Woodberry Forest Enlists “A Few Good Men”
Woodberry Forest School will be performing Aaron Sorkin’s classic courtroom drama “A Few Good Men,” starting Nov. 2 at Woodberry’s Walker Fine Arts Center.
The 1989 drama, which first premiered nearby at the University of Virginia before moving on to Broadway, follows a team of military lawyers who uncover a larger scandal while defending two Marines accused of murder.
Sean Li, an exchange student from South Africa who has received accolades at Johannesburg’s Festival of Excellence in Dramatic Arts, stars as charismatic but underachieving lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee. His antagonist, Col. Nathan Jessep, is played by John Bolena, whom frequent Woodberry Forest theatergoers will recognize from his unforgettable performance as Abby Brewster in “Arsenic and Old Lace.”
Although “A Few Good Men” has been produced once before in Woodberry history, this is drama department chair Brent Cirves’ first time directing the play, and he is excited to take on the challenge.
“I love the play and I've seen it done professionally,” Cirves shared. “I think it's a terrific play that focuses the audience and our students in particular on some very important moral issues, including the importance of telling the truth, which is what Woodberry is all about — moral character and the importance of moral leadership. When leadership falls apart or when leaders lie, anything goes.”
That moral quandary is central to the theme of the play, which asks what happens when those who have committed their lives to the motto of “Semper Fi” must choose between faithfulness to their leadership or to a higher ethical principle.
“The Marine Corps is such a tight unit and so dependent on good leadership that the Marines follow orders,” Cirves explained. “And in this case, it's the age-old story of following a leader's order, which is not moral, and which has been pointed out to the leadership that it's not moral.”
To give the actors a better idea of the ins and outs of Marine life, Woodberry’s drama department took the added step of bringing in a real-life veteran, retired Lt. Col. Patrick Campbell, to meet with the cast and crew.
“He was an officer in the Marines, and he talked to the kids to give them some instruction on posture and all of that good stuff,” Cirves said. “It was a really great meeting. He taught the kids what it means to be a Marine — what the code is all about.”
The extra instruction has proven invaluable to helping the actors connect with a script written in Aaron Sorkin’s trademark intellectual, fast-paced style, Cirves noted.
“Sorkin's dialogue has a very modern feel to it,” he said. “In fact, the play was written before the movie, but the play itself has a movie feel. It goes very quickly from one scene to another. There are about 25 different changes, so that was part of it, too, figuring out how to turn on a dime emotionally and go into another scene.”
In order to fully immerse viewers in the emotional intensity of the play, even the audience seating for this production has been creatively reimagined to mirror the setup of a traditional courtroom.
“It's largely a courtroom drama, so we decided to try to set up an arena that has a courtroom feeling to it with the audience on three sides,” Cirves shared. “Imagine a kind of a gallery, and the audience can see each other in the stands. It's really in your face, as are the moral issues at stake in the play.”
Woodberry Forest’s production of “A Few Good Men” will run Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 2 – 4, at 8 p.m. each night. Admission is free, but reservations are requested as space is limited. To reserve a spot, contact drama@woodberry.org.