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NY Theater: “Defiance” is riveting challenge to military authority

Second play of Shanley’s trilogy plumbs morality of the marines

By Lucy Komisar

The characters in John Patrick Shanley’s “Defiance” shift moral weight in the course of the play, very much in the way that real people shift as they are confronted with life’s choices. It makes for a riveting theater, enhanced by a subtle and fast-paced staging by director Doug Hughes and by excellent, nuanced performances by the cast.

This second in Shanley’s projected trilogy suggests that the theme of the plays is speaking truth to power. Just as the mother superior in the first piece, “Doubt,” had to make a moral choice that put her in conflict with the hierarchy of the church, the young Marine Captain King (Chris Chalk) in this work must make a moral decision that he expects will set him against the military command.

The characters who have been thrown together by chance at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, are Lt. Col. Morgan Littlefield (Stephen Lang), a southerner in the service for twenty years, King (Chris Chalk), a black man in his thirties who comes from Washington D.C., and Chaplain White (Chris Bauer), an Alabaman who dodged the draft, then decided he had shirked his duty and entered the military as a chaplain. The fourth main character, Littlefield’s wife Margaret (Margaret Colin), is a traditional military housewife.

It is 1971, the Vietnam War is raging, and racial tensions are threatening. “I will not tolerate racial incidents,” Littlefield screams to his men. When he invites Captains King and White to his home to try to deal with the racial problem on base, you get the sense that he is decent man.

John Lee Beatty’s effective set moves between the camp parade ground represented by even rows of tall straight trees and the Littlefields’ comfortable brown and beige living room with flowered chintz curtains, fireplace, wall scones – safely and conservatively attractive. The scenes of both sets are controlled, ordered.

Playing the wallpaper that women were in those days, almost a caricature of the military officer’s “little woman,” Margaret pours the men lemonade and gives them hot buns to take home. But she is not dumb; the book she brings to amuse herself at a base party is “On Aggression.” And she’s a keen observer. When Littlefield declares that he has to feel he’s fighting for something good, his wife, who knows him better, says, “You want to be a hero.”

King, an unsmiling, almost morose young man, did two tours in Vietnam and worked his way up from the ranks to become a judge advocate. For him, nothing’s been right since the Vietnam War began and Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. King wants just to disappear into his uniform.

The unlikely force that will upset both men’s calculations is the soft-spoken, almost smarmy, chaplain White, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Joe McCarthy, is full of aphorisms, spouting off about good and evil and urging the others to attend his Sunday services. The choice of the names White and King seems deliberate.

Then the men are tested by an incident that occurs on base. The plot twist is unexpected, and so are their reactions. What’s not unexpected is Shanley’s view, expressed by the chaplain, that there’s a higher law than what the military hierarchy decides.

And that’s when the characters seem to shift. Shanley’s realistic dialogue moves fast, creating tension that grips the viewer as the surprise story plays out, as the challenge of speaking truth to power reaches its dramatic conclusion.

The characters almost physically represent their personalities, with Stephen Lang ramrod tough as the Lt. Colonel, Chris Chalk unsmiling even in his curtain call, and Chris Bauer so laid back that he gives you the feeling that he could have been a good ole boy.

Margaret Colin seems to embody the “Ladies Home Journal” wife, bored but at her stage in life resigned, wishing desperately she had something more to do than make lemonade. In a supporting role, Jeremy Strong is so affecting as a wronged PFC that you want to reach out and comfort him. The actors’ realistic portrayals help give Shanley’s play its impact.

“Defiance.” Written by John Patrick Shanley. Directed by Doug Hughes. Starring Stephen Lang, Chris Chalk, Chris Bauer, Margaret Colin, Jeremy Strong, Trevor Long.

Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 West 55 St. Tue-Sat 8pm; Sat & Sun 2pm. Running time: 90 min. Through May 7, 2006. $65. 212-581-1212. http://www.mtc-nyc.org.

Photos by Joan Marcus.

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