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.

Mary Page Marlowe

C-

After the glowing reviews the Steppenwolf premiere of Tracy Letts’ play received two years ago, I arrived at Second Stage’s Terry Kiser Theater expecting an absorbing evening. Alas, something essential seems to have been lost en route from Chicago, because this production, directed by Lila Neugebauer (The Wolves), left me wondering what the fuss was about. The play is built around two gimmicks: the title character is played by six actors (and a doll) and the 11 scenes from her life are presented out of sequence. The six who play Mary Page, in ascending chronological order, are Mia Sinclair Jenness (Matllda), Emma Geer (How To Transcend a Happy Marriage), Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”), Susan Pourfar (Mary Jane), Kellie Overbey (The Coast of Utopia) and Blair Brown (The Parisian Woman). Her parents are played by Nick Dillenburg (The Real Thing) and Grace Gummer (Arcadia) and her children by Kayli Carter and Ryan Foust (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Audrey Corsa and Tess Frazer (This Property Is Condemned) play her high school friends. David Aaron Baker (Oblivion Postponed) and Brian Kerwin (August: Osage County) are two of her husbands and Gary Wilmes (Chinglish) is her amorous boss. Marcia DeBonis (Small Mouth Sounds) is her shrink, Maria Elena Ramirez (Fish in the Dark) is her nurse and Elliot Villar (War Horse) is her dry cleaner. The play begins with a scene in which she is 40 and moves backward and forward almost randomly as far back as her infancy and up to her final months. Unfortunately, dividing her character’s scenes among six actors does not make her life story six times as interesting. Nor do the six actors create a convincing unity, at least not for me. Instead, they seem motivated to make the most of their relatively brief stage time. Subordinating their performance to a larger picture does not seem to be a priority. Perhaps this shortcoming will be overcoming during previews. The fact that three of the Mary Pages look roughly the same age made it difficult at times to place scenes in the correct sequence. A few of the scenes rise above the deliberate banality of the others. At times I thought I was watching a piece commissioned to provide as many roles as possible for the members of a repertory company. It was only 85 minutes long, but it seemed longer. When it was finally over, I was left scratching my head trying to figure out what made the Chicago production a hit, while this one, to me at least, is a miss. Perhaps it was Anna D. Shapiro’s direction or Carrie Coon’s acting that made the difference. In any case, the magic is missing. Kaye Voyce’s (Shining City) costumes are apt but Laura Jellinek’s (Marvin’s Room) sleek, curvy bilevel set seems somehow inapropos. The best I can say is that I am happy so many actors are employed thanks to this production. Running time: 85 minutes, no intermission.