NETWORK / Limited run (extended through April 28)
BROADCAST BLUES The stage version of “Network” starring Bryan Cranston began as a National Theater production in London and opened on Broadway on Dec. 6, 2018.
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HOWARD BEALE (THE DERANGED TV ANCHORMAN played by Bryan Cranston) was downstage center at the Belasco Theater, reveling in an on-air rant that had begun with a simple declaration: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Behind him, a huge screen showed us a close-up of Beale/Cranston’s crazed eyes and fevered brow, and I found myself transfixed by facial details. Then I said to myself: This is wrong!
My guest, BP, and I were sitting in Row J, on the aisle, at the Broadway production of “Network,” close enough to Cranston to toss him a softball. Why was I looking away from the star? I argued with myself: What makes this any different from an audience at “La Bohème” using opera glasses to get a better look at Mimi?
STAR POWER From left, Tony Goldwyn, Tatiana Maslany and Cranston on opening night. In the film, their roles were played by William Holden, Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch.
Well, for one thing, I had no proof that this was a real enlargement of the action onstage now and not a prerecorded, carefully timed clip. Elsewhere during the show, the two other stars (Tony Goldwyn and Tatiana Maslany) had disappeared from the stage and turned up on that giant screen, having a conversation on the sidewalk outside the theater we were sitting in. Was the scene happening right now? Or was it pretaped? Did it matter? A glimpse of a passer-by in a Santa hat led us to believe the scene was here and now (New York’s misguided annual Santa Con drinking festival had been that day).
THE BIG PICTURE Everything in the stage version of “Network” appears onstage and on multiple screens simultaneously.
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Based on the quotes in the show’s ads (“breathtaking,” “electrifying,” “sizzling”) you’d think no other critics had any misgivings. In the first two paragraphs of his rreview,. Ben Brantley of The New York Times called the performance “great high-risk acting” and the show “directed to overwhelm.” Let’s look at that last comment more closely.
The Dutch director Ivo van Hove (in photo), who seems to enjoy turning theater into a form of primal-scream therapy, is brilliant. I can still almost feel the blow when Elizabeth Marvel was thrown against a wall in his 2010 production of “The Little Foxes” at New York Theater Workshop. And he has probably made every one of his points in “Network” about television (omnipresent screens, the news media, social media, truth and lies, mass passivity, whatever) with a sure hand. But the staging is distracting and fragmented. And even though that may be the point, it sucks some of the power out of the experience.
NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME Cranston demonstrates Beale’s disconnection from reality by going on the air in an undershirt. (Costume design:: An D’Huys.) In the movie, Peter Finch preferred a sloppy raincoat.
You can see why Cranston would want to play Beale. Peter Finch’s performance in the 1976 movie version won him a best actor Oscar (Finch, unfortunately, died two and a half months before the Oscar ceremony and didn’t even live long enough to know he was nominated. You can see why the producers wanted Cranston. Since he started winning Emmys for “Breaking Bad” in 2008, playing a high school teacher who becomes a meth dealer for humanitarian reasons, the man’s every performance seems to turn to gold.
SEX SCENE Max and Diana (Goldwyn and Maslany) get it on, stage style. The simulated action, which happened in a beach cottage in the film, demonstrates Diana’s habit of screaming out ratings-share figures, not her lover’s name, during orgasm.
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Bottom line: Although van Hove’s unconventional staging is so multifaceted (and so tech-driven) that it runs the risk of derailing the whole project, you really should see this play.
As Beale’s producer, Tony Goldwyn is strong but not nearly as old-looking and craggy as William Holden. As the ambitious young producer, Tatiana Maslany is interesting but not as gloriously nuts as Faye Dunaway (in photo, with Holden) was in the role. But then Lee Hall, who adapted Paddy Chayefsky’s film script for the stage, doesn’t seem that interested in anyone but Howard.
WE’RE ALWAYS ON SCREEN Goldwyn and Cranston as colleagues enjoying happy hour at their favorite bar.
Chayefsky, who died in 1981, saw the future (our present) all too well. Maybe the real test of satire is how well it plays almost half a century later.
Belasco Theater, 111 West 44th Street; networkbroadway.com, 2 hours (no intermission). Limited run.. Opened on Dec. 6, 2018. Extended through April 28, 2019.
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