Glenn Fleshler, George Clooney in Good Night and Good Luck (Photo: Emilio Madrid)
The screen-to-stage adaptation of Good Night and Good Luck ends up being a good fit for theater. The play is snappy while still a bit lecturing, frustrating and yet fascinating. Director David Cromer captures the movement and verve of live television on stage and layers the stage in a way that mimics edits in cinema seamlessly. The ensemble piece about this moment in history provides a solid dose of drama, though the play strains when it tries to connect to our present moment.
The play, written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, does not stray far from their film script but the world has changed a lot in the 20 years since the film came out. The political swings it attempts are a mixed bag. I want to appreciate them trying while at the same time I am annoyed that this is not the solution.
In 1953, longtime journalist Edward R. Murrow (Clooney) was trying to figure out a way to challenge Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch-hunt in his news reports on CBS. Along with his producing partner Fred Friendly (Glenn Fleshler) they attacked obliquely first, presenting a story of an air force pilot forced out of the military based on secret accusations that his family members have communist sympathies. By 1954, they then take the plunge to go after McCarthy himself. But to do so means they will go come under his microscope and CBS’s brass is worried how far this could go and what it will cost them.
Contrasted with Murrow is CBS newsman Don Hollenbeck (Clark Gregg) who is under relentless attack by right-wing commentators for his “biased” reporting. Bookending the play, Murrow gives a speech in 1958 to his media pals in which he challenges them to fight for journalism and the value of news in a world that is leaning more into entertainment.
David Cromer knows how to use stage space. He moves set pieces in and out to transition from the writers’ room to the recording studio. Cameras, mics, and monitors get wheeled in. Everyone takes their places in the fast-paced setting of live TV.
The stage landscape also plays into the artifice of television studio spaces. Murrow is having a casual chat with Liberace on screen while smoking his cigarette in a club chair but it is a soundstage. It is theater. We are watching media be made and Cromer really paints this well on stage. This hubbub of movement feeds into the sense of live broadcast nerves, quick action, and gives the play a visual momentum. Everything feels just a little bit more electric with Cromer’s direction.
Scenic design by Scott Pask (Photo: Emilio Madrid)
Almost everything we see on stage is within the CBS building including a walkway in Grand Central Terminal. Because the studio was above Grand Central, Scott Pask’s set includes the beautiful Beaux Art arch on stage, grounding us in this very New York story.
One of the other central features of the stage is a recording studio presumedly in the CBS building as well that sits above the newsroom. A woman called Ella (Georgia Heers) is laying down tracks with live musicians in between the newsroom scenes. Notably this is the only space you will see Black characters in the play. I think it is safe to assume there was this kind of segregation at CBS in 1953.
Clooney used many of the same musical interludes in the film. One can read the songs as commentary on what is happening. “I’ve got my eyes on you,” “There may be trouble ahead,” she sings. Though I found this connection stronger on stage than on screen. It is more purposeful and gets our full attention in those moments rather than being overlaid other scenes in the movie.
It’s disappointing that they don’t do much with Ella. She’s a lively personality in front of the mic but we know little about her. She is handed songs to sing. So, the music commentary is not coming from her. While she is a presence on stage, she is not a voice in the play herself.
The cast is an experienced stage ensemble (Clooney having probably the least number of stage credits among them with his last Equity credit being 1986) and they bring a palpable fear to living through McCarthyism.
Good Night and Good Luck (Photo: Emilio Madrid)
Fleshler is a jovial Friendly though you didn’t necessarily feel the long rapport between he and Murrow. Fran Kranz is a nervous Palmer Williams who worries he has exposed the team to trouble with a Communist connection in his past. Carter Hudson and Ilana Glazer, as the secretly married couple Joe and Shirley Wershba, often act as light comic relief as well as the voice of everyday working folks in the newsroom, sharing their worries about McCarthy as their bosses hunt big game.
For the broadcasts, Clooney’s face is projected on a large screen (and 1950s style TV monitors surrounding the proscenium). It helps to amplify the play on stage to such a big house in this way.
Murrow-ifying the matinee idol Clooney does seem impossible but with make-up, a heavily furrowed brow, and a deadpan delivery Clooney mostly pulls it off. Though his Murrow is a little stiff. He has dialed-up the gravitas and dial-ed down the charm but he could stand to adjust the dials a skoshe. For sure, Clooney looks stripped of his glamour. And while Murrow is the narrative focus, Clooney’s presence does not overwhelmingly pull attention on stage. Gregg ends up with the more emotionally showy role. Though he plays it a bit more light-hearted and charming than Ray Wise’s crumbling figure in the film.
As for the play itself, this is a story of 20th century media, egregious government overreach and speaking truth to power. In a way, it is both timely and yet an outdated product of the past—a dichotomy I could not shake.
I thought about Ryan Broderick’s recent Garbage Day newsletter where he discussed his interview with Chapo Trap House’s Felix Biederman. Biederman has theory on media under the Trump administrations. Biederman’s view is that during the first Trump administration we were still living in a traditional media landscape of “Article World” but now during the second “Post World” has completely taken over.
As Broderick explains:
“‘Article World’ is the universe of American corporate journalism and punditry that, well, basically held up liberal democracy in this country since the invention of the radio. And ‘Post World’ is everything the internet has allowed to flourish since the invention of the smartphone — YouTubers, streamers, influencers, conspiracy theorists, random trolls, bloggers, and, of course, podcasters. And now huge publications and news channels are finally noticing that Article World, with all its money and resources and prestige, has been reduced to competing with random posts that both voters and government officials happen to see online.”
So, if you accept this media landscape premise, Good Night and Good Luck is a product of Article World while it is railing about a media universe that we do not actually live in anymore. And yet this feels apt. Traditional media is operating by a playbook that has been torn up and thrown out and it is hard to get our sea legs in this new Post World universe.
The play ends with a “We Didn’t Start the Fire” montage of television historic moments since the days of Murrow. Everything from the Beatles on Ed Sullivan to Jerry Springer to planes crashing into the World Trade Center to the fake news Dominion voting scandal. It is meant to stir up a liberal leaning crowd (who were already cheering at pro-Europe statements in the play—though is everyone forgetting Viktor Orban is as much Europe right now as pro-ESG policy).
Watching this sequence, you can be convinced that news still has power to shock (honestly I was unprepared for how hard some of these hit). But does reporting the news change the world anymore? I do not know.
There’s a part of me that wants to believe because I am also from the 20th century. I want to believe people can be persuaded by thoughtful, contextual writing that can shed light on the past and the present. But I am increasingly convinced we are in a Post World where Nazi salutes get watered down in the slurry of online commentary and people absorb their information/knowledge by collective volume rather than by context now.
If your whole algorithm derived feed is telling you one thing, will you think for yourself?
George Clooney in Edward R. Murrow pinstripes is telling us we must stand up to a bully and the bully will fall. But then there is the line in the play where Murrow says he cannot take on both McCarthy and Hearst at the same time. Are we living in a world where in essence the power of those two evils have merged into one?
And it is hard not think about how many people in power are in no way interested in challenging either the McCarthys or the Hearsts. “Big Law” and “Big Tech” are mostly eager to serve the President and his agenda. But there are nuggets. Some law firms are fighting back. The ACLU (tarred and feathered by McCarthy) continues to bring suits. Even trans teens, probably the people with the least amount of power right now, are pushing back.
I know we cannot lose hope. But bringing a knife to a digital era gun-fight won’t short circuit the reality of this moment either. So the play reminded me of what happened once, but I am less convinced that that kind of sea change will happen again.