Review: Live Theatre's "The Columnist"

There wasn’t much to like about the syndicated columnist who rubbed shoulders with some of the most powerful men of the 20th century.

Still, there must have been something compelling about the conservative, outspoken Ivy Leaguer whose pen was often dipped in acid to prompt playwright David Auburn to write his bio-play, “The Columnist,” which Live Theatre Workshop opened Saturday.

But it’s anyone’s guess what exactly that was.

“The Columnist” gives us little more than what most know about Alsop, who died in 1989: He wrote for a time with his brother, Stewart. He hated Joe McCarthy, and the Communists. He had little use for the up-and-coming reporters such as David Halberstam, whose early reporting on the Vietnam War won him a Pulitzer. Alsop thought the New York Times journalist’s stories showed he was hell-bent on America losing that war, so Alsop was hell-bent on getting Halberstam fired.

While the play is compelling, there’s little that is illuminated about Alsop, and even less of a universal theme that audiences can pull from it.

Rhonda Hallquist directed the LTW production. The clunky blocking lessened the story’s impact. And she had her actors zoom right through the script. The speed-reading deprived the audience and the actors of the chance to absorb transitions or understand motivations. It is robbed of subtext. The result is moments when we were meant to see the softer side of Alsop, such as when John F. Kennedy was killed, felt disingenuous.

The talented Keith Wick took on the role of Alsop, and he gave him the patrician air that helped define the writer. Steve Wood’s Halberstam was almost as arrogant, which probably was true to character for the reporter at that time— in the early 1960s when he was a hotshot reporter for the most important newspaper in the country.

Stephen Frankenfield played Alsop’s younger brother, Stewart, with a thoughtful tenderness. Frankenfield was the most successful in the cast at giving his character breadth.

The script is interesting. But not much else. The LTW production followed suit.