Bryan Cranston was getting mad as hell across the pond in the National Theater's stage version of Paddy Chayefsky's classic, savage media satire Network late last year, and soon New York City audiences will get the chance to get mad as hell, too. The production comes to Broadway later this year.
Directed by Ivo Van Hove and starring Cranston as Howard Beale, Network is set to launch on Broadway this fall. Previews will start at the Cort Theatre on November 10th, and the play will open December 6th for an 18-week run.
The National's production was adapted by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) from Chayefsky's Academy Award-winning script, which was about the madness and depravity of the TV news business. Hall and Van Hove (who is also directing a Broadway adaptation of West Side Story in late 2019) have updated the play for contemporary times and the 24 hour news cycle, with video screens and cameras a part of the theatrical presentation.
In a review of the British production, the NY Times called the adaptation "an instant ulcer" in the best possible way. They wrote: "This is theater as assault and battery, and like many of the best current examples of that genre, it's only an amplification of what you regularly experience in an age when external stimuli outstrip the human ability to process them. It's all enough to make a beleaguered body feel — and if you know your Network, you can finish this sentence — as mad as hell."
Cranston said in a statement about the play that in a "post-truth era," the Chayefsky script "shines a spotlight on today's society with prescient clarity. I'm thrilled to be able to continue Network in New York where the story originated over 40 years ago. It's remarkable to see how things have changed…and what has not." Cranston won best actor in a play at this year's Olivier Awards for the role, and previously won a Tony Award for playing President Lyndon B. Johnson on Broadway in All The Way, his Broadway debut.
The rest of the cast has not been announced yet, though Michelle Dockery played Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway in the movie) in the British version.
