Theater: 'Cainemutiny' Back at Circle in Square

THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1983 Theater: ‘Caine Mutiny' Back at Circle in Square tenant Maryk is guilty, as charged, of By FRANK RICH plotting a mutiny. The famous Act II scene in which [~4F you are hungering to see a re- the defense lawyer, Lieut. Barney | J vival of “The Caine Mutiny Greenwald, must try to unmask I I Court-Martial,” then hop to the Queeg as a lunatic is superbly orches L_ J one that has arrived, by way of trated by this production’s stars. Mr. Stamford’s Hartman Theater, at the Rubinstein’s lawyer— a bright, sensi Circle in the Square. Graced with tive, restless man with little stomach crackling, intelligently conceived per for the cruel task before him — goes formances by John Rubinstein, Mi after Mr. Moriarty’s Queeg with burn chael Moriarty and most of a large ing intellectual arrogance, not brute supporting cast, Arthur Sherman’s force. What could be a pro forma staging gets every ounce of juice there wrestling match becomes, with Mr. is to be had from Herman Wouk’s 1954 Rubinstein’s shrewdly paced prod Broadway hit—and then some. ding, a tense psychological chess If you’re not hungering tc see this game that really keeps you guessing piay — well, that’s understandable, each move. too. It’s a matter of personal taste. Mr. Moriarty, though looking a bit “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” young to play a veteran officer, re like most courtroom melodramas, sponds in kind. He crumbles under his Michael Moriarty in “The Caine proceeds on a dogged, straight path tormentor’s waspish pricks by show Mutiny Court-Martial.” that can become wearing. Though Mr. ing us tiny, bloody fissures rather than Wouk’s handling of the genre is ex gaping wounds. A smooth Southern tremely professional and sometimes good ole boy until this point, this ueart speech that Greenwald delivers even witty, he can’t escape the static Queeg unwinds so delicately that we ui the play’s coda. conventions that make a stage trial, don’t even register that exact moment for all the planted surprises, look like when he becomes a puddle on the Though fervently given by Mr. an open-and-shut affair. You know courtroom floor. It’s a performance of Rubinstein, that speech is perhaps the Sinto the theater that Act I will admirable subtlety from an actor biggest stumbling block of all. Sud a parade of witnesses who must who’s tended to go overboard in recent denly the lawyer who’s unmasked painstakingly lay out the exposition. years. Queeg as a martinet in court take3 to You know, too, that Act II will bring • defending his victim. Greenwald’s ar the real conflict — the cracking of the gument — that only fascist American key witness under the relentless badg Nothing else in the play is so grip commanding officers can whip fas ering of the most saintly lawyer. ping as this climax, but that’s no fault cism overseas — seems questionable, of the cast. All the Act I witnesses are if not simplistically jingoistic, in 19S3. first-rate: JayO. Sanders as the disin Whether one uses post-Vietnam his That witness in “Caine Mutiny,” as genuous Maryck; J. Kenneth Camp torical hindsight to question this logic you may recall from Mr. Wouk’s origi bell as Mr. Wouk’s real villain, an as or not, however, the fact remains that nal novel or the Humphrey Bogart piring novelist who condescends to his a black-and-white melodrama is an in film, is Captain Queeg, die World War uniform; Jace Alexander as a comi felicitous forum for opening such a II commander who may or may not cally frightened young signalman; serious, complex debate. have gone berserk when his destroyer Jonathan Hogan and Brad Sullivan as But perhaps no one like myself — entered the center of a typhoon. If lesser Caine officers; and Leon B. Ste whose eyes glaze over at the sight of Captain Queeg did, in fact, go nuts, vens and Geoffrey Horne as military jurors taking notes on legal pad3 — then Lieutenant Maryk, his executive psychiatrists who don’t exactly fur can render an unclouded, impartial officer and the trial’s defendant, was ther Freud’s cause on the stand. Ste judgment on “Ths Caine Mutiny justified in usurping the ship’s com phen Joyce exudes crisp, no-nonsens? Court-Martial.” What I do recognize mand. But if Captain Queeg cannot be authority as the presiding judge, who is that Mr. Rubinstein, Mr. Moriarty proven to have gone insane, then Lieu- taps his ring on his desk to build up and company are just about the tension. Only William Atherton, for strongest possible advocates for Mr. the prosecution, falls short: Teo unc Wouk’s case. I7ess He Knseme? tuous in Act I, he seems to mimic Mr. Moriarty in Act II. The real problems are in the script. There are just too many witnesses — do we really need two doctors, for in stance? — and the result is a pc.d half-hour of overlength. The atte'npis to give some of the characters life beyond their roles in the trial are . er- functory: we never believe, as we’re told, that the opposing lawyer:- were cronies at Georgetown Lav/ School Mr. Wouk also has a tendency to dif fuse suspense by announcing exactly what he’s going to do long before he does it. He signals in advance that Queeg will be undone once he stn its to play with the metal marble.- he ke.-j.s in his pocket, the opening scene ; off the supposedly shocking.

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