Oftentimes, a theater director has to act as drill sergeant, and just such a task has fallen to Lori-Ann DeLappe-Grondin for the City Theatre production of "A Few Good Men" that opened Friday. She moves two dozen actors (veterans and students) on and off stage with military precision.
She commands surprisingly good performances from most of them, too.
Aaron Sorkin, who went on to create TV's brilliant "The West Wing," wrote "A Few Good Men" in 1989, basing it on a real event in which two Marines killed a fellow soldier at Guantánamo Bay as a result of carrying out orders from a commanding officer. The original Broadway production opened Nov. 15, 1989, and ran for 497 performances. (Although they were not original cast members, Timothy Busfield and Bradley Whitford – who later were in "The West Wing" cast – were replacement actors in that production.)
Sorkin is not only good with words, he uses a lot of them. This 2 1/2-hour-plus production is practically all dialogue. Everyone remembers Jack Nicholson's famous line from the 1992 movie version: "You can't handle the truth." Well, some of the younger actors here can't quite handle the talk – but they make an admirable stab at it. Opening-night jitters also might have played a part.
Dan Haskett's set – a painted backdrop suggestive of an American flag, a watchtower that looms over the landscape, and a stage dressed with only a few tables and chairs – is functional and is efficiently changed by "soldiers" in military fashion. Shawn Weinsheink's lighting is equally effective, frequently isolating action in one area of the stage while leaving actors in other areas frozen in silhouette. It matches Sorkin's approach to the story.
In a series of short scenes, jumping back and forth in time, and shifting locale from Washington, D.C., to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Sorkin tells the story of the death of Marine Pfc. William T. Santiago (Johnny Candelaria, to be replaced by Matt Canty this weekend only), killed in a "Code Red" hazing incident by two other men in his unit – Lance Cpl. Harold W. Dawson (Jason Oler, rigid and militarily upright) and Pfc. Louden Downey (Phillip Booth, who convincingly portrays his young soldier's naiveté).
A Navy lawyer known for his preference for plea-bargaining instead of going to trial is assigned to defend them. As Lt. j.g. Daniel Kaffee, Anthony Person is so good at playing the joking slacker in the first act that his transformation into a go- getting seeker of truth is difficult to carry off. And as he shows in a climactic scene with base commander Lt. Col. Nathan R. Jessep (the veteran Blair Leatherwood in the Nicholson film role), he can handle the truth.
Sorkin's script raises questions – including those raised at Nuremburg and after the My Lai incident during the Vietnam War – about how far the "following orders" defense can go. But it also creates characters with strong allegiance to their country and their oath to defend it, and it has internal tensions that give it a psychological edge.
One subplot involves the growing relationship between lawyer Kaffee and his two reluctant assisting attorneys, new father Lt. j.g. Sam Weinberg (Chip McKee, who has a deft hand with comedy) and Lt. Cmdr. Joann Galloway (Laura Kaya, as tight as her severely pulled-back hair). She is the prod that Kaffee requires.
In addition to these actors, a large supporting cast features good performances from, among others, Jason Jackson as Lt. Jack Ross, prosecutor at the court- martial; Rod Breton as Capt. Matthew A. Markinson, a soldier whose struggle to do the right thing succeeds but with a tragic result; Mark Stone as Cmdr. Walter Stone, the base doctor whose ruling on the cause of Santiago's death is questioned; and Wade Lucas as Capt. Julius Alexander Randolph, presiding judge at the trial.
