Inside the “good night” of George Clooney and good luck “in Broadway

Sit seven rows of the “Good Night and good luck” scene on Broadway, and you have to take a puff of cigarette smoke from accessories.

The cigarettes – and the discolored pulse of the fourth domain – took the best invoicing during the first on Thursday evening at the Winter Garden Theater in New York. For each celebrity with a vape in hand, the journalists of the crowd absorbed the call of George Clooney to arms under an exciting mist.

Among those of the play were Jake Tapper, George Stephanopoulos, Lesley Stahl, Chris Wallace, Rachel Maddow and CBS chief George Cheeks, seated alongside the A-visers Drew Barrymore, Uma Thurman and Lorne Michaels. The red carpet, organized opposite the imposing theater brand, had its own show. Thousands of fans have aligned the street while Jennifer Lopez, the Clooney Co-Star “Out of Sight,” turned heads in a black dress associated with an inflated white cape.

“Good Night, and Bood Luck” is an almost verbal adaptation of the 2005 film of the same name, which tells of the television removal of Edward R. Murrow of Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of red fear. However, a handful of sharp additions draw a clear line towards misfortunes confronted with modern journalism.

“The play is more emotional than the film,” said Grant Heslov, a long-standing partner of Clooney and Co-Scenarist, said Variety. “And the end takes a very different direction.”

In a key exchange, the president of CBS, William Paley, delivers the familiar line: “We do not do the news, we report the news.” But Paul Gross’ Paley goes further than his film counterpart (played by Frank Langella), questioning the actions of the previous Murrow set themselves for journalists who will one day sit on his chair.

This tension foreshadows the “Babylon” final of the show: a rapid montage of moments defining the news of Broadcast News which crossed the televisions of the box flanking the two sides of the scene. It started with touch stones such as the landing of the moon and the speech of “tearing this wall” from Reagan, but by approaching the present, the images became stronger, more chaotic, more sensational.

“It is not only journalism. This is a problem that we are faced with in a capitalist society, in which I believe, but at some point, you must understand what is the global objective,” said Clark Gregg, who plays the brand journalist Pinko Don Hollenbeck. “Is it always a profit?” Is the truth always profitable? And shouldn’t the truth be number one? ”

Clooney’s play arrives at a critical moment for traditional journalism. While the Trump administration promises to reduce federal funding for PBS and NPR, programs inherited as “CBS Evening News” are fighting for the audience in a fractured media ecosystem.

“We forget that when Murrow was broadcast, there were about 40 million people watching,” said Camoufre Andrew Polk. “There were only a few channels, and he was the guy. It’s unknown today. So maybe it’s part of the answer. Everything is so dispersed, people really don’t know where to get the truth.”

According to Gallup, 68% of Americans said they had a “big deal” or a “good amount of confidence in the media in 1972. In 2024, this number reached a record of 31%. One could indicate the systemic problem that Murrow is confronted in the room: the erosion of the firewall between the company and the editorial.

“I am lucky because CNN belongs to David Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery, and they were large enough in terms of support for our ability to report the facts and the truth, even if it bothers anyone,” said Tapper. “But there are other places at the moment that seem to acquiesce and complete. It’s very worrying. “

One of the most resonant moments of the night came while Clooney’s Murrow, in one of the actor’s long monologues and commander, has demystified accusations of communist sympathies linked to a book dedication by British socialist Harold Laski. “He did not insist on the agreement with his political principles as a prerequisite for conversation or friendship,” he said of character. The crowd responded with a low and approving whisper. The line has clearly struck a nerve.

“The best thing you can do is read both sides,” said Richard Kind. “I hate Fox News, but I constantly listen to it. Go out and find the truth.

After the curtain fell at its beginnings on Broadway, Clooney made a brief on the carpet, his black pepper hair still carefully in place. Asked about the absence of his wife Amal Clooney, he flashed a twisted smile and said: “She is with the children.”

Inside the elegant after-game held at the New York public library, Clooney celebrated his big evening with sympathizers and friends, including the comrades “ER” Julianna Margulies, Anthony Edwards and Noah Wyle.

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