ANDY DRACHENBERG: What brought about your involvement with All The Way?
MICHAEL MCKEAN: Every now and then producer Jeffrey Richards calls me and asks me if I’d like to be part of a production and every now and then he asks, “Can you do something for me?” So Jeffrey called me when I was in Ashland, Oregon visiting my daughter who is an actress at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He said that he’d just read this wonderful play that he wanted me to see which was playing up where I was. This play was, of course, All The Way by Robert Schenkkan. And I told Jeffrey that I had seen the play and thought it was wonderful. It’s probably even better than it was on the page. I told him I was thrilled and excited about the show. I don’t know how much I helped him decide to produce it, but Jeffrey got involved. Later on he called me again and said, “We’ve done 4 shows together, how about making it an uneven 5?” He then asked if I wanted to play J. Edgar Hoover. And I’m glad that I said yes because I had a wonderful time performing All The Way in Cambridge and we’re going to have an even better time in New York.
AD: Was there anything in particular about the work’s subject matter that drew your interest in further?
MM: 1964 was a big year for me: I was in my teens and the great world event was the JFK assassination and all that followed it- all the political jockeying and the campaigns. It was the first time that I was involved in a presidential campaign-not as a voter because I was only 16- but because it was a time of huge political awakening, the first piece I ever wrote that got published anywhere was in the school newspaper and was about the three Civil Rights workers who were murdered. This event is the kick off point to Act II of the play. Having lived through this time period and having had this knowledge from this time is very important. When I saw the play in Oregon and when I looked at the play on the printed page, I called upon the kid I used to be with various measures of cynicism and idealism. So that’s what drew me to the material. In addition, I thought that Hoover would be a very interesting person to play, whose personality was certainly shrouded in secrecy.
AD: As you began exploring portraying J. Edgar Hoover, what qualities about him did you find engaging?
MM: In All The Way we’re looking at a little sliver of J. Edgar Hoover’s life. The play is more about the dealings, manipulations, trials and tribulations of LBJ and Hoover is one of the elements of this. I learned a lot about Hoover when I worked on another project 20 years ago. All The Way shows one little piece of Hoover’s life: his obsession with Martin Luther King and with anyone who was better at the cult of personality game than he was. Hoover was certainly a public relations construct among his other talents as a law man as an organizer. He was a man who constructed his own public image and who was terrified of anyone who was better at it than he was.
AD: What research and character study did you find as you explored portraying your character?
MM: J. Edgar was not a man who really let it all hang out in public. He never sat for an interview or made “appearances.” His public appearances were always carefully scripted and rarely filmed, but I did find a really wonderful clip of him speaking at a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting. What was interesting was that it was all very prepared: if he started to say something and then made a mistake, he would go back a few words. It was almost like running a tape recorder. It wasn’t conversational, it was prepared. He put out a book about the subversive elements within and very tellingly titled it “Masters of Deceit.” I find it to be very interesting and fun mining what we do know and what we surmise about Hoover. We are also lucky to have the playwright Robert Schenkkan here with us during rehearsals and he has done tons and tons of research. He wanted to get the play dramatically right as well as historically accurate.
AD: As the play was being mounted at A.R.T., we as a country were hitting the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington. Did that have a resonance with the production?
MM: A lot of the cast wasn’t even alive when Kennedy was shot, so it wasn’t a personal moment that they could dig up, but everyone has heard their parents, friends, etc. talk about that moment in history when it all flipped over. There is no one on that stage who can’t embrace the gravity and the greatness of these moments in history. They bring them down to what their characters are about find the playable parts of history, and I think that’s the actor’s chore.
AD: One of the distinguishing things about All The Way is the size of its cast. How has the large scale cast contributed to what the production has become?
MM: Robert Schenkkan has boiled down an even larger circus of characters into something smaller. There are a lot of political figures that are not included in this play because we’re exploring the seam that is LBJ’s life at this time. Working with a lot of actors is a lot of fun because I get the chance to be on stage with some of the most remarkable actors I’ve ever worked with. To be part of a cast and to start rehearsals on a new show is a very positive experience because actors like being part of a company. The slight coloration I put on it is that starting a rehearsal process is like moving to a small town. You get to know everyone bit by bit, in this case we’re here with 20 actors playing all those different parts.
AD: Do you have a favorite line or scene from the play?
MM: I love watching LBJ tell the joke about the ugliest sound in the world. Bryan Cranston loves performing that piece, telling that joke and having the character Hubert Humphrey sitting there not getting the joke. I love that moment every night. By the same token, the moment when the CORE leader David Dennis has his speech at the funeral gets me every night. Even though I don’t see that scene because I’m backstage doing a costume change, it gets me every night because it’s telling the truth to power and injustice. That’s something we could all use a little more of.
AD: What about the subject matter of this play do you think resonates with today’s audiences?
MM: There’s a certain irony to some of the elements of this play. There was a time when both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party had a liberal wing and a conservative wing. We can’t even imagine that now because our parties have become so metaphorically black and white. We are divided because of the fact that there is no dialogue within the two sides. It is said in the play that the Republican Party will never be a friend to the South. This is the truth as far as everyone in the world of the play at that time is concerned. Things were different then, but the process now is essentially the same. Towards the end of the play when LBJ says, “Did it make you feel a little squeamish? Did you have to look away sometimes? ‘Cause this is how new things are born.” It’s still a sloppy ugly process sometimes. It is making sausages- you don’t want to see some of the things that go in there. I think that’s what audiences respond to: not just the ironies, but also the ways that it’s similar to what we know now.
AD: What is the most exciting part of bringing this show to Broadway?
MM: I always like coming into New York with a new play. I love coming to New York with a Jeffrey Richards production because it’s like coming home. I have great faith in our cast and creative team putting this show on its absolute best legs for the Broadway crowd. It’s the big time and it’s what I always wanted to do as a kid. I didn’t’ make my Broadway debut until I was 42, but I’m a working actor in New York and it’s the best life I could imagined.
MICHAEL McKEAN(J. Edgar Hoover). All The Way marks Michael’s fifth project with Jeffrey Richards, following The Pajama Game, The Homecoming, Superior Donuts, and Gore Vidal’s The Best Man. Other New York theater: The Exonerated, Our Town, Woody Allen’s A Second Hand Memory, Hairspray, Accomplice (1990 Theatre World Award). Elsewhere: Yes, Prime Minister, Randy Newman’s Harps & Angels (Los Angeles), Superior Donuts (Steppenwolf/Chicago), On the Razzle (Williamstown), Love Song (London). Film: This is Spinal Tap, Clue, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, Whatever Works, True Crime, The Brady Bunch Movie, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, etc. TV: Family Tree, SNL, Dream On, Smallville, The X-Files, Law & Order, Laverne & Shirley, many more. As a songwriter, McKean has won a Grammy for A Mighty Wind’s title track (written with Christopher Guest & Eugene Levy) and was nominated for an Academy Award for “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” (with Annette O’Toole) from the same film. With his band, Spinal Tap, he’s played Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall & the Glastonbury Festival among many others. For the Mountain Man.