Back in her early career, the brash gritty world of New York newspapers was Nora Ephron’s world. In Lucky Guy,her last play, now being staged at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theater, she gives a hats-off to that hard-drinking, hard-working men’s club and one of its most popular columnists, Pulitzer Prize-winner Mike McAlary, carving out a compelling starring role for her friend, Tom Hanks.
Hanks, Hollywood’s Everyman, sports a scruffy mustache and persuasively portrays McAlary in Ephron’s sketch of the swaggering columnist, who was, at the core, an honorable man, warts and all. One of Hollywood’s favorites, Hanks has become theater’s welcome newcomer. (In his entrance, he was greeted by applause and, rather than talking over it or stopping to wait for the applause to end, he gave the audience a quick nod. It was a savvy acknowledgment, the slightest break in character that does not pause the action.)
On David Rockwell’s smoky and boisterous newsroom set, the career of McAlary is scanned over with memories and anecdotes by various cast members. Two-time Tony Award®-winning director George C. Wolfe has chosen a grade-A ensemble with the nuanced Courtney B. Vance, Peter Gerety (the casting world’s perfect harried, rumpled editor), and Christopher McDonald as Eddie Hayes, a lawyer who makes “sleazy” sound inoffensive. Rounding out the gang are Peter Scolari, Michael Gaston, Danny Mastrogiorgio, and Richard Masur.
The one feisty female reporter at Newsday (Deirdre Lovejoy) re-appears later as Debby Krenek at the Daily News, and while she fits herself into the murky world of tabloids, she admits, “It’s a very guy thing.” Maura Tierney, a familiar TV actress, has not much to do but makes her mark as McAlary’s long-suffering wife, Alice.
They remember McAlary through the years 1985 to1998. He was one of their own, but edged up a notch through fierce ambition and drive. Stories follow him from covering the sports section he hated through the boredom of the Queens beat to his goal, New York City, where everything that matters happens. Finally, he gets a chance for investigative journalism, moving through several papers, including Newsday, the New York Post and the New York Daily News. After scoops about corruption, heroics, scandals and police brutality, it was his exposé of two policemen sodomizing Abner Louima (Stephen Tyrone Williams) that won McAlary the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. A libel suit and a horrific drunk-driving car crash almost ended it all, and his end finally came at age 41, when McAlary died of colon cancer.
In his Broadway debut, Hanks displays the heart and energy of one of the dedicated tough breed of newsmen who made the tabloids a daily must-read for millions. However, while that world is fascinating to watch, and while Wolfe keeps the story fast-moving, it is hard to empathize with the man himself because he is not fully drawn. The sketchiness of the play reflects memories of eccentricities. We don’t see the man, we hear about him. Also, though Nora Ephron’s work is missed for her sharp observations and her witty, rich writing of the world around her, we sense that had she lived longer, the play would have been tightened with a sharper portrait of this colorful man reveling in his world. Like McAlary, Ephron had a long-standing love affair with the newspaper game, which she insisted was not "the oldest job in the world, but it's the best job in the world."
Director Wolfe’s vision for the play includes meticulous details like Rockwell’s set with lighting by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer that capture the scrambling mood of the smoky newsroom and the after-hours saloon where they hung out. McAlary’s home is tucked off to the side, which says something about his priorities.
Sound design by Scott Lehrer and Toni-Leslie James’ costumes reflect those working men, like McAlary, who give little thought to what they are wearing. Alice McAlary’s clothes are nondescript.
New York theater audiences are lucky if Lucky Guy is the first of many theater projects for Tom Hanks, a two-time Academy Award winner. This is not a perfect project, but with George C. Wolfe and his creative team and cast, Lucky Guy is an affectionate and spirited visit to a fading world.
