Playwright: Herman Wouk
At: Saint Sebastian Players at St. Bonaventure's Church,
1625 W. Diversey Ave.
Phone: (773) 404-7922; $12
Runs through: March 28
There are some people you want close by in times of war—men and women whose obsessive temperament and adrenalin-fueled performance are suited perfectly to the rigors and stresses of combat duty. When the crisis abates, however, their superiors often find their best soldiers to be an embarrassment at best and a liability at worst. Colonel Jessep, in Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men, was one of these. But nearly four decades earlier, Herman Wouk raised the question at the trial of Captain Francis Queeg, commander of the U.S.S. Caine.
Articles 184-186 of the Uniform Code Of Military Justice allow a ship's crew to take command of their vessel when—and only when—they believe its captain to have become a danger to himself and to others. In 1944, during a storm at sea, the Caine's executive officer, Lieutenant Maryk believed this to be so. Whether his field decision was justified, or the premature act of an inexperienced sailor, is for the court to decide. But though his attorney, Lieutenant Greenwald, believes his client to have been set up, his only recourse if he is to rescue an innocent man from prison is to force the captain to go buggy in full view of the judge and witnesses.
The minutiae of Naval protocol and seafaring savvy being largely unfamiliar to most audiences, now as then, and two hours of verbal testimony a lot of words to absorb at one sitting, co-directors Steven Walanka and Scott Rosengarden have chosen to highlight the interpersonal dynamics over the legal arguments. But what this Saint Sebastian Players production might lack in military bearing—despite the instruction of drill-consultant Keta Roth—it redeems in dramatic tension and emotional intensity, thanks to a cast whose attention, both individual and collective, never wavers as they register tacit reactions and responses to keep the stage picture always fluid. And if the characterizations—the two psychiatrists, especially—are somewhat exaggerated for comic relief, they never spill over into gratuitous grotesquerie.
Some playgoers, safely swaddled in metaphorical concepts, may attempt to find parallels to our own national disturbances. The rest (myself included) will simply kick back and enjoy an intelligent and provocative courtroom drama.