John Lithgow plays journalist Joseph Als...

John Lithgow plays journalist Joseph Als...

John Lithgow as Joseph Alsop in “The Columnist”

The Columnist seemed to have everything going for it. The writer, star, director and design team are all proven talents.

But you cant make a fire with wet matches and David Auburns new work turns out to be a disappointingly soggy drama.

In a mix of fact and fiction, it recalls the life and times of Joseph Alsop(played by John Lithgow), a syndicated political newspaperman. His influential career spanned the 1930s through the 1970s b efore his death in 1989.

He had the ear of presidents, including good chum John F. Kennedy, and was buddies with much of D.C.s power elite.

Alsop was also a closeted homosexual. He was described as eccentric in one bio and a walking American version of a British fop in another.

You get the picture.

But in the Manhattan Theatre Club presentation Alsops fabled tics and traits are mostly avoided. Too bad. The notion of the mans public and private disconnect would have packed more punch.

Precisely what made conservative and controversial Alsop so mighty fails to come into sharp focus. Snippets of his column that are projected dont lend a clue.

What emerges is a series of light pencil sketches tracking Alsop and intimates from Cold War to Kennedy assassination to Vietnam War, which he stoked.

The storys stiffness is all the more surprising since Auburns 2000 play Proof made math formulas exciting.

Daniel Sul livan directed that earlier work and this one, and lightning doesnt strike twice.

As usual, Lithgow commands on stage and makes the most of the material. His portrait of Alsop is a man whos aloof and loudly states his mind a lot like the columnist J.J. Hunsecker he played in the musical,Sweet Smell of Success.

Seasoned pros and emerging actors form the ensemble, including Margaret Colin as Alsops wife, who marries him knowing hes gay and eventually tires of being a beard. Grace Gummer is her teenaged daughter (renamed in the play for some reason) whom he tutors and unsuccessfully tries to shape in his mold.

Boyd Gaines is his brother Stewart, confidant and writing partner. Stephen Kunken is real-life journo David Halberstam. Brian J. Smith works a Russian accent as a Soviet hooker, whose encounters with Alsop bookend the play.

The Columnist captures an era before political bloggers and pundits were on every TV channel, a time when few voices r ang loudly. The play strives to depict the power of words, but, ironically, lands with little force.