Drama in the courtroom

Neha Kirpal

A murder, two suspects, an indifferent lawyer... honour, code, loyalty... Aadyam theatre festival returns with a rendition of Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men. The play is a witty courtroom drama that deals with the court martial of two United States Marines accused of murdering one of their own at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Inspired by true events, it was originally written as a play, adapted for Broadway in 1989 and made into the 1992 Oscar-nominated film starring Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore and Tom Cruise. The stellar cast of the play includes big names such as Neil Bhoopalam, Ira Dubey, Rajit Kapur, Ashwin Mushran, Danish Hussain and Kenny Desai.

The story and the script exist entirely in the world of the American military, more specifically the US Marine Corps and the JAG Corps of US Navy. Any attempt at “Indianising” it, says the play’s director, Nadir Khan, would be quite redundant since the text resides, very specifically, in that world. However, the play addresses themes such as honesty, integrity and what it means to live by a code of honour. It asks the question of how blindly one should follow an order before allowing one’s own moral compass to come into play. “The themes and context, questions and moral/ethical debates are pretty much universal to any government military institution and any country,” explains Khan.

He says he was approached by the producer, Devika Shahani, with the script and asked whether he would like to do it for this season of Aadyam. “I had watched the film many years ago and knew that it was a gripping story. Sorkin’s writing would mean nothing less than a cracking script,” he says. Previously, Khan had directed an adaptation of the classic film Twelve Angry Men, another courtroom drama, for Aadyam’s second season. Talking about how the two differ, he says, “Twelve Angry Jurors was set in a jury room after the trial had concluded, whereas A Few Good Men deals with the events leading up to the trial and the trial itself.”

For the past 20 years, Nadir Khan has been actively involved with theatre as a director, actor, producer, sound & light technician and stage manager. Co-founder of Q Theatre Productions and a partner in The Industrial Theatre Co., Nadir has also line-produced and acted in a number of productions with BBC Radio 3 and 4, including the award-winning A Suitable Boy and Q&A. A Few Good Men will be performed in New Delhi on September 28 and 29.