Susan Granger’s review of “Network” (Belasco Theatre)
Uncannily prescient Paddy Chayefsky wrote the screenplay for Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-winning film back in 1976, depicting an angry, frustrated TV news anchorman who urged viewers to open their windows, stick their heads out and scream, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
Now – 42 years later – that sentiment is just as timely and relevant – if not more so.
Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) plays Howard Beale, the veteran broadcaster with Tony Goldwyn (“Scandal”) as his best friend, Max Schumacher, president of the network news division, and Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”) as Diana Christensen, a relentlessly ambitious programming executive. (Peter Finch, William Holden and Faye Dunaway played these respective roles in the movie)
When burnt-out, depressed Beale threatens to blow his brains out on live television, he becomes a populist sensation; his audience grows exponentially bigger the more obviously deranged he becomes.
Thematically, it revolves around the increasing corporatization of news media, algorithmic newsfeeds, and the gradual degradation of truth that has resulted in the proliferations of “fake news.”
Faithfully adapted by Lee Hall (“Billy Elliot”) and meticulously directed by Ivo van Hove (Broadway revivals of “A View From the Bridge,” “The Crucible”) with a highly creative production team, it’s a multi-media presentation with several hand-held cameras simultaneously tracking what’s happening on-stage, projected into a gigantic screen that dominates the set.
“As a teenager when I first saw ‘Network’ on the screen, I thought it was science-fiction. That science-fiction has not become our reality,” notes Ivo van Hove. “All its relationships are scarred. It’s a tragedy about the loss of values.”
“I was in college when it came out, and it was impactful, brazen – shocking in many cases,” adds Bryan Cranston, who is mesmerizing as Beale. “I grew up with Harry Reasoner and Walter Cronkite, people that seemed very authoritative. It never occurred to me that they were packaging information….These days, if you’re not skeptical, you’re naïve. If you believe everything you see on CNN or Fox or MSNBC, you’re gullible. Because the news is a news-entertainment product.”
FYI prescient playwright Paddy Chayefsky died in 1981, long before his ominous predictions came true.