Hey, hey, LBJ, how many critics did you win over today? That’s the question producers are asking tonight, March 6th, following the opening of “All the Way”, a historical drama by Robert Schenkkan about the difficult presidency of Lyndon Johnson. Bryan Cranston, of “Malcolm in the Middle” and “Breaking Bad” fame, stars as the 36th president, who is flanked by such personages as wife Lady Bird (Betsy Aidem), Martin Luther King (Brandon J. Dirden) and J. Edgar Hoover (Michael McKean).

The show got great reviews in its tryouts at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and MA’s American Repertory Theater before arriving at the Neil Simon Theater. Were the New York critics as excited?

The Associated Press’s Mark Kennedy certainly was, raving that “in Bryan Cranston's hands, [Johnson’s] completely irascible — and one of the highlights of the Broadway season.” He continues, “The other real star here is director Bill Rauch, who keeps this jigsaw puzzle humming along. There are countless scenes and a staggering number of parts, and the action spills out into the aisles. But moments melt into the next flawlessly, and the main actors pivot seamlessly, often not waiting for the actors in the last scene to leave.”

Hollywood Reporter critic David Rooney echoes Kennedy’s huzzahs for Cranston’s “riveting Broadway debut.” He adds that the nearly three-hour show stays “compelling” and lauds author Schenkkan for showing affection for his subject but not turning the piece into a “hagiography.” Rooney closes the review by calling “All the Way” “superior entertainment” that’s also “unexpectedy suspenseful.”

Newsday’s Linda Winer isn’t quite as over the moon, noting that “Cranston's LBJ feels a bit like a caricature” and that the plot is “extremely detailed yet oddly simple-minded.” However, she appreciates the way Cranston ages himself for the role and concludes that the play is “compelling and fun to watch.”

Wall Street Journal scribe Terry Teachout has similar feelings about the performer and the play. He calls Cranston “a knockout” and “a totally assured stage performer who plays Johnson as a gangly, lapel-snatching wheedler in whom self-pity and rage are twisted together too tightly to rip apart. Yes, it's a caricature, and a garish one at that, but Mr. Cranston makes you believe in what you're seeing and hearing.” Alas, Teachout finds the play something of an “overstuffed pageant-style recounting” with “every speech so freighted with factual exposition that it's impossible for the supporting players to take wing.”

NBC’s Robert Kahn also has his reservations about the play, calling it “sometimes tedious” and “cluttered” with rehashed “procedural material.” That said, at the end he, too, acknowledges how much star power Cranston brings to the lead: “It’s a story for diehard politicos, students of the civil rights movement or those who enjoy the social capital of saying they’ve seen one of the top TV actors of our generation in a drama that lets him flex serious muscle.”

Writing for Talkin’ Broadway, Matthew Murray agreed that Cranston “is gusto personified” but gripes that author Schenkkan has “come up short in most other departments that would also let it be a compelling play. Schenkkan doesn't shy away from Johnson's crudities of thought and language, but he's neglected to give you much in the way of layers or balance… There's a safety and comfort to it all that keeps it from ever being as exciting as it wants to be.” Nevertheless, “Cranston, by sheer force of will, ensures that at least isolated instances of this black-and-white news report appear in vibrant color.”