The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is a two-act play

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

by Herman Wouk

Herman Wouk

Herman Wouk is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author of novels including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.-Biography:...

, which he adapted from his own novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

, The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II and deals with, among other things, the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by the captains of ships...

.

Wouk's novel covered a long stretch of time aboard the USS
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

Caine, a Navy minesweeper

Minesweeper (ship)

A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to counter the threat posed by naval mines. Minesweepers generally detect then neutralize mines in advance of other naval operations.-History:...

in the Pacific. It begins with Willis Keith's assignment to the Caine, chronicles the mismanagement of the ship under Philip Francis Queeg

Captain Queeg

Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg, USN, is a fictional character in Herman Wouk's 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny. He is also a character in the identically titled 1954 film adaptation of the novel and in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, the Broadway theatre adaptation of the novel that opened...

, explains how Steve Maryk relieved Queeg of command, gives an account of Maryk's court-martial

Court-martial

A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...

, and describes the aftermath of the mutiny

Mutiny

Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...

for all involved.

The play covers only the court-martial itself. Like jurors at a trial, the audience knows only what various witnesses tell it of the events on the Caine.

Production history

The play was first presented by Paul Gregory in the Granada Theatre

Granada Theatre

The Granada Theatre, 6427-41 North Sheridan Road was a movie theatre constructed for the Marks Brothers, who, in 1926, were major theatre operators in Chicago. Edward E. Eichenbaum was the principal designer for the architectural firm of Levy & Klein...

, Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...

, on October 12, 1953 and then went on tour across the United States before being given its first performance on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

at the Plymouth Theatre on 20 January 1954 in a production directed by Charles Laughton

Charles Laughton

Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...

, with Henry Fonda

Henry Fonda

Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...

and John Hodiak

John Hodiak

John Hodiak was an American actor who worked in radio and film.-Early life:He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Walter Hodiak and Anna Pogorzelec . He was of Ukrainian and Polish descent...

. Lloyd Nolan

Lloyd Nolan

Lloyd Benedict Nolan was an American film and television actor.-Biography:Nolan was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Margaret and James Nolan, who was a shoe manufacturer...

played Queeg.Herbert Anderson (later Denis the Menice's father on TV played Dr. Bird.It ran for 415 performances.

It was revived in 1983 at the Stamford Center for the Arts

Stamford Center for the Arts

The Stamford Center for the Arts in downtown Stamford, Connecticut, USA, actually consists of two facilities on Atlantic Street: the restored Palace Theatre, and the Rich Forum, both within four blocks of each other:-Performance and other facilities:...

, Stamford, Connecticut

Stamford, Connecticut

Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...

and then at the Circle in the Square Theatre

Circle in the Square Theatre

The Circle in the Square Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre in midtown Manhattan on 50th Street in the Paramount Plaza building.The original Circle in the Square was founded by Paul Libin, Theodore Mann and Jose Quintero in 1951 and was located at 5 Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village...

in a production directed by Arthur Sherman with John Rubinstein

John Rubinstein

John Arthur Rubinstein is an American film, Broadway, and television actor, a composer of film and theatre music, and a director in theatre and television.-Early life:...

and Michael Moriarty

Michael Moriarty

Michael Moriarty is an American-Canadian actor of stage and screen, and a jazz musician. He played Benjamin Stone for four seasons on the TV series Law & Order.-Early life:...

, with Jay O. Sanders

Jay O. Sanders

Jay Olcutt Sanders is an American character actor.Sanders was born in Austin, Texas, to Phyllis Rae and James Olcutt Sanders. He is noted for playing Mob lawyer character Steven Kordo in the 1986–88 NBC detective series Crime Story...

as Maryk. Former New York Jets

New York Jets

The New York Jets are a professional football team headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, representing the New York metropolitan area. The team is a member of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

quarterback Joe Namath

Joe Namath

Joseph William "Joe" Namath , nicknamed "Broadway Joe" or "Joe Willie", is a former American football quarterback. He played college football for the University of Alabama under coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and his assistant, Howard Schnellenberger, from 1962–1964, and professional football in the...

(widely known as "Broadway Joe") replaced Sanders during the run of the show, marking his only appearance on Broadway.

Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

directed a critically acclaimed production in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

and London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

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

Robert Gist

Robert Gist was an American actor and film director. He was married to actress Agnes Moorehead from 1954 to 1958, although they separated in 1955. They met during the filming of The Stratton Story .- Biography :...

repeating their stage roles as Queeg and Lt. Keefer, respectively , but with Barry Sullivan

Barry Sullivan (actor)

Barry Sullivan was an American movie actor who appeared in over 100 movies from the 1930s to the 1980s.Born in New York City, Sullivan fell into acting when in college playing semi-pro football...

as Greenwald and Frank Lovejoy

Frank Lovejoy

Frank Lovejoy was an American actor in radio, film, and television. He was born Frank Lovejoy Jr. in Bronx, New York, but grew up in New Jersey. His father, Frank Lovejoy Sr., was a furniture salesman from Maine...

as Lt. Maryk. It was staged as an episode of the anthology series Ford Star Jubilee
Ford Star Jubilee
Ford Star Jubilee was a usually live, ninety minute, color anthology series that aired once a month on Saturday nights on CBS at 9:00 P.M., E.S.T. from the fall of 1955 to the fall of 1956...

