Review: A slick ‘Network’ showcases Bryan Cranston’s talent

If satire is what closes on Saturday night, as George S. Kaufman famously said, how can one explain the roaring success of Broadway’s “Network,” smashing box office records at the Belasco Theatre even before opening? The movie from which it was adapted, with its Oscar-winning screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, dates back more than 40 years, after all, to a time when New York’s streets were famously mean and anchormen, not Instagram influencers, were major cultural figures. The reasons for the popular success of the production, first seen at the National Theater in London, are several — including that ever-helpful “London-liked-it”…