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''The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial'' is a two-act
play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...
, of the
courtroom drama Legal drama, also called courtroom drama, is a genre of film and television that generally focuses on narratives regarding legal practice and the justice system. The American Film Institute (AFI) defines "courtroom drama" as a genre of film in wh ...
type, that was dramatized for the stage by
Herman Wouk Herman Wouk ( ; May 27, 1915 – May 17, 2019) was an American author. He published fifteen novels, many of them historical fiction such as ''The Caine Mutiny'' (1951), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Pulitzer Prize in fiction. ...
, who adapted it from his own 1951
novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
, ''
The Caine Mutiny ''The Caine Mutiny'' is a 1951 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard two destroyer-minesweepers in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Among its themes, it deals with the mo ...
''. Wouk's novel covered a long stretch of time aboard
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
destroyer minesweeper Destroyer minesweeper was a designation given by the United States Navy to a series of destroyers that were converted into high-speed ocean-going minesweepers for service during World War II. The hull classification symbol for this type of ship was ...
USS ''Caine'' in the
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
. It begins with Willis Keith's assignment to ''Caine'', chronicles the mismanagement of the ship under Philip Francis Queeg, explains how Steve Maryk relieved Queeg of command, gives an account of Maryk's
court-martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...
, and describes the aftermath of the
mutiny Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people (typically of a military or a crew) to oppose, change, or remove superiors or their orders. The term is commonly used for insubordination by members of the military against an officer or superior, ...
for all involved. The play covers only the court-martial itself. Like jurors at a trial, the audience knows only what various witnesses tell of the events aboard ''Caine''.


Production history

The play was first presented by Paul Gregory in the Granada Theatre,
Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara (, meaning ) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting A ...
, on October 13, 1953, and then went on tour across the United States before being given its first performance on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre on January 20, 1954 in a production directed by
Charles Laughton Charles Laughton (; 1 July 1899 â€“ 15 December 1962) was a British and American actor. He was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and first appeared professionally on the stage in 1926. In 1927, he was cast in a play wi ...
and produced by Paul Gregory. The play starred
Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway theatre, Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters who embodied an everyman image. Bo ...
as Barney Greenwald, the accused mutineer's defense attorney, and John Hodiak as the accused, Steve Maryk; Lloyd Nolan played Queeg. Herbert Anderson played Dr. Bird (he would later go on to play Ensign Rabbit in the 1954 film version of the novel).
James Garner James Scott Garner (né Bumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, which included ''The Great Escape (film), The Great Escape'' (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Ch ...
appeared in a non speaking role as a court martial panelist. It ran for 415 performances. In 1955, actor Paul Douglas was placed on probation by
Actors Equity The Actors' Equity Association (AEA), commonly called Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing those who work in live theatrical performance. Performers appearing in live stage productions without a book or thro ...
while appearing in the play for allegedly saying, "The South stinks. It's a land of sowbelly and segregation," which offended Southern audiences. Douglas claimed that he was misquoted. It was revived in 1983 at the Stamford Center for the Arts,
Stamford, Connecticut Stamford () is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, outside of New York City. It is the sixth-most populous city in New England. Stamford is also the largest city in the Western Connecticut Planning Region, Connecticut, Weste ...
and then at the
Circle in the Square Theatre The Circle in the Square Theatre is a Broadway theater at 235 West 50th Street, within the basement of Paramount Plaza, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. The current Broadway theater, completed in 1972, i ...
in a production directed by Arthur Sherman with John Rubinstein and
Michael Moriarty Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941) is an American-Canadian actor. He received an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for his role as a Nazi SS officer in the 1978 miniseries ''Holocaust'' and a Tony Award in 1974 for his performance in the ...
, with Jay O. Sanders as Maryk. Former
New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
quarterback
Joe Namath Joseph William Namath (; ; born May 31, 1943), nicknamed "Broadway Joe", is an American former professional American football, football quarterback who played in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) for 13 seaso ...
(widely known as "Broadway Joe") replaced Sanders during the run of the show, marking his only appearance on Broadway.
Charlton Heston Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008) was an American actor. He gained stardom for his leading man roles in numerous Cinema of the United States, Hollywood films including biblical epics, science-fiction f ...
directed a critically acclaimed production in
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
and
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
in 1984 in which he starred as Queeg. Heston later brought the production to the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater, where it again garnered critical acclaim. The play was first presented on television live in 1955, with Lloyd Nolan and Robert Gist repeating their stage roles as Queeg and Lt. Keefer, respectively, but with Barry Sullivan as Greenwald and
Frank Lovejoy Frank Andrew Lovejoy Jr. (March 28, 1912 – October 2, 1962) was an American actor in radio, film, and television. He is perhaps best remembered for appearing in the film noir ''The Hitch-Hiker'' and for starring in the radio drama ''Night Beat ...
as Lt. Maryk. It was staged as an episode of the anthology series ''
Ford Star Jubilee ''Ford Star Jubilee'' is an American anthology series that originally aired monthly on Saturday nights on CBS at 9:30 P.M., E.S.T. from September 24, 1955, to November 3, 1956, (With a summer hiatus). The series was approximately 90 minutes long ...
.'' In 1988,
Robert Altman Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer, producer. He is considered an enduring figure from the New Hollywood era, known for directing subversive and sat ...
directed another made-for-television version of ''The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial'' for Columbia Pictures Television (CPT). The cast included
Eric Bogosian Eric Michael Bogosian (; born April 24, 1953) is an American actor, playwright, monologuist, novelist, and historian. Descended from Armenian-American immigrants, he grew up in Watertown and Woburn, Massachusetts, and attended the University ...
as Barney Greenwald,
Jeff Daniels Jeffrey Warren Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor. He is known for his work on stage and screen playing diverse characters switching between comedy and drama. He is the recipient of several accolades, including two Primetime ...
as Steve Maryk, Brad Davis as Philip Francis Queeg, Peter Gallagher as John Challee, Kevin J. O'Connor as Tom Keefer, Daniel Jenkins as Willie Keith, and Altman regular Michael Murphy as Captain Blakely. The production was first broadcast on May 8, 1988 and was subsequently released on
VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...
,
LaserDisc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...
, and
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
. The play was again revived on Broadway in 2006 at the
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre The Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, formerly the Plymouth Theatre, is a Broadway theatre, Broadway theater at 236 West 45th Street (Manhattan), 45th Street in the Theater District, Manhattan, Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, ...
in a production directed by Jerry Zaks, starring
Željko Ivanek Željko Ivanek (; ; born August 15, 1957) is a Slovenian-American actor of Croat descent. Ivanek's film credits include '' Courage Under Fire'' (1996), '' Donnie Brasco'' (1997), '' Hannibal'', '' Black Hawk Down'' (both 2001), '' Unfaithful'' ( ...
as Queeg, Timothy Daly as prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. John Challee and
David Schwimmer David Lawrence Schwimmer (born November 2, 1966) is an American actor, director, and producer. He gained worldwide recognition for portraying Ross Geller in the sitcom '' Friends'', for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Pri ...
as Greenwald.


