Producers of the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of Gore Vidal’s THE BEST MAN have announced that the critically-acclaimed production, which was originally scheduled to play through July 8, 2012, has been extended a second time, now through Sunday, September 9, 2012. Tickets are now on sale and can be purchased at Telecharge.com or by calling (212) 239-6200.

Gore Vidal’s THE BEST MAN has been nominated for a 2012 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play as well as a Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play nomination for James Earl Jones.

Tom says his cousin Gore told him he liked the book last year — and that Tom had even made several of the fishing stories “almost sound plausible.”

Here’s the description from the book jacket:

Written by Gore Vidal’s cousin, this is a fond and funny backward glance at how the Potomac River brought five young fishermen together in the 1960s and kept them together for the next 40 years. The five still meet every fall at a cabin in rural western Maryland where they fish, laugh, raise toasts, hike an historic canal towpath, grill sirloins and laugh some more. Tom Gore has written a brisk and sometimes poignant memoir that discloses more about friendship than fishing.

Absent a presumptive favorite like last year’s “The Book of Mormon,” the 2012 field is considered to be wide open.

For a complete list of nominees, visit the Tony Awards website.

Mike Wallace will rightly be remembered as one of the preeminent journalists in television news, but over the course of any long career there are bound to be a few misfires. And, for Wallace, who died on April 7 at age 93, one of these was a documentary titled “The Homosexuals” produced for the series “CBS Reports,” in 1967.

While the report presented a dark assessment of gay life, to Wallace’s credit, there was little, if any, mainstream support for gay rights in the United States in 1967 — the Stonewall riots, which coalesced the gay rights movement, were still two years off. So even as it is unfair to fault the editorial bias of “The Homosexuals” for reflecting mainstream sentiment of its day, Wallace himself came to regret much of what was broadcasted by CBS that night, including, presumably, statements like this:

MIKE WALLACE: They are attracted mostly to the anonymity of the big city — New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. The permissiveness and the variety of the cities draw them. The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested in, nor capable of, a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life — his “love life” — consists of a series of chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits and even on the streets of the city. The pick-up, the one-night stand. These are characteristic of the homosexual relationship. And the homosexual prostitute has become a fixture on the downtown streets at night, on street corners and subway exits, where these young men signal their availability for pay.

There was an effort to provide balance, and the documentary does have a few bright spots, not the least of which comes near the end when Wallace interviews Gore Vidal, even though the segment is made oddly disjointed by having been chopped to pieces and then intercut with a separate interview with Columbia University Professor Albert Goldman, representing the anti-gay majority, in what was passed off as a “debate.”

Here are excerpts from Vidal’s interview with Wallace, which starts at about minute 32 in the video above, prefaced with this bit of narration by Wallace:

MIKE WALLACE (voiceover): Homosexuals are discriminated against in almost all fields of employment in all parts of the country. But in the world of the creative arts they receive equal treatment. Indeed, some would say better treatment. There is even talk of a homosexual mafia in the arts, dominating various fields — theatre, music, dance, fashion. In painting, there is the commonly expressed notion that the homosexual’s influence has been corrupting. That pop art, for example, is the trivial vulgarization that goes hand in hand with camp — half hoax, half hostile, a means by which the homosexual, forced to live between two worlds, strikes back at an antagonistic society. In the fashion industry, many observers see an effort to blend the sexes, to de-feminize woman — to replace curve and contour with sexless geometric sterility.

After Goldman and Vidal are introduced, the first segment of the interview with Vidal begins.

GORE VIDAL: I don’t think there is any greater incidence of homosexual novelists, homosexual painters, homosexual musicians than there ever were. I wouldn’t begin to be able to generalize and say whether there was such a thing as a homosexual in the arts — what does it mean? It is as natural to be a homosexual as it is to be heterosexual. And the difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual is about the difference between somebody who has brown eyes and somebody who has blue eyes.

MIKE WALLACE: Who says so?

GORE VIDAL: I say so. It is a completely natural act from the beginning of time.

After a splice of the interview with Goldman, Vidal continues:

GORE VIDAL: There’s a theory that one reads all the time about how a certain successful playwright in a very successful play describes married people — heterosexuals — as being wicked and vicious and clawing at each other. And this is supposed to be really a story about two homosexual couples. Homosexuals are — there are wicked homosexuals and wicked heterosexuals, and this is a playwright who deals in savage and extreme situations. And I don’t see any of it as being translatable, particularly, as a … homosexual situation posing as heterosexual. And furthermore, if it were, then why is it popular? Obviously, it’s popular because what he has to say about married couples speaks to everybody.

