Who knew that the Mueller report was a comedy?The findings of the special counsel, of course, concern dead-serious questions about the integrity of American democracy. The published version is dry as a [redacted] saltine. Robert Mueller himself has the stoic G-man bearing of someone who would laugh by writing “ha ha” on a memo pad.Yet “The Investigation,” a star-studded dramatic reading of sections of the report, adapted by the playwright Robert Schenkkan and staged at Manhattan’s Riverside Church and live-streamed Monday night, opens with an episode of drawing-room, or rather dining-room, farce. It’s early 2017, and President Trump (John Lithgow) meets with then-F.B.I. director James Comey (Justin Long) over dinner.“I need loyalty!” Mr. Lithgow fulminates.“You will always get honesty from me,” Mr. Long answers, stiffly.“That’s what I want. Honest loyalty.”If you’ve followed this case, you’ve already heard this story — not just in the Mueller report, but in newspapers like this one, back in 2017. But something about Mr. Lithgow’s bluster and the way he hits “loyalty” a little harder than “honest” nails something essential about his character, and the assembled audience cracks up.You gotta laugh, right? “The Investigation,” now available to stream online, is a bizarre creature, both as drama and as civic effort. But the fact of its existence, and the way it gives voice to the dry details of the report, feel somehow perfectly suited to this surreal political moment.“The Investigation” is subtitled “A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts.” That “acts” has a double meaning; the 10 segments of the play detail 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice by the president, hewing closely to the report’s language. The actors sit at lecterns draped in flag bunting, reading from scripts in binders.It’s part old-time public recitation, part Hollywood table read, and at points actors stumble over the workmanlike text. Yet the play — can we call it that? — moves surprisingly briskly through a tight hour and fifteen minutes. The story pingpongs around the stage from a narrator (Annette Bening) to Mr. Mueller (Kevin Kline) to the various actors, who often pick up the narrative midsentence as the point of view shifts, the editing following them nimbly.Their interpretations vary. Michael Shannon and Alfre Woodard give just-the-facts readings of Don McGahn and Hope Hicks. Joel Grey, on the other hand, adapts an ah-do-declare drawl as the Alabamian former attorney general Jeff Sessions, the put-upon Mr. Cellophane of this story, whose resignation letter becomes a drawn-from-life running gag.Jason Alexander is dream-cast as Chris Christie, that most Seinfeldian of Trump-orbit figures. In Mr. Alexander’s mouth, Mr. Christie’s prediction that the investigation of Michael Flynn would stick to the administration “like gum on the bottom of your shoe” recalls George Costanza saying that the sea was angry, like an old man trying to send back a bowl of soup.It’s Mr. Lithgow
