‘A Few Good Men’ has lots of verbal fisticuffs

‘A Few Good Men’ was a movie on stage before it ever became one in Hollywood.

By MILAN PAURICH

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

Even though “A Few Good Men” is less than two decades old (it premiered on Broadway in 1989), Aaron Sorkin’s play already has the feel of a Golden Oldie.

Thanks in large measure to Rob Reiner’s Oscar-nominated 1992 screen adaptation which has become a fixture on upscale cable channels, “Good Men” seems like it’s been around forever.

The show’s lack of surprise imbues it with a cozily familiar vibe that’s catnip for community theater audiences. That was certainly the case at the Youngstown Playhouse on Friday night as an SRO crowd braved fearsome winter weather for the opening performance of this beloved nouveau chestnut.

Part of the reason for “Good Men”’s appeal could be explained by Sorkin’s wholesale ransacking of an archetypal Broadway genre: the well-tooled courtroom drama. Whether “12 Angry Men” or “Witness for the Prosecution,” there’s something immensely gratifying, nay comforting, about justice triumphing over intolerance, venality and/or plain evil in a courtroom setting.

And by adding the whole military angle into the equation, “Good Men” earns a gold star for topical resonance (substitute the play’s Guantanamo setting for Abu Ghraib). Since Sorkin would go on to a hugely successful career as both TV (“The West Wing,” “Sports Night”) and film (“The American President,” “Charlie Wilson’s War”) writer, “A Few Good Men” now looks like a dry-run for the thematic and moral concerns that would predominate his latter work.

In 1986, fledgling Navy lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee (John Pecano) is ordered to defend two Marines, Pfc. Downey (Boardman High student Cheney Morgan) and Lance Cpl. Dawson (Jose Morales in a striking Playhouse debut), charged with murdering a fellow soldier, Pfc. Santiago. Joining Kaffee in his crusade to prove that the two grunts were simply following orders — a “Code Red” for extrajudicial punishment against screw-up Santiago — are Lt. Cmdr. Joanna Galloway (Judy Castronova) and Lt. Sam Weinberg (Bill Rees).

Kaffee’s suspicions immediately fall on Lt. Col. Nathan Jessup (Brady Flaming) and his aide-de-camp, Lt. Jonathan Kendrick (David El’Hatton). Because this a courtroom melodrama, shocking revelations will eventually spill out on the witness stand in the juicy second act.

(Act one, naturally, is devoted to a lot of place-setting courtesy of some overheated flashbacks to the events under investigatory scrutiny.)

Ably directed by Playhouse ace in the hole Joseph Scarvell (“Biloxi Blues”), there’s a seamlessness to the drama’s through-line that makes it easy to overlook, or at least discount, some of the play’s more conspicuous flaws. Anyone who’s ever seen an episode of “West Wing” knows that Sorkin’s dialogue (“Sorkinese”) can sound awfully glib and inordinately pleased with itself.

Characters occasionally pontificate instead of converse, and a relentless jokiness pervades all of the “shop talk.” A series of terse, epigrammatic scenes, “A Few Good Men” was a movie on stage before it ever became one in Hollywood.

Scarvell understands that and surrenders to the work’s overriding cinematic flow. He also gives his cast — consisting of some of Youngstown’s finest acting talent — plenty of opportunity to shine in verbal fisticuffs. As good as ostensible lead Pecano is, the most memorable performances are turned in by supporting players. El’Hatton, better known for his work in musical theater (“Sweeney Todd,” “The Secret Garden”), proves his astonishing range as chicken-fried Christian zealot Kendrick.

In fact, El’Hatton is so spookily effective that he inadvertently upstages Flaming’s perfectly adequate Jessup (the USDA prime beef of a role that Jack Nicholson devoured wholesale in the film version). Missing from Flaming’s portrayal is the thinly veiled menace that should be implicit in every one of Jessup’s lines. Other standouts include John Cox (who also codirected the show) in a too-brief appearance as a blindly loyal soldier; the always welcome Alan McCreary (prosecuting attorney Lt. Jack Ross); and Morgan who continues to impress as one of the more promising young actors on the local scene.

I was less sold on Castronova whose bubbly talents might work more effectively in musical comedy. Kudos also to technical director/scenic designer Jim Lybarger and lighting designer Leslie Brown for finessing the built-in choppiness of the play’s structure with their easeful transitions and useful intertitles (“6 Months Earlier; Cuba;” “Brig, D.C., Present Day”).

“A Few Good Men” might not be an American theater classic, but Scarvell’s slickly packaged, impressively acted production makes a strong case for its enduring appeal.