As a matter of fact, there’s a certain homosexual playwright who’s written the only really good women characters in American theatre … written by him. So to say this person is trying to absolutely destroy the family structure in the United States — nonsense.

The play about a married couple that was written by a gay playwright, as just about everyone watching the show knew, was “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” which was written by Edward Albee. Just a year or so before the interview, the play had been turned into a hit movie that was directed by Mike Nichols and starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, for which Taylor won her second Oscar.

The playwright known for writing women’s roles was, of course, Vidal’s friend Tennessee Williams.

After another cut to Goldman, the interview with Vidal resumes:

MIKE WALLACE: There are those who suggest that there is a kind of homosexual mafia in which the homosexual in the arts, in a mutually protective way, helps his fellows.

GORE VIDAL: Well, it’s like most legends, I suppose there may be some basis for it. I don’t know how it would begin because the artist is the artist first, and he’s a homosexual or heterosexual second. But I have never seen any sign in any of the arts of there being a “homintern,” as alarmed editorialists like to write.

In the final sequence, Vidal offered what was then an alternative view of reality — a vision of the world as it was, or was about to become, that most middle class viewers probably could not fathom in 1967:

GORE VIDAL: We have a sexual ethic which is the joke of the world. We are laughed at in every country of the world for our attitudes towards sex. The United States is living out some mad, Protestant 19th century dream of human behavior. Instead of saying, “Aren’t we wicked because we have a high divorce rate?” or “Aren’t we wicked because men like to go to bed with men and women like to go to bed with women?” why not begin by saying our basic values are all wrong?

The idea of marriage is obsolete in our society. Everybody knows it. There are natural monogamists. There are people who indeed enjoy one another’s company. But can you imagine the man or the woman who’s told that for 60 years they’re going to have to live together and have sex only with one another. This is nonsense. Why not begin by accepting the fact what human beings really are — men and women — which is we are open. We have something that Andre Gide referred to as “floating sexuality.” We can be aroused by this by that. Not necessarily by men, not necessarily by women. So let us begin with the reality of human relations and not start talking about moral fiber, because we’re not living out this mad 19th century dream that everybody — we must go into Noah’s ark in twos, one male, one female, and for 60 years in one another’s company. This is what’s at fault. This is breaking down, and I think the so-called breaking of the moral fiber of the country these commentators speak of is one of the healthiest things that has begun to happen.

Now, 45 years after the broadcast of this interview, we know that Vidal was largely correct — his assertion about the obsolescence of marriage notwithstanding. And there is comfort to be taken in how far our society has come, especially as regards women’s rights and the mainstream acceptance of gays.

On the other hand, the gay-haters are still among us, and they still hold a powerful sway over the American psyche in certain quarters. In fact, just last week, in reaction to Mitt Romney’s appointment of Richard Grenell, an openly gay Republican who served eight years at the UN in the Bush administration, to serve as a campaign spokesman on international affairs, Bryan Fisher from the American Family Association, issued a series of slurs against Grenell that sound eerily similar to the retrograde rhetoric from 1967:

“Homosexuals are about short-lived relationships and frequent anonymous sexual encounters,” [Fisher] said on his radio program. “This is very common in the homosexual community. Now whether Grenell indulges in that, I don’t know.”

Fischer said that although Grenell had been in a long-term relationship, he suspected that the relationship was not monogamous.

“There are some homosexuals who will admit — this is not coming from the right-wing, this is homosexuals themselves in surveys — that they have had 500 to as many as 1000 sexual partners over the course of a lifetime,” he continued.

“This is endemic the homosexual community, these random, frequent, and anonymous sexual encounters and that becomes a significant issue when we’re talking about appointing somebody to a post as sensitive as a spokesman for national security and foreign policy.”

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

By the way, a less muddy — though unembedable — version of the documentary is available here.

“Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” officially opened on Broadway Sunday night, and the reviews are in. Reviewers from all the leading media outlets loved the show, except one. More about that in a moment. First, here’s a sampling of opinions that safely can be described as the consensus among all the reviews.

Associated Press:

Politics, the writer Gore Vidal once reminded us, is made up of two words: “`Poli,’ which is Greek for `many,’ and `tics,’ which are bloodsucking insects.” What was implied was also true — that those same darn pests turn up year after year.

Now that the weather is warming up and this current election cycle is heating up, one of Vidal’s timeless pieces of writing is buzzing once again. His 1960 play about rival presidential candidates, “The Best Man,” opened Sunday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, sadly proving the writer astonishingly prescient…

You’ll be clapping a lot during the two-and-a-half hour show — mainly just to welcome an embarrassment of riches on stage: James Earl Jones. Angela Lansbury. John Larroquette. Candice Bergen. Eric McCormack. Michael McKean and Kerry Butler. It’s like a greatest hits album on stage. Director Michael Wilson gives each a moment to shine and excitingly paces the play like a thriller.

