A friend invited me to a performance of All the Way at Seattle Repertory Theatre, and I expected an intellectually interesting performance examining the first year of Lyndon Baines Johnson's (LBJ) presidency. Instead, I found myself extremely entertained while being taken back in time to recall how I thought and felt back in 1963 and 1964.
The play was brilliantly staged and easy to follow, which is no small task for a performance filled with people known to most people over a certain age. In addition to LBJ, the cast included Robert McNamara, Lady Bird Johnson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Hubert Humphrey, J. Edgar Hoover and a host of other celebrities. Although some of those characters did not seem to physically resemble the real people, within a few minutes I had no trouble viewing them as the historical character and relating to them as real people stuck in a very challenging situation.
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The interaction of those unique characters provided a distinctive glimpse into an extremely important period of American history. That interaction was seamlessly supported by a vast array of theatrical magic as the stage transformed from one setting to another before our eyes.
All in all, the night was quite moving and far more entertaining than I imagined, and I look forward to the possibility of attending the second part of this two-show series when the Seattle Rep opens The Great Society, which deals with the LBJ years after he is reelected.
The play was brilliantly staged and easy to follow, which is no small task for a performance filled with people known to most people over a certain age. In addition to LBJ, the cast included Robert McNamara, Lady Bird Johnson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Hubert Humphrey, J. Edgar Hoover and a host of other celebrities. Although some of those characters did not seem to physically resemble the real people, within a few minutes I had no trouble viewing them as the historical character and relating to them as real people stuck in a very challenging situation.
The interaction of those unique characters provided a distinctive glimpse into an extremely important period of American history. That interaction was seamlessly supported by a vast array of theatrical magic as the stage transformed from one setting to another before our eyes.
All in all, the night was quite moving and far more entertaining than I imagined, and I look forward to the possibility of attending the second part of this two-show series when the Seattle Rep opens The Great Society, which deals with the LBJ years after he is reelected.