Walter White, the drug-dealing anti-hero of “Breaking Bad,” was a fantastic gift to Bryan Cranston — it led to a memorable performance, a Golden Globe and three Emmys.
But the role was also a career challenge: How do you follow a sensation like Walter?
Then again, Cranston is a chameleon — before “Breaking Bad” he spent seven seasons as the hapless dad on “Malcolm in the Middle.” For his Broadway debut, he’s reinvented himself again, this time as Lyndon Baines Johnson, the towering center of the new show “All the Way.”
Cranston is terrific as LBJ, a feat that has little to do with the technical quality of his impersonation — which is very good, enhanced by prosthetic earlobes and a broad Texan accent. What Cranston has in spades is presence. He has a death grip on our attention whenever he’s onstage, which luckily is most of the time.
Luckily, because Robert Schenkkan’s by-the-numbers historical drama isn’t as compelling as its star.
This playwright likes it big: He won the 1992 Pulitzer for “The Kentucky Cycle,” a six-hour-long epic spanning 200 years.
“All the Way” is half that length and covers only 1963-64. John F. Kennedy has just been assassinated, and LBJ — who calls himself “an accidental president” — is intent on passing the Civil Rights Act. Most of the first act shows his masterful maneuvers to do just that.
One minute he’s buttering up Martin Luther King Jr. (a largely ineffectual Brandon J. Dirden), saying things like, “I don’t want any spontaneous demonstrations in the street any more than you do.”
The next he’s placating Dixiecrat leader Senator Richard Russell (a wily John McMartin), whose line, “The Republican Party is never gonna be a friend to the South!,” got a big laugh at a recent performance.
Cranston is at his best in those scenes, playing up the folksy persona LBJ cultivated to bamboozle friends and foes alike.
Director Bill Rauch keeps things moving smoothly around Christopher Acebo’s set, which looks like a congressional chamber. This is impressive considering the piece’s scope and the extensive roll call — most of the 20 supporting cast members handle several roles.
But it’s not quite enough to keep the show’s energy from flagging in the second act, which alternates between the violent aftermath of the vote and the re-election campaign, whose slogan — “All the way with LBJ!” — gives the play its title.
The show then bogs down with extraneous minutiae, like the arrest of Johnson’s faithful aide, Walter Jenkins (Christopher Liam Moore), in a men’s room, and the gratuitous, jokey scene that follows as Johnson taunts J. Edgar Hoover (Michael McKean).
Thank God for Cranston, the formidable glue holding the show together.
And while he really should stick with theater, let’s hope he doesn’t sign up for “The Great Society,” the sequel to “All the Way” slated to open this summer in Oregon. Time for another drastic move, Mr. Cranston!