[NEohioPAL] REVIEW: A Few Good Men at Canton Players Guild

[Tom Wachunas]

Hard Corps
By Tom Wachunas 
    The William G. Fry
Theatre is a classic ‘black box’ venue that’s a great fit for the Canton
Players Guild “Stripped Away” series. Without the elaborate sets and other
trappings of full-out mainstage productions, the series is designed to bring an
edgy immediacy to the theatrical proceedings. In such a tightly confined
environment, if the stage literature is sufficiently compelling, if the
directing is sensitive and purposeful, and if the performers are skilled enough
to convincingly sustain their characters under very close audience scrutiny,
the results are intensely riveting. 
    And so it is that
these elements have certainly been blended to powerful effect in the current
production of “A Few Good Men,” directed here by Jeremy P. Lewis. Aaron Sorkin
wrote this story of two Marines – Lance Corporal Harold Dawson and PFC Louden
Downey -  accused of murdering a fellow
soldier, PFC William Santiago, in a “Code Red” hazing gone wrong at Guantanamo
Bay, and their JAG defense lawyers who uncover a conspiracy to cover up
high-level complicity. The play was produced on Broadway in 1989 and then as a
film directed by Rob Reiner in 1992, starring Tom Cruise and Demi Moore as
attorneys Daniel Kaffee and Joanne Galloway, and Jack Nicholson as the
Guantanomo base commander, Nathan Jessep.
    The action flips back
and forth across time in both Washington, D.C., and the Guantanamo base, with
many scene changes (a matter of quick rearrangements of a few furniture pieces)
dispatched by the cast members with appropriately military precision, even if
the long first act does seem to, at times, crawl instead of march. For the most
part, the cast appears as very well-directed and credible (right down to their
buzz-cuts) in martial authenticity – no doubt aided by three of the performers
who had considerable real life experience in U.S. military service.
    Stand-out
performances include: Ryan Skibicki playing the accused Harold Dawson -  the idealistic, stalwart Marines’s Marine;
Shane Daniels playing fellow prisoner Louden Downey – shaken, needy, and with
the demeanor of a deer in the headlights; John Scavelli as the wry-witted Sam
Weinberg, best friend and second chair to defense counsel Kaffee, sincerely
struggling to buy into defending what he considers to be a cut-and-dry case of
murder. And John Green is scarily artful in his portrayal of Lt. Jonathan
Kendrick, marching to his own Bible-thumping beat as he and his underlings
robotically bark the Marine Code, “Unit, Corps, God, Country!”  
    As is often the
case with plays made into popular films, iconic screen performances can
prejudice our expectations of the stage experience. But here you can forget
about such measuring sticks as Tom Cruise’s suave bravado, Demi Moore’s
unflappable dignity and fortitude, or Jack Nicholson’s fanatical, square-jawed,
vein-popping courtroom crash-and-burn as he bellows, “You can’t handle the
truth!”
    This cast delivers all that plus some, with
dramatic elan all their own. Ryan Nehlen turns in a deeply energetic and
nuanced portrait of the callow defense lawyer Daniel Kaffee, hiding deep
insecurities with cocky humor that ultimately matures into a convicted
conscience. Equally intriguing is Maria Work as co-counsel Joanne Galloway – impassioned,
quietly vulnerable, and endearingly stubborn. And Fred Weibel captures the
pathological malevolence and megalomania of Nathan Jessep – a frightening
embodiment of the chasm between autonomous military bureaucracy and societal
morality -  with gripping panache.
    Take no prisoners indeed. Handle the truth?
This is theatre that demands - and gets – our undivided attention. 
     Canton Players
Guild production of “A Few Good Men” runs through November 13. Performances are
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the William G. Fry Theatre,
located in the Cultural Center for the Arts, 1001 Market Avenue N., in Canton .
Box office (330) 453 – 7617, www.playersguildtheatre.com
    For
other reviews and commentaries by Tom Wachunas on the performing and visual
arts in greater Canton, please visit his blog, ARTWACH, at www.artwach.blogspot.com
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