Vidal’s words may be more than 50 years old, but there are virtually no anachronistic bits. He predicted a political fight over the disclosure of medical records, negative campaigning, randy politicians, strained political marriages, first lady activism, arguments over mental fitness for office, elitism versus populism, the role of the Roman Catholic Church, poll-driven pols, pandering through religion and tax cuts, and even a political scuffle over birth control.

Wall Street Journal:

Gore Vidal’s play about what ambitious men will do to one another in order to live in the White House, is a solidly crafted drama that has lost not a scintilla of its relevance since it first opened on Broadway in 1960. For all the frothy paranoia of his public statements on politics, Mr. Vidal knows, or knew, a good deal about how people get elected—his grandfather was a senator—and that knowledge helps to make “The Best Man” both witty and perceptive.

Though the 2000 Broadway revival of “The Best Man” was only modestly successful, this one seems destined to be a knockdown hit, both because of its trillion-watt cast (I mean, James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury—what more could you want?) and because it was staged by Michael Wilson. Mr. Wilson, the man behind Signature Theatre’s unforgettable production of Horton Foote’s “Orphan’s Home Cycle,” is one of our very best stage directors, and he has collaborated closely with Derek McLane, the set designer, to create a show that glides from scene to scene with the seemingly effortless fluidity that is his trademark.

…Mr. Wilson has necessarily and wisely opted for a broader approach. He has also taken full advantage of Mr. Jones, who is in lionesque form. It isn’t always fun to see an actor having fun, but Mr. Jones plays President Hockstader with a lip-smacking panache that is guaranteed to please. Ms. Lansbury has a smallish role (she’s a busybody grande dame) but she makes the most of it, while the other supporting actors, most notably Jefferson Mays and Michael McKean, all hit their marks with a vengeance.

Backstage:

“Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” may be 52 years old, but that’s no impediment to director Michael Wilson’s crackling production at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Indeed, Vidal proves depressingly timeless in this gimlet-eyed analysis of American politics that takes place at an unnamed political party’s 1960 presidential convention. Featuring a large and starry cast that (with one exception) delivers the goods with panache, the show is as outrageously entertaining as it is relentlessly penetrating.

New York Daily News:

Vidal’s characters are a mashup of political celebs of the era when he wrote the late 1950s. But hopefuls who’ve come and gone and are stumping today fit the mold.

The play unfolds in linear fashion amid red, white and blue bunting. Then comes an 11th-hour twist. No spoiler here. The most fascinating thing about “Best Man” is that the author seemingly depicts a surprise development as noble, when it’s anything but. The turn is incredibly cynical.

Politics, showbiz and big business run by the same laws of winning and losing: “If I’m going down, I’m going to take you down with me.” It’s the American way.

Philadelphia Inquirer:

This big-star cast worth a wide shelf of past Tony and Emmy Awards deserves a worthwhile play – and they have one. Vidal’s smart, tightly plotted story of political intrigue is not just entertaining, it’s refreshing: It focuses on a decent presidential candidate who challenges the idea of ad hominem attacks on an opponent…

And so The Best Man becomes a funny and engaging play about ideas. “This is exactly the kind of thing I got into politics to stop,” Larroquette’s Russell says – so what’s a good guy to do? Jump into the mud along with his opponent or be trounced by a smear?

It seems as though The Best Man might offer insight into presidential campaigning circa 2012, but I’m not sure what. Campaign smears, in the form of attack ads that spin the facts, are now a solid part of the election process. We’ve gone far beyond the candidate who believes decency alone counts, if we’ve ever had that candidate at all.

USA Today:

William Russell has a lot to recommend him as a presidential candidate. A former secretary of State, he’s smart as a whip, thoughtful and so fair-minded that he objects to slinging mud even at a ruthless opponent poised to tar him with distorted personal information.

Sadly, Russell is also fictional. But you can catch him on the campaign trail in Gore Vidal’s The Best Man (* * * out of four), which opened Sunday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

Like the last Broadway revival of Vidal’s 1960 account of an unspecified party’s heated summer convention, this staging of the play arrives during an election year. If its idealized and obvious aspects are striking, it makes some prescient observations about the increasingly tricky business of choosing a leader of the free world.

The Best Man is less political satire than a combination of punditry and bittersweet fantasy, in which Russell is presented as the commander in chief we don’t deserve and could never have, and his challenger, a young senator named Joseph Cantwell, as an abject hypocrite whose rise points to the rot in our system.

