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Aaron Sorkin isn’t known for his Dickensian charactonyms, but in the exceptional revival of “A Few Good Men” at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, the name Joanne Galloway stands out. Although the character often
goes by the gender-neutral nickname Jo, she is still a gal fighting for respect in a man’s world.
Jo’s status as a persevering interloper is underlined throughout the new Broadway production, directed by Michael Arden, an arresting staging of the story best known for its 1992 movie adaptation, starring Tom Cruise and Demi Moore. The blockbuster legal thriller earned four Oscar nominations, kickstarted Sorkin’s storied career and spawned one of the most recited lines in Hollywood history. (It concerns the truth and whether we can handle it.)
That famous quote arrives late in the story, which follows a team of naval lawyers defending a pair of Marines. The men, Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson (Lavel Schley) and Pfc. Louden Downey (Collin Kelly-Sordelet), are accused of murdering a fellow Marine at their base in Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Cmdr. Joanne Galloway (Krysta Rodriguez) suspects the incident was a hazing ritual gone wrong, and she makes it her duty to badger Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Blyth), the slacker assigned to the case, until he starts taking the job seriously.
From the beginning, the production positions Jo as an outsider. In an early scene, she stands to the side while her male colleagues slouch over a table. Her costuming also signifies division: She’s dressed in white while Kaffee and his associate Sam Weinberg (Nick Blaemire) wear khaki. Later, the sides swap colors. They only begin matching after they commit to working together as a team.
This attention to detail is what makes Arden’s production shine, even as the play itself suffers a bit from the staleness of having sat on a shelf for more than two decades. It’s a sturdy courtroom drama, full of Sorkin’s trademarks: nimble dialogue, brisk pacing and a fascination with moral quandaries. But the characters sometimes lapse into caricatures. Jo is a mettlesome know-it-all with a strident streak. Kaffee masks his daddy issues and fear of failure with wisecracks and professional indifference. And Sam, a new father, is frequently defined by his Judaism.
The play occasionally acknowledges its own creakiness; at one point, a superior asks Jo, “Do you always talk as if your dialogue was written by someone who’s not very good at it?” But for the most part, the play presents itself as a serious-minded examination of justice and the tension between its ideals and its administration.
That conflict is clearest when it comes to the Marine Corps. As Kaffee points out, its ironclad rules couldn’t be further from those governing ordinary citizens. Trained to comply and conform — their code is “unit, Corps, God, country,” and they frequently chant it — the Marines have been indoctrinated to place the needs of their organization above their own, which makes safeguarding the rights of individual service members especially fraught.
Arden elegantly conveys the Marines’ uniformity and anonymity in a simple blocking technique: He frequently positions them with their backs to the audience. During an early, crucial exchange between Kaffee and his defendants, the Marines turn downstage only when provoked into speaking candidly. Later, in a flashback sequence that shows the Marines taking orders from their platoon commander, Lt. Kendrick (John Zdrojeski), the enlisted men remain turned away, a faceless phalanx marching and barking in unison.
There’s something intrinsically theatrical about such military drills, with their regimented choreography and prescribed costumes, a quality that Arden exploits to the fullest dramatic effect. Ambling among these disciplined figures, Kaffee appears small and bewildered by comparison, a young shirker who must learn from Dawson the courage to stand by his own moral code.
The tremendous Blyth, known for “The Hunger Games” franchise, plays Kaffee like the second coming of Cruise. When Kaffee sarcastically exclaims “zip-a-dee-doo-dah,” I could have sworn it was Cruise’s younger voice emanating from Blyth’s body. He’s a confident, naturalistic actor, attuned to the small habits that bring a character to life, like rocking back on the rear legs of his chair. Rodriguez plays Jo as more tightly wound, giving her an erect posture that’s intended as an assertion of authority.
Bradley Whitford, who once played the role of Kaffee onstage, now assumes the part of the imperious commander Lt. Col. Nathan Jessep. Brought to life by Nicholson in the movie, Jessep is the story’s villain, a sneering and self-righteous martinet undone, like so many figures of Greek tragedy before him, by his own hubris.
It’s a clever twist, as satisfying today as it was in 1992. Sorkin resisted reviving “A Few Good Men” earlier, and his yielding now seems aptly timed for an era of real-world despots who share Jessep’s delusions. But the production’s pleasures have less to do with moral righteousness than craft. With his handsome staging and glorious set, Arden has made this classic drama feel newly alive, a tale of the dangers of obedience rendered with a meticulous creative discipline of its own.
