In his first significant effort since his Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning Proof, playwright David Auburn delivers a biographical drama about a once famous figure little known today: Joseph Alsop, one of the most influential political columnist of his era. And like its subject, a die-hard liberal who was also an anti-Communist and fervent supporter of the Vietnam War, The Columnist is filled with contradictions.

While it’s admirable that Auburn would seek to educate modern audiences about this fascinating figure, the play being presented by the Manhattan Theatre Club never quite conveys its reason for being. It mainly revolves around the most dramatic element of Alsop’s life—his being blackmailed by the Russians with incriminating photos of a gay sexual liaison in Moscow that turned out to be a set-up by the KGB. But instead of capitulating, Alsop informed the U.S. authorities of the situation and managed to go on with his career. Clearly, he benefited from living in a pre-TMZ era.

That episode is highlighted in the play’s arresting opening scene, in which Alsop (John Lithgow) engages in a playful post-coital conversation with his hunky Russian lover, Andrei (Brian J. Smith).

Gradually, further details about the iconoclastic, curmudgeonly journalist’s life and career are depicted: His brother and longtime collaborator Stewart (Boyd Gaines) has turned to writing puff pieces for the Saturday Evening Post while desperately trying to prevent Joe’s secret life from being exposed by such journalists as New York Times reporter David Halberstam (Stephen Kunken): Alsop enters into a marriage of convenience with the long-suffering Susan (Margaret Colin) and does his best to be a loving stepfather to her rebellious teenage daughter (understudy Adria Vitlar, substituting for Grace Gummer), no easy task during the sexually liberated ‘60s.

Spanning roughly ten years in Alsop’s life, the drama lurches uneasily from episode to episode, with Act I feeling frustratingly opaque. Things pick up considerably in the second half, thanks to such superbly written and played scenes as Joseph’s bitter encounter with his brother over both political and personal issues, and a reunion between him and Andrei in which the tables are ironically turned.

Although it ultimately adds up to less than the sum of its parts, The Columnist manages to be both engrossing and informative, a rarity in a time when so many dramas are essentially navel gazing exercises. Sensitively and fluidly staged by Daniel Sullivan, it also benefits from the superb performances.

Although we’ve seen Lithgow do this sort of thing before—he’s played columnists in Sweet Smell of Success and Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, and his diplomat character was similarly duped in M. Butterfly—that doesn’t lessen the impact of his superbly modulated turn here. Gaines does his usual excellent work as the tortured Stewart; Colin is deeply sympathetic as the aggrieved Susan; and Smith makes a vivid impression as the Russian hunk who is more complex than he seems.

Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47 th St. 212-239-6200. www.Telecharge.com. Through June 17.