The Broadway Theatre Review: Good Night, and Good Luck & Glengarry Glen Ross
By Ross
Smoke from so many cigarettes hangs in the air inside two large Broadway houses. Each drawing us into a different time and a different workplace rhythm from the world we live in today. Or does it? One seems like a parallel framing that echoes forward in ways that set the fire alarm bells ringing, while the other leaves a foul-mouthed film on every chair that tunes in, without offering much beyond a dark angle. Yet somehow they still resonate, some with a fire for revolution, while some others continue to feel the same fire of obscene capitalism, without really understanding the pitch.
The one that smokes best is the solid and timely theatrical Good Night, and Good Luck, based pretty accurately on the 2005 film. Written with clear intent by the Broadway show’s celebrated celebrity, George Clooney, and playwright Grant Heslov, the stage adaptation unveils the story of the 1950s TV journalist Edward R. Murrow and his team of investigative journalists who finally begin to stand up and firm against the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his red commie witch hunt. It feels as relevant as it did when Clooney so solidly directed that elegant film, maybe even more so, as this Broadway version, this time starring Clooney as Murrow (probably to assure a financial success for the stage play), reignites the formula and lays it cleverly across the wide stage of the massive Winter Garden Theatre.
Directed expertly by David Cromer (Dead Outlaw), Good Night, and Good Luck delivers the goods to the staged smokey air with a professional shine that gives those ticket buyers everything they could have hoped for. It’s a star turn by Clooney, as polished and neat as that hair on his head and that suit, costumed carefully by Brenda Abbandandolo (Broadway’s Mary Jane), digging into the drama as distinctly as everything else that surrounds him. The enormous cast and set, designed impeccably by Scott Pask (Broadway’s American Buffalo) with stellar lighting by Heather Gilbert (Broadway’s The Sound Inside) and sound design by Daniel Kluger (Broadway’s Oh, Mary!), move through that smokey air with precision like a well-polished auto tuned into the 1950s radio playing the news loud and impressively clear. It’s as solid as a show can be, on stage, and on those small screens that border the stage, with projections beautifully crafted together by David Bengali (Broadway’s Water for Elephants), that elevate the ideas up to the heavens, and we feel gifted in a way for the unpacking.
But the rendering falls short in creating Broadway stage magic. Maybe because it takes a beautifully thought-out movie and just places it, albeit genuinely stunning to look at, on the stage without taking it anywhere further, beyond some simplistic nods to the political powder-keg destruction that we all find ourselves living within. Good Night, and Good Luck, as crafted together by Clooney and Heslov, doesn’t move us anywhere beyond what we already know if we’ve watched that subtle, gorgeous black and white film that Clooney directed with such care, but didn’t star in like he’s doing here on Broadway. In the film, he played Murrow’s producer, Fred Friendly, who, in the Broadway version, is portrayed smartly by Glenn Fleshler (Broadway’s Arcadia).
Yet, it’s still just the same, almost exact same story without any deeper insights and developments, beyond the clever banter that made the film so enjoyable to watch. Courtesy of a fine cast that includes: the impressive Clark Gregg (“The Avengers“; Broadway’s A Few Good Men) as Don Hollenbeck; the fascinating Ilana Glazer (“Broad City“) as Shirley Wershba; and my favorite Paul Gross (“Slings & Arrows“; Stratford’s King Lear) as William F. Paley, the sharpness has remained intact and neatly defined. There is also the well-played character, Palmer Williams, portrayed dutifully by Fran Kranz (Public’s Illyria), who is compelling to engage with, although I had a difficult time differentiating him from Carter Hudson (Barrow Street’s The Effect), who plays Joe Wershba; with both delivering the work genuinely and solidly.
Solidly seems the word of the day when it comes to Broadway’s Good Night, and Good Luck, showcasing the news of the day as clearly as Clooney when he, on stage, works his magic looking into the camera directly. Doing what he does best, in close-up. The only thing they added inside this shiny piece of expensive theatre is the live band and singer (a gorgeously voiced Georgia Heers), first standing, gowned most beautifully, behind a scrim singing “When I Fall In Love,” the jazz classic, like the opening of the film. But later, propped up high as if they were the sidekick band that still exists to this very day on late-night talk shows. The songs are accurately chosen, giving an underlying meaning to what is happening, but it also slows the piece down and takes us out of the building tension systematically.
