Umbrella Stage Company, *** out of 5. Did anyone really need a stage version of Paddy Chayefsky’s NETWORK? A good question, one first asked when Lee Hall unveiled his adaptation at Britain’s National Theatre, and later on Broadway. Sidney Lumet’s 1976 multiple Oscar winner, after all, remains most available through DVD, streaming services, and Turner Classic Movies. Moreover, it’s got iconic performances by William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch and Robert Duvall that arguably cannot be surpassed, even with the great Bryan Cranston in Finch’s role as the anchorman-turned-mad messiah Howard Beale. Well, at the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord there’s no Finch and no Cranston, but the experience is more than justified on the grounds of immediacy. Chayefsky’s passionate indictment of the dumbing-down of America – the loss of its very soul thanks to the pabulum of mass entertainment – takes on even more intensity with the ubiquity of the Internet and the rise of Trump. Though director Ashley Kelly Tata maintains the ’70s setting (except for the modern video cameras; whassup there?), the commentary on our current societal dilemmas speaks volumes. It’s staged at a brisk 90 minutes sans intermission, backed up by banal reels of vintage game shows and commercials as well as increasingly present, live video feeds, and to my surprise I found it easier to follow Beale’s crazy rants than I ever did during the movie. That’s partly due to Bill Mootos’ skillful performance, which allows us to see the slick newsman Beale was before his crackup. Also fine is Steven Barkhimer in Duvall’s role as a power-mad network exec; and if Barlow Adamson and Blythe de Oliveira Foster fall short of the iconic Holden and Dunaway performances, they’re in there swinging. Biggest mistake: forcing all the main actors to move furniture during blackouts. They’re playing bigshots, and having bigshots tote weary loads throws us out of the story. An ensemble of gofers would’ve tapped into the reality of network TV and freed the principals to take full command. Runs through Nov. 3; theumbrellaarts.org. (Photo of Bill Mootos by Jim Sabitus.)