Even with several cast changes, Gore Vidal’s revival continues to wow with Elizabeth Ashley (from left), Cybill Shepherd, Kristin Davis and (in a minor role) Donna Hanover. (Joan Marcus)
Broadway dimmed its lights Friday night in Gore Vidal’s honor. Happily, a slew of cast changes at his scathing 1960 comedy, “The Best Man,” has scarcely diminished this fine revival’s luster.
Long since retitled “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man,” it concerns two candidates vying for their party’s nomination, with a wily ex-president dangling his endorsement like bait. Director Michael Wilson’s all-star production bowed in April, headed by James Earl Jones and John Larroquette, and featuring Candice Bergen, Eric McCormack, Kerry Butler and Angela Lansbury. The last four roles have just been recast with a quartet of familiar, tourist-friendly faces: Cybill Shepherd, John Stamos, Kristin Davis and Elizabeth Ashley.
The result? It’s still crackling entertainment, thanks mostly to Jones (as the ex-prez) and Larroquette, who’ve gotten even better since the show opened.
Both Shepherd and Davis have scant stage experience, but acquit themselves nicely in their Broadway debuts. Shepherd (“The Last Picture Show,” “Moonlighting”) makes a regal Alice Russell, the estranged wife of Larroquette’s philandering but otherwise principled candidate, a former secretary of state. While she lacks the sharp, sarcastic edge Bergen brought to the role, she’s subtly effective in conveying the character’s stoic air of pained dignity.
In a big departure from her repressed Charlotte in “Sex and the City,” Davis lets it rip as the sexually charged, Southern belle wife of Stamos’ Senator Cantwell. Her accent practically dripping molasses, she leaps into his arms at one point like a frisky puppy.
Before Angela Lansbury wowed everyone with her role as Washington’s dowager power broker — the one the candidates and their wives woo for the all-important women’s vote — Ashley played the role in the play’s first revival 12 years ago. So it should be no surprise that she nails every scene with her arch comic delivery.
“Women didn’t have the vote in 1860,” she dryly informs Russell when he points out that Abraham Lincoln was known for his sense of humor.
As the ruthless Senator Cantwell, Stamos positively oozes unctuousness. His kinetic physical energy provides a striking visual as well as moral contrast with Larroquette’s hangdog Russell, giving their hostile encounters a charged intensity. Unfortunately, he lacks McCormack’s subtlety, making the character’s villainy far too obvious.
For now, “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” is scheduled to end its limited run in September. That’s a shame: It’s far more entertaining than the pallid, real-life presidential campaign presently under way.