The only other true change and insight comes in the final moments, when a video montage delivers us out into our current orange nightmare situation, saying Good Night, and Good Luck, but without much hope beyond the far-off dream that the same political party that has chaperoned us into this mess will somehow gather up the courage to bail us out. It happened to and against McCarthy, finally, after he destroyed so many lives based on lies, deception, and threats, but I must admit I’m not holding my breath for that salvation. The black and whiteness of it all remains, visually, and somewhat metaphorically, even with the added color of the human stage formula. Yet, the characters remain in the same world as Clooney’s film, delivering insight but nothing more inventive than what was already filmed. The promises of clarity and inventiveness only really come to fruition in the design, video montage, and direction, utilizing the wide stage in rolled out ways that really do inhabit the room majestically.
A similar wide-staged deliverance is happening at the Palace Theatre with the starry revival of David Mamet’s epic, foul-mouthed Glengarry Glen Ross, directed solidly by Patrick Marber (Broadway’s Leopoldstadt). The play, a tragedy in two short acts, is set dynamically in; first a Chinese restaurant with a row a deep red shabby chic leather booths enhabited in a three stacked duality that sets the mood, followed by a morning after return to the characters’ Chicago real estate agency where the same four desperate salemen cling to old, worn-out ideals based on overt capitalism, shameful morality, and hyper-determined concepts around masculinity and singularity. And of course, the scenario is packed tight and overwhelmingly enriched by Mamet’s trademark hostility that is flung at one another like spitballs in high school.
Starring Bob Odenkirk (“Breaking Bad“), Bill Burr (“Old Dads“), Michael McKeen (Broadway’s The Little Foxes), and the now-Oscar-winning Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain”; Broadway’s This Is Our Youth), alongside David Webber, Jr. (Broadway’s Our Town), John Pirruccello (“Barry“) and Howard W. Overshown (Broadway’s A Soldier’s Play), this Glengarry Glen Ross, richly delivered by a creative team that includes scenic & costume designer Scott Pask (Menier Choolate Factory’s The Producers) and lighting designer Jen Schriever (Broadway’s Eureka Day), finds all the foul-mouthed fury that we would expect, but I’m not sure what it added up to. Somehow, this classic drama left me wondering what exactly was the point of it all. Why was I here listening to these men talk and treat each other this way? To what end? Furthermore, what was the whole friggin’ point of this revival coming into existance?
Debuting on Broadway in March 1984, and revived three times since, with a critically acclaimed film adaptation, directed by James Foley and featuring an extended screenplay by Mamet, thrown into the mix in 1992, the play has a legacy that lives and swears to its relevance in the theatrical history books. But as Patti LuPone once said about revivals: there’s got to be a really good reason for a show to come back into existence, or why would you get involved? And I can’t quite see it with this production of Glengarry Glen Ross, as played out here. Everyone is fine, delivering the framing and the dialogue in loud bits of explosive energy that are being eaten up and bringing the audience to strange fits of laughter, but is that enough? And what does it say about the world we live in, a world where Mamet is now a full-on Trump supporter, and how this is being digested by the consumer in this manner, as it doesn’t appear to be hitting its satirical critique marks like maybe it once did. There was talk of this cast being replaced at the end of their run with a cast of only female actors, and that idea definitely piqued a re-interest in the play, but alas, that was a pipe dream, as it has been reported that it will not happen. And maybe that’s a good thing. We will never know.
The show’s Act One is an entry-level examination of the characters and their devotion to their competitive morality-free task, serving three distinct plates of two-man chop suey in the Chinese Restaurant that reminds me of the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood (I used to live just down the street from it). The three scenes play out, not as interactive dialogue bits of engagement, but as protanity-laden monologues thrown at the other until the other is given (or not) their turn to throw some it back. Only the middle one, a match of wits played out devilishly by comedians Bill Burr and Michael McKean, feels rooted in a streetwise, cleverly constructed magic that transcends the wide stage made up of two too many booths on a too elaborate stage. Maybe that’s the problem here. This feels like it should be a tight, claustrophobic unleashing of anger and tense conflict, but as played out here by these actors on that wide stage, the energy somehow gets mitigated and diluted. Everyone does the job required of them, but in the end, the sales pitch falls flat in the play’s timely relevance.
Glengarry Glen Ross won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a 2005 Tony Award for best revival, among other awards, creating a heightened popularity within the acting community as a place and a space to really dig into and flex those acting verble muscles, much like, I imagine, the starry revival of Othello on Broadway (which us OCC voting members were not invited to). I have the same reaction whenever I see a revival of The Iceman Cometh coming along. None of these plays really interests me anymore, much like the celebrated Waiting for Godot, although that play, when done well, can really titillate the theatrical senses. Good Night, and Good Luck feels like a play from a similar smokey vantage point, but at least there, inside that starry Broadway production, we see some reason for its ideology, even though I think if I had to pay that high ticket price, I might just stay home and stream it on Netflix.
