Good Night, and Good Luck by George Clooney and Grant Heslov. Directed by David Cromer. Scenic design by Scott Pask. Costume design by Brenda Abbandandolo. Lighting design by Heather Gilbert. Sound design by Daniel Kluger. Projection design by David Bengali. Hair and wig design by Leah J. Loukas. Compositions, orchestrations, arrangements, and music direction by Bryan Carter. Music supervision by Bryan Carter and Daniel Kluger. Music coordinator Kimberlee Wertz. Voice and dialect Gigi Buffington. Archival researcher Jessica Kahkoska.
Cast: George Clooney, Mac Brandt, Will Dagger, Christopher Denham, Glen Fleshler, Ilana Glazer, Clark Gregg, Paul Gross, Georgia Heers, Carter Hudson, Fran Kranz, Jennifer Morris, Michael Nathanson, Andrew Polk, Aaron Roman Weiner, R. Ward Duffy, Joe Forbrich, Imani Rousselle, Greg Stuhr, JD Taylor, and Sophia Tzougros.
Theater: Winter Garden Theatre
Tickets: Telecharge.com

Paul Gross and George Clooney Photo by Emilio Madrid

Like the movie, which it follows quite closely, the play deals with Murrow's crusade to shut down the fear-mongering and career-destroying red-baiting career of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, referred to condescendingly by the newsman throughout the play (which Clooney co-wrote with his frequent collaborator Grant Heslov) as "the junior senator from Wisconsin."

The cautionary tale of McCarthyism has been depicted, directly or indirectly, many times through the years, from Arthur Miller's The Crucible to movies like Trumbo and the Showtime miniseries "Fellow Travelers." In Good Night, and Good Luck the focus is on the period in 1954 when McCarthy's reign of terror was starting to unravel. There were many hands involved in taking him on and bringing him down, but the focus of this play is on Murrow's role, when he and his team came after the senator via Murrow's documentary-style newsmagazine, "See It Now," a precursor to CBS's "60 Minutes."

As directed by David Cromer, the play generally sticks to the facts (including lots of video clips of the actual persons being depicted), even as it keeps Murrow at the center. For the most part, Good Night, and Good Luck plays out under the assumption that the audience is smart enough to follow the storyline without being spoon-fed (e.g. through interspersed narration).

The Cast Photo by Emilio Madrid

Apart from the obvious allure of Clooney as Murrow, standouts among the cast are Glenn Fleshler as Fred Friendly, Murrow's co-creator of "See It Now," and Paul Gross as the network's board chairman William Paley. Friendly is generally presented as the supportive behind-the-scenes good guy, while Paley works mightily to balance the integrity of Murrow's position with the needs of the business to stay in business by calming down the advertisers (for example, by having Murrow provide genial interviews of celebrities the likes of Liberace on his "Person to Person" show).

Clooney, who directed and appeared as Friendly in the film version, manages, at least until the final minutes of the production, to come off as a team player (all right, the captain of a team). Especially in close-up on TV monitors, we see a face characterized by a wrinkled brow and puffy eye bags, the look of a heavy smoker and overworked man and not that of an ageless movie star.

Throughout, the tone is generally that of a straight-forward documentary play. Understandably, that might be off-putting for those in the audience laying out ticket prices topping $800 apiece, hoping to see a bigtime movie star leading the charge in a bigtime production. But to give Clooney his due, he generally is there to serve the play and his character, who, in his own right, is a different kind of star. Applause is periodically earned, and not milked, by virtue of Clooney's literally reciting (and not declaiming) Murrow's actual words.

But then, oh my, for the last few minutes, Clooney steps up to the podium, and it's as if we are suddenly in the audience for a TED talk. While he may still be speaking as Murrow, his words are accompanied by a series of visual images that whip us out of the 1950s and forward in time to the present. This is perhaps meant to reinforce the message that the repressive and fear-mongering events being depicted in the play are not just an aberration, a blip in history, but something we need to continue to be on the watch for and be prepared to fight. The thing is, everything that preceded this makes the point abundantly clear. Yes, every age needs its Murrows, but after the grown-up approach to relating the story through the first 90 minutes of the 100-minute intermissionless play, this additional material feels unnecessarily pedantic.