Authority has key role again

Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 5, 2007 at midnight

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As evidenced in his work, John Patrick Shanley has always struggled with authority, whether during his days in Catholic school or the Marine Corps.

In his Pulitzer-winning play Doubt, that struggle paid off for the audience, as he took on a battle between a nun, who suspects a priest of sexual deviance, and the priest, who says she doesn't have the position to question him.

Doubt was the first of what Shanley says will be a three-part trilogy, and for Denver audiences, played out of order. Doubt opens in April at Denver Center Theatre Company; this month Defiance, the second play, is onstage at the Arvada Center. Ostensibly about racial tensions in the military, the play gravitates back to the idea of authority, its uses and its acquisition. That idea is projected on Brian Mallgrave's elegant, multitasking set, with a riveted, battleship-gray backdrop.

On a North Carolina Marine base in 1971, Lt. Col. Morgan Littlefield is wrestling with the ranks. In the waning years of Vietnam, the only soldiers enlisting are barely fit for service, and those returning from overseas are wrecked. Racial tensions, spurred by the Black Power movement and the death of Martin Luther King, are at a boil.

Littlefield, cruising toward a promotion to general and the twilight of his career, is looking for a legacy, and sees racial harmony as a good one. He chooses an unwilling black officer, Capt. Lee King, as his protegé, making him a racial poster boy rather than a skilled Marine.

Jane Page puts together a fast-paced, well-cast production, led by Tracy Griswold as the high- minded equivalent of military middle management. His finest moments are in conversation with his wife, played by Glenna Kelly with forbearance, strength and humor.

As Capt. King, Kyle Haden plays an enlisted man who rose to officer but hopes to avoid history, staying out of the spotlight. He's offset by Brian Hutchinson as a smug Southern chaplain convinced of his moral certitude.

Defiance is compact with a small cast. But even at 82 minutes, it meanders, alighting on a number of intriguing ideas but addressing none of them fully. There are six or seven interesting plays inside of Defiance; one would have sufficed.

Defiance

• Grade: B-

• When and where: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, 1 p.m. Wednesdays, through Nov. 4, Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd.

• Cost: $36 to $46

• Information: 720-898-7200

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