And now here’s a snippet from, the outlier — yes, the 500 pound Gray Lady in the room. The reviewer for the New York Times had quibbles:

Unfortunately a thin veneer of currency isn’t sufficient to revitalize a drama that feels positively quaint, despite Mr. Vidal’s winking cynicism about the political arena and his undeniable prescience about future trends in American politicking…

But anyone following politics with even the slightest peripheral vision is acutely aware of how radically the landscape has changed. The toxins Mr. Vidal was identifying in 1960 as hovering threats on the democratic horizon are now confirmed facts of political life, so that this once-trenchant drama — concerning a battle for the nomination between a high-minded, deeply moral candidate and his canny, cutthroat rival — feels like a civics lesson drawn from a long out-of-date textbook.

A report from NPR sets the stage for the Broadway opening today of the revival of “Gore Vidal’s Best Man.” Read it (or listen to it) here.

• For ticket information, click here.

Associated Press:

It may not take long before you start hating Eric McCormack.

The genial star of “Will & Grace” has turned himself into a power-hungry, egotistical senator only too willing to throw political mud in a Broadway revival of “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.” McCormack has even heard hisses from the audience.

“People come in going, ‘Oh, there’s that nice guy from “Will & Grace,’” and within about 20 minutes, they’re like, ‘Oh. I. Hate. That. Guy,’” says the actor over lunch before a rehearsal. “It’s a bit like a betrayal.”

McCormack, 48, is tapping into his villainous side again after years of playing the sweet guy. In some ways, it’s a return to his roots — he was, after all, the bad guy Clay Mosby on the TV series “Lonesome Dove” mid-1990s and a pretty nasty Ray Summers in “Dead Like Me” a decade later.

“There are a lot of people out there that are afraid that America won’t see me in other ways,” he says. “I take a role like this and remind them I used to play a lot of bad guys. That was my bread-and-butter before I was a nice, gay good guy.”

After a successful preview run that started March 6, “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” officially opens on Broadway tomorrow, April 1.

New York Newsday:

Candice Bergen was on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” last night and because it’s not all that often the legendary Candice Bergen is on any late night show, it’s worth checking these clips out. (Other than a “House” arc, she’s been mostly MIA on TV since “Boston Legal.”) It’s a warm, funny interview – she was the first female host of “Saturday Night Live,” long before Jimmy’s time there – and naturally this is all to promote her new play, “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man,” now in preview,

Nine years ago today, on the evening of March 19, 2003, George W. Bush announced that the invasion of Iraq had begun.

“My fellow citizens,” he said, reading from a teleprompter in the Oval Office, “at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

“On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.”

There were skeptics about Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq, of course, and no one was more skeptical than Gore Vidal. A few years later, in the preface to the book, Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia,” Vidal wrote:

The four most beautiful words in the English language are “I told you so.” For several years, I have been … saying … that there was no proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction nor was he the slightest threat to the United States or event to “our” oil fields, which are, by divine right, American property despite the deity’s characteristic misjudgment in placing them on land that belongs to Moslems who are fellow children of the Good Book, just like us Christians and Jews…

Meanwhile, I have been reading a confirmation of what I have been denounced for saying since 9/11: “Spy Agencies Called ‘Dead Wrong’ in Prewar Analyses on Iraq.” The story in the Los Angeles Times is billed as “Text of Letter to President Bush.” “The letter is from the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States regarding weapons of mass destruction. These “disinterested” experts conclude that the “intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.” So far so good. So true. Now, alas, watch the buck not so subtly pass: “What the intelligence professionals told you about Saddam Hussein’s program was what they believed. They were wrong.” Thus, the Commission shifts responsibility to the professional intelligence gatherers while carefully protecting the president and vice president who were gung ho for an invasion of Iraq before 9/11.

Flash-forward to today, nine years after the invasion, and we find that both Bush and Cheney are comfortable in retirement, neither having been held accountable for what was either a monumental lie — and thus a war crime — or the most catastrophic incidence of incompetence in the history of U.S. military engagement. Take your pick.

Broadway put some spring back in its step last week, as a seasonal rise in sales helped the Main Stem recover from a tough frame the prior week.

Rialto box office usually begins to gain steam at around this time of year, prodded by the rolling cycle of academic spring breaks and further boosted by the influx of shows that begin perfs now in advance of the Tony eligibility cutoff in late April. Last week individual productions across the board benefitted, with only three shows downticking.

So far the spring’s previewing productions are looking good, as the revival “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” ($614,511) joined the fray and pulled in solid numbers with the help of a cast of venerable stars including James Earl Jones and Candice Bergen.