Photo by Aaron Reese Boseman Photography
Even if you’ve never seen the seminal 1976 movie Network, you probably have heard its most famous line. (Say it with me: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”) This line, spoken by Howard Beale, a TV news anchor who has stopped caring about rules of propriety, is his mantra: looking at the world and the influence of TV objectively, who wouldn’t be mad as hell? Invictus Theatre’s new production of Lee Hall’s stage adaptation of screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky’s stunning satirical masterpiece deconstructs both the TV news industry and the ways in which it manipulates audiences works on multiple levels.
At least one of those levels was not available to Cheyefsky. Director Charles Askenaizer brings the audience right into the play from the start, immersing us in the pre-show minutia of a news broadcast even as it introduces characters, so we watch them doing their jobs before we know who they are. This immersion actually begins before the play starts: actors in character ad-lib conversations and actions that give the news studio a lived-in feeling, and by the time the show actually begins we have learned a lot. Important note: if you can, show up half an hour early so you’ll get the full experience. And don’t worry if these actors—or the bulky TV cameras—block your view; one was right in front of me at the start, but Askenaizer doesn’t let it linger. Besides, part of Kevin Rolf’s great set is a wall of TV screens that will be visible even if the live action is a bit blocked. (That bank of monitors is also a fun time-travel journey back to the 70s with period commercials, etc.)
At the start, the giant cameras are only onstage when the “news show” in central focus is filming. Scenes that don’t play out in front of cameras play on a stage devoid of them. As the show goes on, though, even these scenes—some that are intimate, some that don’t even take place in the studio or even in the same building—end up on camera, a nod to the increasing intrusion of TV news into real life. Since Network takes place in the 70s, before Fox News, before even cable TV—back when there were basically only the three big broadcast networks—looking at all of this today feels incredibly prescient. Even the character of Beale, the “mad prophet of the airwaves,” the man who raves and rages and swears about whatever is bothering him, feels (sadly) like something that could have come from modern media.
As Beale, James Turano has a field day. When we first see him, he feels a bit like Joe Biden in the last debate—lacking in energy and focus—but, once he breaks away from the staidness of broadcast news standards and speaks his mind, he has energy that would make Tim Walz happy. (At one point he even jumps up on the newsdesk.)
Turano is supplemented by a stable of strong actors including Chuck Munro as Beale’s boss and best friend Max Schumacher, Joe Sergio as the corporate hack whose company has taken over the news division, and Anne Trodden as Dians Christensen, an executive who finds herself right in the middle: she is Schumacher’s love interest, but she is also someone who has been seduced by the power and money of producing a hit show.
And, yes, “The Howard Beale Show” (rebranded by Christensen when she convinces management to move the show to her entertainment division—which is probably the most reasonable thing these corporate shills do, and one that teaches a lesson Fox News ought to learn) is a hit. But even Chayefsky’s perceptive screenplay could not foresee that outrage and speechifying could sustain the public’s interest, so Beale’s schtick (weakened by a corporate owner who doesn’t appreciate it when Beale rails against TV itself) runs dry. But how do you cancel a prophet?
It turns out that there is a way, depending on just how dirty you want to play it. (Spoiler alert: Chayefsky’s network honchos play very dirty.)
Invictus’ Network is a powerful play, highlighting just how much we’ve lost ourselves in the years since all of this could reasonably be seen as satire. In the end, as the characters filter out, continuing their ad-libbing, we are left seeing a soundstage where humanity no longer has any role, where decency has died an ignominious death. Unfortunately, we did not learn anything from the original film, and now, almost forty years later, we pretty much live in the world it predicted.
Network is playing at Windy City Playhouse, 3014 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago, through September 29. Tickets are available at the Invictus Theatre website. For more Chicago reviews or show information, see chicagoonstage.com or theatreinchicago.com.