candice Bergen and Kerry Butler shine brightest. The one scene this trio shares is a rare moment when Michael Wilson’s overly decorous production chomps with the right satirical bite.

Bergen and Butler play refined Alice and bubbly Mabel, the wives of William Russell (John Larroquette) and Joseph Cantwell (Eric McCormack), respectively. The men — one secretary of state, the other a senator — are presidential contenders locked in a nasty fight at their unnamed party’s convention. Remember: It’s the summer of 1960, back when hopeful nominees could scramble to win delegates up until the last minute.

Much of the play revolves around the confrontation between those two bitter rivals and their clearly opposite types.

Russell is a liberal, well-bred intellectual who quotes philosophers, and aims for the moral high ground in politics. He doesn’t want to stoop to personal attacks or exploit voters’ ignorance — “In the South, a candidate for sheriff once got elected by claiming that his opponent’s wife had been a thespian,” he remarks.

But Russell’s womanizing caused a rift with Alice, and she’s reluctantly come back to his side for the campaign’s sake.

The younger, self-made Cantwell couldn’t be more different. He and Mabel are united by raw ambition. Under his slick, charming exterior, Cantwell’s a ruthless populist who’ll stop at nothing to get elected.

Playing referee is the incumbent president, an ostensibly folksy fellow named Arthur Hockstader. That would be James Earl Jones — told you this cast was loaded — so it’s best to block out the fact that only in a bizarro universe would an African-American have been POTUS in the 1950s.

Vidal has a grand time setting up behind-the-scenes machinations — each candidate has dirt on the other — and an even grander one firing off pithy exchanges and witty epigrams. “It’s par for the course trying to fool the people,” Hockstader warns the conniving Cantwell, “but it’s downright dangerous when you start fooling yourself.”

If only the show’s tempo were as punchy.

As fine as Larroquette and McCormack are, there doesn’t seem to be any heartfelt anger in their battle — and this sucks out a lot of the play’s energy.

On the other hand, Bergen, Butler and Lansbury have a ball with Vidal’s causticity, especially since each comes at it in her own distinct style.

With the least stage experience of them all, Bergen gets a lot from a little: an eye roll here, a sudden stiffening there. Butler (“Xanadu,” “Hairspray”) goes the opposite way, with her Mabel an outsize, cartoonish ancestor to the tough-as-nails belles of TV’s “GCB.” When these two face off, the air is charged with electricity.

As for Lansbury, the mere sight of her party operative sipping Coca-Cola through a straw is comedy gold. That’s how pros get the audience’s vote.