The Chill of Media Literacy in GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK — Review

For the first third of Good Night, and Good Luck, a new play based on the 2005 film, I appreciated being made to lean in. As in the movie, which was written and directed by George Clooney, here stepping into the lead role of the CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, a battle is waged against media illiteracy. By 1958, he believed this country had become “fat, comfortable, and complacent,” rapidly losing their ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, truth and entertainment, and when and how to care. It follows, then, why director David Cromer’s production begins quietly, asking us to consider each detail with Murrow’s level of attention. But its book, co-written with Grant Heslov, is ultimately too slight to care to analyze.

It’s too bad, considering the pertinence of the story, which follows a monthslong pas de deux between Murrow and Joseph McCarthy at the height of the senator’s Red Scare. Aggrieved by the politician’s showboating lies, Murrow fights back on air to the chagrin of studio head Bill Paley (Paul Gross) and his profiteering investors. Their back-and-forth is cleverly portrayed through a mix of Clooney's onstage addresses, delivered mainly into a live feed shot (by Daniel Kluger) through several screens throughout and beyond the proscenium, and archival footage . The approach emphasizes what’s here, in fact, and there, across a possibly corrupted media, and initially seems almost (delightfully) academic in its distancing.

But while Clooney’s charismatic talent carries him smoothly through his Broadway debut, and I won’t begrudge him a commitment to multimedia, you begin to feel a bit cheated witnessing over half of his Broadway debut through screens. (Even from the vantage point of my prime orchestra seat, he is mostly blocked by cameras and other performers.) And what’s around his story – an office romance (between Ilana Glazer and Carter Hudson), an espionage subplot with Murrow’s co-producer (Glenn Fleshler), and a somewhat distastefully underexplored incident with a fellow journalist (Clark Gregg, a warming presence) – first feels dangerously intriguing, then like padding.

Up to the challenge, Cromer crowds Scott Pask’s stunning set – the old CBS studio at Grand Central Station – with the sights and sounds of an ever-humming office. There’s always someone agonizing over the editing bay, manning the well-appointed control room upstage, or men in trench coats walking on a catwalk above the main action. There’s even a lovely singer (Georgia Heers) crooning for the listeners at home, marking time for those in the theater. To be fair, it is a rare joy to see a stage as huge as the Winter Garden’s populated with a large cast for a straight play. But it's equally disappointing to squander the Broadway debuts of two magnetic talents, that of Glazer and the downtown theater jewel, Will Dagger, with so little to do.

For its few gems of amusement, the play has an uneasily patronizing relationship with what it views as trivial. To punish Murrow for his muckraking, Paley assigns him a puff piece on Liberace which, after it screens, provides a punchline for Murrow to look absolutely dejected. The patrician Clooney strikes this pose beautifully (especially under Heather Gilbert’s b&w-inspired lighting), but it’s one of many moments in which entertainment is made a punching-bag straw-man for our own supposed apathy. (I Love Lucy and, perplexingly, Beyoncé also later come under fire in a final montage.)

And really, isn’t the production’s whole conceit more or less the Liberace puff piece equivalent of Liberal backpatting, righteous and sometimes rousing as those moments here can be? Clooney acquits himself nicely, though better as a stage actor than writer, and perhaps best of all as a figure worthy of examination, himself. Paley warns Murrow that, morality aside, his editorializing has opened the door for unqualified on-air commentary. Having long waded into political waters from the Hollywood pool, Clooney has coolly mastered both bodies, dignity intact. He’s a star, and a clearly intelligent one. But for all its subdued rippling, his play of Good Night, and Good Luck charts mostly still waters.

Good Night, and Good Luck is in performance through June 8, 2025 at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in New York City.