Characters

* Captain Blakely: chief judge of the court-martial * Stephen Maryk: Queeg's executive officer aboard ''Caine,'' and the officer who relieved Queeg of duty * Barney Greenwald: Maryk's defense attorney * Willis Keith: a junior officer aboard ''Caine'' * Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg: commanding officer of ''Caine'' * Thomas Keefer: an erudite, educated junior officer on ''Caine'' * John Challee: the prosecutor * Randolph Patterson Southard: a Navy captain, called as an expert witness on destroyers * Dr. Allen Winston Bird & Dr. Forrest Lundeen: a pair of psychiatrists called to testify about Queeg's mental fitness * Junius Hannaford Urban: a young signalman on ''Caine,'' called as a witness to the mutiny


Plot

The action takes place in The General Court-Martial Room of the Twelfth Naval District,
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
and in the banquet room of the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco in February, 1945.


Act 1: The Prosecution

Lieutenant Stephen Maryk of the United States Naval Reserve is on trial for mutiny, because he relieved Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg of duty as captain of USS ''Caine'' during a typhoon on December 18, 1944. Maryk insists that Queeg had gone over the edge mentally, and that his paranoid delusions were putting the ship in danger. Maryk took command, applying Article 184 of Navy Regulations, and steered ''Caine'' directly into the storm—the opposite in what Queeg had wanted. ''Caine'' and her entire crew survived, and rescued survivors from a capsized navy vessel, which Maryk thinks is proof that he acted appropriately. Maryk's lawyer, Lt. Barney Greenwald, indicates that he thinks Maryk, whom he would much rather have prosecuted in the court-martial, was guilty. But he is determined to offer a strong defense nonetheless. Philip Francis Queeg is the first witness for the prosecution, being conducted by Lt. Commander John Challee. Queeg states that, while ''Caine'' was going through a typhoon, Steve Maryk, a disloyal and disgruntled officer, rebelled against him and relieved him of command without justification. At this stage of the court-martial, Queeg seems like a typical tough military disciplinarian—perhaps a bit too tough, but giving no good reason to believe he has psychological problems. He is confident and articulate, and seems to be in full possession of his faculties. A young signalman, Junius Urban, who was present on the bridge at the time Maryk took control, is called to testify about what happened. Urban provides a measure of comic relief, as he is poorly educated, extremely nervous, and confused about exactly what happened. His testimony tells the jury very little, but on cross-examination he lets slip that Queeg was "a nut" on numerous small matters of discipline and tidiness. Captain Randolph Southard, an experienced naval officer called as an expert on destroyer ship-handling, testifies that, under the weather circumstances described on the night of the mutiny, Queeg took all the proper measures, and did exactly what a commanding officer should have done. Thus, in Southard's view, Maryk's actions were completely unjustified. However, under cross examination from Greenwald, Southard concedes that there are rare, extreme circumstances under which sailing directly into the storm would be the only way to avoid sinking. Two psychiatrists who have examined Queeg, Dr. Forrest Lundeen and Dr. Allen Bird, testify that, while Queeg is far from being an ideal officer, in that he can be arrogant, overly defensive, nervous, and a bit of a bully, he is not mentally ill. Under cross-examination from Greenwald, however, each of them, Dr. Lundeen in particular, acknowledges that some of Queeg's traits do come close to the textbook definition of
paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of co ...
. Willis Keith, a friend of Maryk's, testifies as to the events leading to the mutiny. Keith says that Queeg was a coward, that he was giving panicky, conflicting orders during the typhoon, requiring Maryk to take action. During cross-examination, Greenwald gets Keith to tell numerous stories of Queeg's ineptitude, vanity, dishonesty, pettiness and seeming cowardice; indeed, one such incident led ''Caine''s officers to give Queeg the nickname "Old Yellowstain." Lt. Thomas Keefer, another friend of Maryk's, is a much less helpful witness from the defense standpoint. Keefer, an intellectual who was a writer in civilian life, having published some of his short stories in national magazines, indicates