Broadway review: Lucky Guy

You may not recognize the name "Nora Ephron," but you're probably familiar with her work.  She's the writer, and sometimes director, of some great modern classics -- Julie & Julia, You've got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry met Sally, if you enjoyed these or many other films, you like them at least partially because of the combination of heart and humor that has become the Nora Ephron trademark.

Lucky Guy, the new, and unfortunately final, play from the recently deceased Ephron, forgoes her usual romantic comedy format for a subject even closer to her heart:  journalism, the world where Ephron got her start.  Specifically, Lucky Guy tells the story of real-life journalist Mike McAlary, whose meteoric rise from an unknown sportswriter in an oft-overlooked branch office for the New York Daily News, to becoming the paper's star reporter, took place during the 1980s, a decade which Lucky Guy convincingly portrays as an NYC news journalist's dream come true.

Lucky Guy goes to great lengths to make McAlary seem larger than life, beginning with a scene in which several of McAlary's colleagues talk about him as if he was a legendary figure, and continuing with many other scenes that make it seem as if the entire Daily News, and the lives of all the other reporters, revolved around the ups and downs of McAlary's career.  Understand that I don't mean this as a complaint; such tactics are pretty much par for the course for biographical films and plays.

What I would complain about, however, is the manner in which Ephron goes about this tactic.  The vast majority of lines in the play are exposition, as the supporting characters take turns narrating McAlary's life, while actual dialogue scenes take a backseat.  This manner of presentation didn't exactly interfere with my ability to enjoy the play, but it did constantly seem like a sort of odd choice, as if I was watching something that was only one part stage play and two parts story-time.

Lucky Guy owes much of its box office success to the star power of Tom Hanks, who stars in the lead role, in his Broadway debut.  I won't go so far as to say that I can't imagine anyone else in the role, but I would observe that the part plays to Hanks's strength of easily switching back and forth between comedy and drama -- an admirable ability that made him such a great fit with Ephron in Sleepless in Seattle and You've got Mail.

The supporting cast is mostly made up of a who's who of semi-famous character actors from TV, although I almost wonder why, as the supporting characters -- some based on real people, some not -- are, as depicted here, mostly interchangable.  Ya got Richard Masur from One Day at a Time, Christopher McDonald from Family Law, Peter Scolari from Bosom Buddies and Newhart, Maura Tierney from NewsRadio and ER, Courtney B. Vance from Law and Order:  Criminal Intent, Michael Gaston from Jericho, and, the one that excited me the most, Peter Gerety, from one of my favorite shows of all time, Homicide:  Life on the Street.

All of these actors do a good job, bringing more talent to the roles than is really required, as most of what they do is simply explain to the audience what a great/ terrible/ committed guy McAlary was; in fact, aside from Hanks in the central role, McDonald is the only one who really gets to shine, as the slick agent/ attorney/ con artist Eddie Hayes.  Tierney is especially wasted as McAlary's wife, in a role that requires her to complain that her husband is more devoted to his career than to his marriage, to stand by him when he needs her, to bring beers out to the guys when they visit at the McAlary house, etc.  It's odd that, in a play written by a woman, the largest female role is also the most disposable, cliche-ridden, cardboard character, while the other female characters seem able to inhabit McAlary's world only by becoming "one of the guys."

Yet despite these flaws, I would still describe Lucky Guy as a pretty good play.  Some of the credit for this goes to the cast:  Hanks is very good in the lead, McDonald is a lot of fun as Eddie Hayes, and the rest of the cast, even if they do little more than tell stories and occasionally react to McAlary's antics, do their jobs well and with charm.  The real credit for the play's success, however, goes to Nora Ephron herself.  Yes, there is too much exposition and, arguably, not enough development of the supporting characters.  But what saves this play from its imperfections, and ultimately makes it highly entertaining, is Ephron's wit.  Put simply, there are a lot of really good one-liners here -- more so, I dare say, than in even some of Ephron's better movies.  I mean real laugh-out-loud lines.  (The biggest laugh, however, goes to Courtney B. Vance's body language, as his character attempts to explain to the audience the difference between the "rich" and the "poor" of New York City.)

It all comes down to this:  I rarely get a chance to see a Broadway show, so when I go, I have high expectations.  Lucky Guy may not be perfect, but it kept me entertained, made me think, and, most importantly, made me feel that my money was well spent.