It’s Mr. Lithgow who’s hit the jackpot here, though. Never averse to chewing a bit of scenery that was asking for it, he’s landed a character who is essentially impossible to overact. Laying into Mr. Sessions or launching into a tweet storm (“Sad!”), he builds a raging, red-faced, percussive momentum. At some self-pitying moments, he tosses in just a splash of Richard Nixon.

The peals of laughter he draws, intended or not, show the power of Donald Trump — the construct, the public performance — even when he’s not present. The president’s Ubu Roi energy, on stage as in life, shades every event toward farce, even in a constitutional crisis or a showdown with a nuclear rival. “You gotta laugh,” in this era, can feel less like equanimity and more like a Pavlovian command.

In that sense, the beige tone of Mr. Mueller’s report — that desiccating bureaucratese denying the events their juice and soundbite-ability — is something of a radical act in this day and age. But judicious understatement only gets you so big an audience.

And what audience was paying attention to “The Investigation”? The drama’s online distribution, late announcement and word-of-mouth publicity suggest it was likely viewed by an interested audience for whom “If it’s what you say I love it” is already as well known as a Hamlet soliloquy.

You might imagine a performance like this — earnest, star-spangled and populated with respectable thespians — airing to a bigger crowd on cable or public TV as a service. Yes, the report is already available in many forms, print and audio, and Mr. Mueller has reprised its highlights on TV. But a reading, even sticking closely to the ur-text, gives it the voice, arc and thrust that humans use to make meaning.