.

In 1988 Robert Altman

Robert Altman

Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...

directed another made-for-television version of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial for CBS, with Eric Bogosian

Eric Bogosian

Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologist, and novelist of Armenian descent.-Personal life:Bogosian, an Armenian-American, was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, the son of Edwina, a hairdresser and instructor, and Henry Bogosian, an accountant. After graduating from Oberlin College,...

playing Barney Greenwald, Jeff Daniels

Jeff Daniels

Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan...

as Steve Maryk, and Brad Davis

Brad Davis (actor)

Robert Creel "Brad" Davis was an American actor, known for starring in the 1978 film Midnight Express.-Early life:...

playing Philip Francis Queeg.

The play was again revived on Broadway in 2006 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre

Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre

The Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 236 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan named for Gerald Schoenfeld....

in a production directed by Jerry Zaks

Jerry Zaks

Jerry Zaks is a German-born American stage and television director, and actor. He won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play and Drama Desk Award for directing The House of Blue Leaves, Lend Me A Tenor, and Six Degrees of Separation and the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical and Drama...

, starring Zeljko Ivanek

Željko Ivanek

Željko Ivanek is an Emmy award-winning Slovenian American actor best known for his role as Ray Fiske on Damages. He is also known for playing Blake Sterling on short-lived NBC series The Event and Emile Danko on Heroes....

as Queeg, Timothy Daly

Timothy Daly

James Timothy "Tim" Daly is an American stage, screen and voice actor, director and producer. He is best known for his television role as Joe Hackett on the NBC sitcom Wings and for his voice role as Superman/Clark Kent in Superman: The Animated Series, as well as his recurring role of the...

as prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. John Challee and David Schwimmer

David Schwimmer

David Lawrence Schwimmer is an American actor and director of television and film. He was born in New York City, and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was two. He began his acting career performing in school plays at Beverly Hills High School. In 1988, he graduated from Northwestern...

as Greenwald.

Characters

Stephen Maryk: Queeg's second-in-command on the Caine, and the officer who relieved Queeg of duty

Barney Greenwald: Maryk's defense attorney

Willis Keith: a junior officer on the Caine

Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg: commanding officer of the Caine

Tom Keefer: an erudite, educated junior officer on the Caine

John Challee: the prosecutor

Randolph Southard: a Navy captain, called as an expert witness on destroyers

Dr. Allen Bird & Dr. Forrest Lundeen: a pair of psychiatrists called to testify about Queeg's mental fitness

Junius Urban: a young signalman on the 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 and in the banquet room of the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco in February, 1945.

Act 1: The Prosecution

Lieutenant Stephen Maryk of the Naval Reserve is on trial for mutiny, because he relieved Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg of duty, as captain of the U.S.S. Caine, during a typhoon on December 18, 1944. Maryk insists that Queeg was insane, and that his paranoid delusions were putting the ship in danger. Maryk took command, applying Article 184 of Navy Regulations, and steered the Caine directly INTO the storm--the opposite of what Queeg had wanted. The Caine and her entire crew survived, 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 the Caine was going through a typhoon, Steve Maryk, a disloyal and digruntled 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 there is no good reason to believe he has psychological problems. He is confident and articulate, and seems to be in full possession of his faculties.

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 (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

Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...

.

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 ineptness, vanity, dishonesty, pettiness and seeming cowardice; indeed, one such incident led the 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 the Caine in action. All authority figures tend to look like irrational tyrants to their subordinates, Greenwald says, whether they are or not.

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. (The mess stewards on board the Caine had eaten some strawberries from the kitchen, the remains of a whole gallon of these that the Caine had received from another ship. When Queeg discovered that some of the strawberries were missing, he deduced that this was a repeat of a peacetime incident on another ship when cheese had been stolen, for the catching of whose thief he had earned a letter of commendation, and launched a full search of the ship for a secret duplicate pantry key that Queeg imagined the thief must have created. However, no such duplicate key had actually existed.) Finally, Maryk describes the events of the night of the mutiny itself. Maryk says the 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 the 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 looks exactly like the panicky paranoid that Maryk had described.

When 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 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 a big advance 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 (the two men had been law-school classmates, and good friends, before both had enlisted) had shared before he showed up to the party, over which they had discussed details Greenwald had left out of the case. Greenwald proposes a toast to "Old Yellowstain." Unlike the 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, before walking out of the party, an act which ruins it.

Production history

Characters

Plot

Act 1: The Prosecution

Scene 1

Scene 2

See also