that Queeg was not insane, and that Maryk was ill-advised to relieve him of command. Maryk is stunned by Keefer's betrayal, since to a large extent, Keefer was the one who convinced Maryk that Queeg might be insane in the first place, and Maryk wants Greenwald to cross-examine him vigorously. Instead, Greenwald has no questions for Keefer, explaining to Maryk, "Implicating Keefer harms you." He wants one hero, not two mutineers. As the trial adjourns for the day, Maryk expresses dissatisfaction with Greenwald's defense. Greenwald explains that he has good reasons for not asking Keefer any questions, and states once again that he thinks Maryk is guilty. Even if Queeg was far from an ideal officer, Greenwald believes, Maryk's first duty was to carry on fighting the war, and doing his best to keep ''Caine'' in action. All authority figures tend to look like irrational tyrants to their subordinates, Greenwald says, whether they are or not.


Act 2: The Defense


Scene 1

As Greenwald begins his defense the following morning, he calls Steve Maryk as the first of his two witnesses. Maryk explains in great detail what a petty, vindictive, isolated, and paranoid commanding officer Queeg was. In particular, Maryk dwells on "The Strawberry Incident," which convinced much of the crew that Queeg was insane. Shortly after the ''Caine'' had received a shipment of strawberries from another ship, a large portion went missing. Because the circumstances were superficially similar to another incident that had occurred during peacetime when Queeg was an ensign, he drew the same conclusion: someone must have stolen them from the wardroom icebox, using a copy of the original key to its padlock. Queeg's steadfast belief that this was a repeat of the same MO as the first thief led him to divert extraordinary amounts of manpower to search the ship thoroughly for a copy of the icebox-padlock key. When several of the enlisted men confessed to Maryk that they had simply stolen the strawberries from the icebox, and eaten them, before the icebox was padlocked, and that no duplicate key existed, Queeg's refusal to accept their confession and dedication to proving his theory convinces the officers that Queeg is trying to reenact the circumstances of his prior success against all evidence to the contrary. Finally, Maryk describes the events of the night of the mutiny itself. Maryk says ''Caine'' was foundering, on the verge of sinking, and that Queeg was too frightened and paranoid to take the proper steps to save the ship. Only at this most desperate moment did Maryk see fit to take command. After the ship was out of danger, Maryk wrote a full account of his actions in the ship's log. He claims that Queeg came to him and proposed erasing this embarrassing incident from the log—a serious breach of Naval ethics. Maryk refused to do so, electing instead to take full responsibility for his actions. The prosecuting attorney, John Challee, asks Maryk about his background. Maryk answers that he is a fisherman's son, and has been around boats his whole life. However, Maryk confesses that he was only an average student in high school and a poor student in college. It becomes clear in Challee's cross-examination that, while Maryk uses words like "paranoid," he really knows little about psychology, and was not truly qualified to judge anyone's mental health. At this point, Greenwald calls Queeg as his second and final defense witness. Under intense cross-examination, Queeg is asked to justify each and every one of his questionable actions as commanding officer of ''Caine.'' He becomes nervous and testy, and starts playing with a pair of steel balls that he uses to control his nerves. He tells a few small lies to cover up petty offenses. When his lies are revealed, his demeanor changes, and he becomes angry and combative. When asked about Maryk's charge that Queeg had wanted to alter the ship's log, an enraged Queeg rants that he was surrounded by disloyal officers, and he looks exactly like the panicky paranoid that Maryk had described. By the time the defense rests, Queeg is a broken man, and everyone else present knows that Maryk will be acquitted. Maryk is relieved, if not totally ecstatic, and he invites Greenwald to a celebration party that Tom Keefer is hosting later that evening. (Keefer has written a novel about the war, titled ''Multitudes, Multitudes,'' and even though it is still not finished, he has received an advance of one thousand dollars from a publisher.) Greenwald looks dejected and far from triumphant, but he reluctantly agrees to attend the party.


