Susan Granger’s review of “Good Night and Good Luck” (Winter Garden Theater)
George Clooney’s screen-to-stage adaptation of “Good Night and Good Luck,” which cost up to $9.5 million to capitalize,” broke Broadway records, grossing $3.3 million in one week – the most money a nonmusical has ever made on Broadway, as audiences seem undeterred by the $799-top ticket price.
Scripted by Clooney & Grant Heslov and directed by David Cromer (“The Band’s Visit’), this timely, powerful drama centers on crusading, chain-smoking newsman Edward R. Murrow (Clooney) who risked his professional reputation and career to attack Wisconsin’s Junior Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of his 1950s Communist witch hunt.
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty…We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.”
Murrow was supported by stolid producer Fred Friendly (Glenn Fleshler) and wary CBS-CEO William Paley (Paul Gross), along with Murray’s ill-fated protégé Don Hollenbeck (Clark Gregg). All four deliver strong performances.
Less effective is an unnecessary subplot involving secretly married producers Shirley & Joe Wershba (Ilana Glazer, Carter Hudson), while musical interludes from a strategically located jazz band serve as an unnecessary, often annoying distraction, diluting the play’s effective momentum.
News projections by David Bengali bring the historical concept up-to-date by including glimpses of a plane hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11, the attack on the Capitol, and Elon Musk’s Nazi-like salute.
With steely gravitas, 63 year-old Clooney tops it off, proclaiming from behind a podium that “There is a battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference for the very soul of this republic….What are you prepared to do?” (Cue applause)…
That’s taken directly from Murrow’s speech at the 1958 Radio and Television News Directors Association Annual Meeting in which he chided media for abandoning its mission to inform and illuminate the public.
Kudos to atmospheric set designer Scott Peck, costumer Brenda Abbandandolo and Heather Gilbert’s hanging halogen lamps, for their authentic recreation of the vintage CBS broadcast center/offices at Grand Central Terminal.
FYI: You can rent “Good Night and Good Luck” (2005) – with Clooney as Fred Friendly and Oscar-nominated David Strathairn as Murrow – for $3.99 on Amazon Prime Video. Or try for discounted tickets from TKTS, New York Show Tickets, TodayTix, TheaterMania, BroadwayBox & Playbill.
“Good Night and Good Luck” plays at the Winter Garden through June 8.