A Few Good Men – 11 November 2026
The thing I admire most about A Few Good Men on Broadway is that it makes no effort to reenact the aesthetics, characterizations, and pacing of the movie with which it shares a title. This production gets its power from its unique choices. It is not a retelling of the movie, but a powerful reimagining of the same story. This production stands at attention on its own two feet with pride and conviction, raising pressing and immediate questions about what can be excused by the excuse of, “I was just following orders.”
This adaptation shines most particularly in its staging and direction, as well as casting choices. From the beginning, we see the pageantry of military life taking place all over the stage. There is seldom a scene without another silent exchange taking place further upstage. When looking at the set and placing of actors, the audience is faced with an entire world, not just a moment. While a movie makes its points through close-ups, a theatrical production makes its points through stage pictures, and Michael Arden’s direction holds some of the most poignant and interesting stage pictures I’ve seen on stage at the Vivian Beaumont. He truly makes use of the space in ways that are playfully investigative. There is one moment where Major Matthew Markinson (Thom Sesma) is seen lying about his identity in an attempt to get access to classified records. This whole conversation is seen in shadow against the back wall of the theater, an elegant and meaningful touch knowing that later in the text Markinson will refer to his life in the shadows and how this dishonor will be the end of it.
Honor is a big theme throughout the story, and it penetrates the heart of every character. This cast, unlike the movie cast, is deliberately weak on celebrity star power. This makes it easier for the audience to understand the homogeny of the military world. There are many moments in which Arden stages military procedures with precision. They present arms at the beginning. There’s a military funeral. There’s a meeting in which the men are individually singled out, yet they are not individuals. They yell standard responses to standardized prompts, they carry out their orders without question. The court martial trial that dominates act two isn’t about proving that the accused parties are innocent— it’s about proving that they are good marines who followed orders and are not responsible for their actions because a superior officer did the thinking, not them. As an audience, we’re rooting for the defense because they are painted as the protagonists. But is that morally right? On the one hand, we relish in the arrest of Lieutenant Colonel Nathan R. Jessup who ordered the code red. But on the other, we really want to see Lieutenant (junior grade) Daniel Kaffee (Tom Blyth) win his trial. It’s easy to be enamored with Kaffee because in addition to his charming personality, he personally hasn’t killed anybody. At the end of the show, he gets the perpetrators off free of consequences other than dishonorable discharges. The irony stings because the one thing Kaffee did prove in his arguments was that a good marine follows orders from higher ranked officers and, in this respect, Dawson (Lavel Schley) and Downey (Collin Kelly-Sordelet) were both good marines.
A Few Good Men is a show of honor and pride in our country that at times feels forbidden to us now. Many are not proud of the wars we fight and belittle the experiences of those who serve. This contradiction is embedded in the world of the play, where we ask if we are defending good people if the people we defend are not thinking for themselves and are willing to follow orders that lead to someone’s death. Yet how could wars be won if every soldier behaved according to their own moral compass and did not trust the orders coming from above them? There’s something to be said here for the necessity of doing what you’re told. There’s also the painful acknowledgment that war costs lives. Wars are not fought with words. They are fought with weapons. And there should be honor for those willing to face down frightening situations to fight for the ideals our country stands for. It’s easy for those of us with free speech to use that free speech to criticize, when the truth is that people die to protect our right to have an opinion about it. A Few Good Men is timely in this way, and it doesn’t shy away from the hard questions. Every man on that stage is just another man, part of a greater machine and vision. Yet I still believe that following orders, specifically those this show classifies as “illegal” is a tough question. None of these men have the freedom to speak up and question their commanding officers. That’s why Jessup should have obeyed his higher order command— to end code reds at Guantanamo Bay. Really it was his failure to comply that stripped Dawson and Downey of their honor. Even after sitting with the show and its source material, I’m still not sure if it was right. Great theatre makes you think about its questions after you have left the building. In that regard, A Few Good Men is great theatre.
I attended this performance on a press pass from DKC/O&M.
