Like television journalist Edward R. Murrow’s historic broadcasts, the stage adaptation of the 2005 film “Good Night, and Good Luck” has a seriousness of purpose that is again dramatically stark, solidly documented and ultimately chilling. This transfer from screen to stage is as intense and laser-focused as the penetrating gaze coming from its star and co-writer, George Clooney.

Clooney, who directed the film and co-wrote its Oscar-nominated screenplay with Grant Heslov, returns to the material with a sense of renewed relevance, giving a starry spotlight to the production. It’s all in the service of the profiles-in-courage story of Murrow’s groundbreaking reporting of an earlier dark political period in 1953 America: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s anti-Communism crusade.

Here a more seasoned Clooney, who in the film played television producer and Murrow’s professional partner Fred Friendly, promotes himself to the leading role. (David Strathairn played Murrow in the film.)

Absent from the stage for decades, Clooney has a deeply felt command of character and a riveting presence. Appropriately Murrow-furrowed, Clooney presents the journalist as a downcast, contemplative, dedicated  journalist with an occasional flash of dry wit — and even a bit of warmth. (Clooney can’t help it.)

But the production never veers away from the weight of its subject, themes and message. Clooney and Heslov’s taut script stays on target, resisting any expansion of a story that clocks in a speedy 100 minutes. It eschews overloading the narrative with personal backstories or psychological analysis, though an office romance lightens the mood and a colleague’s death darkens it.

Like the journalist and the dutiful journalism it wishes to honor, the play is principally told with facts and, most effectively, in the documented words, unpolished images and actual broadcasts of that history’s leading players.

In streamlining the script, some theatrical moments may have been lost, especially a pivotal one when Murrow makes his career-defining decision culminating in the 1954 broadcasts exposing the nefarious methods of McCarthy — with Roy Cohn at his elbow and ear. These broadcasts eventually lead to new hearings investigating the senator himself, exposing the lies, intimidation and false evidence of McCarthy’s campaign.

But that moment is presented matter-of-factly, which may be the point. Director David Cromer (“The Band’s Visit”) stages the production with that same unwavering focus on the essentials of the story, as the show’s immersive atmosphere effectively pulls the audience into the past.

The urgent dynamics of the newsroom have been a magnet for writers in works from “The Front Page” to, more recently, “Network,” “Ink,” “The Connector” and “Corruption.” With a kind of theater vérité, Cromer fills the monochromatic bunker of a set with a large — the cast numbers 21 — and mostly male ensemble, all bustling about with myriad tasks amid overlapping dialogue and banter. 

These roles lean towards the generic but the savvy casting of veteran actors still manage to bring some character to their anonymity without drawing focus from the play’s principal mission. Several emerge as more significant players, including strong performances from Glenn Fleshler as Friendly, Clark Gregg as newscaster Don Hollenbeck and Paul Gross as CBS network head William F. Paley.

Just as in the film, the ambience of the era and the inner workings of early television is thick with cigarette smoke, jazz music, and journalistic drive. The dense haze of Viceroys is established and commented upon early, then is discreetly reduced. (There’s only so many clove cigarettes actors can smoke.) 

Scene transitions and even more ambiance are provided by a singer (Georgia Heers, sublime) performing period tunes with a cool combo as well as the presentation of kinescopes of ’50s commercials shown on monitors on each side of the stage. Also lightening the mood is a clip from Murrow’s celebrity-centric and popular “Person to Person” interview series — this one with Liberace — underlying the price Murrow pays to the network in exchange for his broadcasts. 

The script also shows that the journalistic efforts are not entirely black and white. Not all those who were brought before the committee were mischaracterized; the Communist threat was in context of real nuclear fear; and there were flickers of bias (with Murrow needling McCarthy by always referring to him as “the junior senator from Wisconsin”).

Arthur Miller wrote “The Crucible” as a metaphoric attack while McCarthy was still the midst of the senator’s witch hunts, blacklists and personal attacks. Here the metaphor is jettisoned for the actual and stark story, set in the looming world of Scott Pask’s set, Heather Gilbert’s lighting and Brenda Abbandandolo’s costumes.

This history lesson may be a familiar one for most audiences of the average theater-going age, but it’s still a powerful cautionary tale for other generations. But at $777 for a top-priced premium ticket, that younger audience may be largely limited.

The show makes no apology for its directness, agitprop and literal speechifying, ending the show not only with Murrow’s famous 1958 warning on the future and impact of the mass media, but with a mind-swirling, two-minute montage of flickering film clips covering 70 years of American and broadcast history. It packs a wallop —  and so does this production.