Network

C

After seeing ivo van Hove’s version of The Damned, I feared what he would do once he got his hands on this 1976 classic satire written by Paddy Chayevsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. The near-unanimous praise from the London critics somewhat allayed my misgivings, but what I saw tonight in this adaptation by Lee Hall (The Pitmen Painters) mostly confirmed them. Let me say immediately that Bryan Cranston (All the Way, "Breaking Bad") is superb in the role of Howard Beale, the TV anchorman at the center of the action. Seeing him perform is the only thing that made the evening at all worthwhile for me. Everything else about the production is so overblown, so frenetic, so gimmicky and so disjointed that it wore me down long before it ended. Upon arrival, we see that the center of the stage is occupied, for no apparent reason, by actors performing yoga. Jan Versweyveld (The Crucible, A View from the Bridge) has configured the stage as a TV studio with the control room on one side and, for reasons best known to van Hove (A View from the Bridge) , a restaurant with six tables for two on the other. Five of them are filled by theatergoers who eat dinner throughout the play. At one point the empty table is occupied by two actors, having public sex among the diners. The restaurant bar which is at the far edge of the restaurant is not visible to most of the audience, but it doesn’t matter because the only scene that takes place there is captured on the large video screens where you are likely to watch most of the play. (Don’t worry about expensive seats; it’s all on the giant screen.) Beale’s boss and longtime best friend Max Schumacher (Tony Goldwyn; Promises, Promises; The Dying Gaul) fires him because his ratings are down. Diana Christensen (Tatiana Maslany, Mary Page Marlowe, "Orphan Black"), a ruthless young producer without a moral compass, has an affair with Max. Despite the sex scene at the restaurant, there is little apparent chemistry between Goldwyn and Maslany. Frank Hackett (Joshua Boone; Actually), an ambitious executive brought in by the network’s new corporate owner, wants to subordinate the news division to the programming division. Edward Ruddy (Ron Canada (Zooman and the Sign) is the longtime network chief who is trying without much success to preserve the network’s independence. Frank Wood (Side Man, The Babylon Line), a fine actor, has little opportunity to make an impression in the bland role of Nelson Chaney. Nick Wyman (Desperate Measures) is appropriately ponderous as corporate head Arthur Jensen. Alyssa Bresnahan (Napoli, Brooklyn), as Max’s wife, does her best with soap-opera-worthy lines. The production relentlessly assaults the audience with flashing screens, loud music and much scurrying about. The brief forays into audience participation were the only things that seemed half-hearted. Somewhere midst all the cacophony there’s a cautionary tale about the media that still resonates even though the media themselves may have changed. At play’s end, the large screen shows a collage of all the presidents since Ford taking the oath of office. This gave the audience an excuse to applaud George H.M. Bush and Obama and boo Trump. Just another gimmick. Go to see Cranston if you are a fan. Otherwise, just rent the movie. Running time: two hours; no intermission.

Desperate Measures

A-

New World Stages has found a valuable niche as a venue for musicals that once had long Broadway runs such as Avenue Q and Jersey Boys as well as off-Broadway shows that deserve further exposure but aren’t really suitable for Broadway. This delightful, slightly bawdy show, in the latter category, had to end its successful run at York Theatre Company, but happily is enjoying an encore run on 50th Street with almost all of its creative team intact. Based very loosely on Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” the action has been moved to the Arizona territory in the late 1800’s. Johnny Blood (Conor Ryan; Invisible Thread, The Fortress of Soitude) is a not-too-bright cowpoke who has been sentenced to hang for a barroom shooting defending his saloon bar girlfriend Bella (Lauren Molina; Rock of Ages). The upright sheriff Martin Green (Peter Saide) looks up Johnny’s sister Susanna (Sarah Parnicky, new to the cast), who is about to become Sister Mary Jo, and persuades her to seek a pardon for Johnny from Governor von Richterhenkenpflichtgetruber (Nick Wyman; Catch Me If You Can). We also meet Johnny’s cellmate, Father Morse (Gary Marachek), a drunken priest with a fondness for Nietzsche. The governor agrees to the young nun-to-be’s plea to free Johnny on the condition that she spend the night with him. The silly plot goes on about its merry way and, of course, ends happily. The entire cast are excellent, but I would especially single out Lauren Molina and Conor Ryan. The music by David Friedman (Nellie Bly) is consistently hummable and occasionally more than that. The book and lyrics by Peter Kellogg (Anna Karenina) are very clever. His rhyming couplets are not up there with David Ives’ but are still quite amusing. Director/choreographer Bill Castellino (Cagney) is quite comfortable with the material and works in several bits of hilarious physical humor. James Morgan’s (Cagney) rustic wooden set and Nicole Wee’s (Closer than Ever) period costumes add to the fun. If you are looking for old-fashioned light summer entertainment, this will fill the bill nicely. Running time: two hours 25 minutes including intermission.