Scene 2

At the party, Keefer, Keith, Maryk and their friends are celebrating both Maryk's acquittal and the large advance that Keefer has received on ''Multitudes, Multitudes,'' when Greenwald walks in, heavily intoxicated from a number of drinks he and Challee had shared before he showed up to the party, over which they had discussed details Greenwald had left out of the case at the end of the trial. (The two men had been law-school classmates, and good friends, before both had enlisted. Challee had accused Greenwald, during the trial, of "shyster tactics," and Greenwald had invited Challee for drinks after the trial to smooth things over and to provide such details. These had resulted in Challee understanding the reasons for Greenwald's trial strategy, and the two had once again parted as friends.) Greenwald proposes a toast to "Old Yellowstain." Unlike ''Caine''s junior officers, Greenwald feels deep regret over what he did to Queeg on the witness stand. To Greenwald, though Phil Queeg was a weak man, perhaps he was still an admirable one, and Queeg and career military men like him are actually heroic figures, since they were the ones putting their lives on the line to defend America – something none of the others were doing because they knew they could never truly enrich themselves financially in the armed forces. Greenwald, who is Jewish, understands what the consequences would have been had the Axis won World War II. He refers to Nazi atrocities, declaring, at one point, that it is men like Queeg who have saved his own mother, Mrs. Greenwald, from having been "melted down to a bar of soap." He points out to Maryk, "Steve, this dinner's a phony. You're guilty. 'Course you're only half guilty. There's another guy who's stayed very neatly out of the picture." Greenwald feels sorry for Queeg, because he sees that Queeg was not wrong about being surrounded by disloyal officers. Greenwald believes that Tom Keefer is the guiltiest party in the whole affair. Maryk, after all, really knew very little about psychology or psychiatry, so where would he have obtained any of his half-formed ideas about paranoia and mental illness, if not from Keefer? Greenwald had defended Maryk to the best of his abilities, which had led him to destroy Queeg on the witness stand, because he had seen that Maryk was essentially a decent man trying to do the right thing. He views Keefer, on the other hand, as an upper-class intellectual snob who had regarded himself as superior to Queeg, the career military man, and had helped turn Maryk and the rest of the crew against him. Greenwald suggests that Maryk could even have reasoned with Queeg during the typhoon had Keefer not poisoned the atmosphere in the first place. Greenwald denounces Keefer, and throws a glassful of yellow wine into his face (echoing the insulting nickname of "Old Yellowstain" the crew members had given to Queeg), before walking out of the party, an act which ruins it.


See also

* ''
The Caine Mutiny ''The Caine Mutiny'' is a 1951 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard two destroyer-minesweepers in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Among its themes, it deals with the mo ...
'' – Herman Wouk's original novel * ''The Caine Mutiny'' (1954 film) – the 1954 film based on it * ''The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial'' (1955 film) – 1955 American TV play version * ''The Caine Mutiny'' (1959 film) – 1959 Australian TV play version * ''The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial'' (2023 film) – 2023 film adaptation


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Caine Mutiny Court-Martial 1953 plays Adaptations of works by Herman Wouk American plays Fiction about courts-martial Courtroom drama plays Doubleday (publisher) books Military courtroom dramas Plays about World War II Plays based on novels Plays set in courtrooms Works about ships Works by Herman Wouk Plays about the military