Broadway Revival of Aaron Sorkin's 'A Few Good Men' Opens at Lincoln Center to Critical Reviews
Photo: DeadlineA Broadway revival of Aaron Sorkin's 1989 courtroom drama "A Few Good Men" opened Thursday night at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center, 150 West 65th St., in a Lincoln Center Theater production directed by Michael Arden. Bradley Whitford, known for Sorkin's "The West Wing," plays Colonel Nathan Jessup, with Tom Blyth and Krysta Rodriguez also starring. The production runs two hours and 30 minutes with one intermission. The play follows a cocky navy lawyer, Daniel Kaffee, defending two young marines who followed an illegal order with fatal results at the Guantánamo Bay base, where a marine has died. The 1992 film version, directed by Rob Reiner, starred Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and is best remembered for the line "You can't handle the truth!" Reviewers wrote that the line arrives in the stage version in a rushed, understated way.
The Guardian US, on the left, leads with the production itself, calling it a missed opportunity because of unconvincing performances and a big stage that fits the play poorly. It places the revival in the current state of the US military brass, suggesting audiences may long for an older, nobler idea of the armed services, and compares the play's reverence for the military to what "The West Wing" did for the Oval Office. The New York Post, on the right, is blunter and more sarcastic. It calls the play mediocre, predictable and musty, mocks Sorkin's portentous dialogue and applause breaks, and says the play was never good, though it credits a few good sequences and performances, notably Whitford's. The Post offers no political context. Both outlets fault the staging and treat the film as the reference point, and both find the play's drama thin. Deadline, an alternative outlet, is milder, calling Arden's staging handsome and almost vital but its obvious relevance short on shock.
How the sides differ Left sources tie the revival to the current military and fault its staging and performances; right sources call the play predictable, while alternative sources fault its obvious relevance.
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The Guardian US calls the revival a missed opportunity, citing unconvincing performances and an ill-fitting big stage, and links the play's appeal to the current state of the US military brass.
Deadline praises Arden's handsome staging and Whitford but finds the play's obvious relevance drained of shock, and says it needs to challenge audiences' assumptions the way Sorkin's To Kill a Mockingbird did.
The New York Post dismisses the play as a predictable, mediocre courtroom drama with chatty characters and cheap applause lines, while granting a few good sequences and praising Bradley Whitford's performance.