Page 18 - 1968 VES Meteor

4
THE METEOR
Drama Review: Court-Martial
The Thespians Pulled Through
By
GoDFREY CHESHIRE
On the nights of April 25, 26, and 2f•, thC' YES Drama Club presented Herman \Vouk's The Caine 1\1utiny Court-fdartial, a drama depicting the \\'orld \Var II court-martial of a naval officer (Lt. Stephen Maryk) accused of relieving his captain (Lt. Com. Philip Francis Queeg) of command of
the ship U.S.S. Caine without proper justification.
The first act involved the prosecution presented by Lt. Com. John
Challee, a part which was by its nature long and tedious, but \vas played very convincingly hy Richard \Vard. Ted Haigler as ~1aryk and Mr. Gates DeHart as Lt. Greenwald, the defense counsellor, \\'ere e<1ually adept in their
performances. Geoffrey ~on,·ood as Captain Queeg was introduced to the audience, primarily to provide background information, and he really did not
the
Fo Pre
Bish
I• n
shine until the second act.
There were severaI verv skilled
"
characterizations, witnesses who testi- fied at the court-1nartial. These per- formers can he credited with holding the audience's attention at tirnes when
testi1nony could have becon1e trite
and boring: Randy Longworth as
Lt. Thomas Keefer, Mac l\1cCleary
as Lt. Keith and Gray :\lurray as
Capt. Southard. The obvious audi-
ence favorite during the testimonies was Holmes \ 1orton who pro,·ided
the comic relief in the part of the obtuse Signalman Junius Urban, a character which was probably more difficult to master. Two other diffi-
cult character parts were the doctors, Lundeen and Bird, played articulate- ly by Larry Hancock and James
Applegate.
If one criticism could be g1ven
\\'ouk's work itself, especially in re- lationship to younger audiences, it would be that the first act is too long and somewhat tedious. One remedy for a school performance might have been to eliminate some lines of un- necessary testimony and to incorpo- rate the testimony given into fewer characterizations; (e.g., the useful part of Lt. Keith's testin1ony could
have been given by Urban or Keefer and the characters of the two doctors could ha c been combined into one
role).
In the second act, two of the lead
actors gave outstanding perform- ances: Geoffrey i\orwood in his cru- cial, conclusive testin1ony and Mr.
DeHart in his brilliant, final soliloquy. The last scene, the party, was well done and provided a clarifying and
consummate denouement to the drama. Having undertaken a diffi- cult play, the VES thespians pulled
through, strengthened by many ex- cellent, individual performances.
1003 MAIN ST.
BASS WEEJUNS
JANTZEN SWEATERS
Judges: lee Gorber, Perry Erskine, BiII Thorp.
Geoffrey Norwood as Captain Queeg
la rry Hancock as Dr. Lundeen
Gray Murray as Captain Southard
Mr. Gates Dehart at Lt. Greenwald
Richard Ward as Lt. Challee
Ted Haigler at Lt. Maryk
Mac McCleary as Lt. Keith
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