See it if Network is a relevant tour de force. A rare broadway show. TRUE THEATER ! INGENIUS !
Don't see it if You only enjoy musical theater
See it if You are alive...relevant to today
Don't see it if You are dead
See it if brilliant staging of a play which is even more relevant now than when it premiered 40+ years ago. the use of video screens is brilliant!
Don't see it if it's disturbing, pessimistic and there's more than a little profanity and adult situations
See it if You love electric acting great script brilliant staging
Don't see it if You don’t like very intense writing and acting
See it if you love Bryan Cranston or any of the other stellar cast members. If you liked the movie. If you enjoy use of multiple mediums.
Don't see it if you don't like plays with video components and projection. If you don't like shouting or politics.
See it if Excellent. It seemed more in tune with recent past than 1970s. Stage design and actors great. No 100 if show involves audience participatio
Don't see it if Your incurably optimistic, Don't like to think. Don't buy the expensive seats onstage, bad deal.
See it if Cranston with Chayefsky’s words and Hove’s vision...brilliant. Staging was simply beyond! Once prescient,now retrospect, equally compelling.
Don't see it if See it ... seat B106: amazing.
See it if you love new and exciting theatre and are interested in mixed mediums. The use of cameras and screens mixed with lighting makes this show.
Don't see it if you don't enjoy intense subject matter or the use of technology on stage. If you're looking for something more traditional, this isn't it.
“Despite an overwhelming star performance by Cranston...And a technology-crammed set so full of distractions that you are too busy watching all the visuals to remember what the play is about in the first place...’Network’ is as dated and irrelevant as a nickel phone call...Both the script and direction careen recklessly between a swerving clash of styles that lurch from mood to mood in scenes of farce, high drama, naturalism and comic fantasy...A combination of ambrosia and apocalypse.”
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"Chayefsky’s celebrated screenplay is...dolled up with all sorts of distracting gadgetry by that maestro of fancy doodads, Ivo van Hove...One of the play’s multiple themes is how we’re controlled by TV and the other gizmos we’ve created. The fact that, at times, van Hove forces our eye toward the screens, even when humans are standing front and center before us, is one of the production’s better jokes. But Cranston is the only human in a cast 23 strong with any power to move us."
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"Cranston does the impossible...he makes Peter Finch’s Oscar-winning turn feel like yesterday’s news...If only the rest of the show was even half as good...Hall, hewing closely and at times verbatim to Chayefsky’s screenplay, fails to rustle up any resonance or fresh insights for today’s era of fake news...When the focus veers from Howard to corporate doublespeak and a cliched melodrama — at least as it’s played here — about an extramarital affair, it’s time to switch channels."
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"van Hove’s overly busy production can’t match the bareknuckle force of his leading man’s performance. Whenever Cranston isn’t on stage, the show tends to feel a bit didactic. And some of van Hove’s flashy, fourth-wall-breaking technical daredevilry feels distracting and oddly pointless...There’s no question that 'Network' is a sickeningly timely evening of theater. But whenever Cranston wasn’t on stage, I had to keep reminding myself why I loved the movie so much."
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"A freewheeling, fast and furious, absolutely mesmerizing stage adaptation...Whereas van Hove's tech-savvy, experimental approach often comes off as overblown, self-indulgent, pretentious and bewildering, it is perfectly suited to the media-overflow milieu of 'Network'...Cranston gives an all-out, remarkable performance — full of raw emotion, magnetic presence, superb comedic timing, and a genuine sense of struggle, unpredictability and urgency."
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"Acclaimed stage director Ivo Van Hove’s exhilarating production is a laudable effort to revisit Chayevsky’s chilling prophecy, but in this version, the towering presence of Bryan Cranston delivering a monumental performance upstages the medium and the message...Cranston’s performance ranks among the best I’ve ever seen on a live stage. It will go down as legendary. But through a combination of miscasting and lopsided writing, the other performances pale by comparison."
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"'Network' is a story for our time, which is why it is disappointing that Hall and director Ivo van Hove only make the half-choice to set it here and now...Preserving much of what didn't work in Chayefsky's screenplay...'Network' relies on such operatic rants, not all of which are created equal. Also unequal is the skill with which this cast delivers them...Our eyes are involuntarily drawn to the action on the huge screen upstage. How can real humans possibly compete."
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"The brilliance of placing a stage adaptation of Chayefsky's story of television news as editorialized entertainment with content controlled by funding corporations is that what was taken as satire over forty years ago can be seen as social commentary in 2018...Cranston gives a nervy, fully textured performance...Van Hove's sharp, vigorous staging fully matches Hall's rapid-fire text...A contemporary lens with which to view Chayefsky's exceptional work, giving it greater impact for today."
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