NY Times
Gore Vidal's THE BEST MAN makes you wish that Vidal were writing the dialogue for the presidential debates. It brings to the backstabbing world of campaigning the bright verbal fire that All About Eve and Sweet Smell of Success brought to the backstabbing worlds of show business and journalism.
New Yorker
A sophisticated, elegant and damnably entertaining play!
NY Magazine
Gore Vidal's best play! Well-crafted and witty with surprises, reversals, pungent character sketches, satire, worldly wisdom and juicy roles for all concerned.
NY Daily News
Gore Vidal's THE BEST MAN is a winner! Extraordinarily fresh, witty, sharp and relevant.
Associated Press
Vidal's story is a corker! Suspenseful, funny, surprisingly fresh!
JUN/JUL 04 - AudioFile
Director Nick Alcott and his cast create an adrenaline-charged pace in Gore Vidal's 1960 political drama (revived in 2000) about the backstage maneuvering of a presidential convention. On- and off-the-record conversations unfold quickly and meaningfully as candidate Bill Russell (Fred Thompson) seeks to win his party's nomination without surrendering his self-respect. The play, even after 44 years, is a smart little gem, and the performance effectively captures its various moods, moving smoothly between satire and drama and always skewering the national habit of instinctive dissembling. The only intermittent weakness is Fred Thompson, who sounds a bit lifeless in some important scenes, but the ensemble acting is consistently fine. G.H. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
