Aaron Sorkin's 'A Few Good Men' Returns to Broadway — and Struggles to Find Its Footing

Aaron Sorkin's 'A Few Good Men' opened this fall at Lincoln Center Theater's Vivian Beaumont Theater in Manhattan — its first return to Broadway since the original 1989 production ran for 14 months. Directed by Michael Arden and scheduled through January 10, 2027, the revival lands at a moment when, as the Guardian put it, audiences may want to 'drift back to an older, nobler idea of the armed services.' Early reviews suggest what they are actually receiving falls well short of that.

Bradley Whitford steps into the role of Col. Nathan R. Jessep — the part Jack Nicholson made iconic with 'You can't handle the truth!' in Rob Reiner's 1992 film. Tom Blyth, the 31-year-old British actor best known for the 2023 Hunger Games prequel, makes his Broadway debut as Lt. Daniel Kaffee, the reluctant Navy defense lawyer Tom Cruise played on screen. Krysta Rodriguez, known for 'Smash' and 'Into the Woods,' plays Lt. Cmdr. Joanne Galloway.

Whitford totters around the stage with his legs wide apart, as if he is doing a creaky John Wayne impression. He half mumbles and half growls his lines, a strained simulation of macho might.— Guardian critic

The Guardian's review was pointed: Whitford, it argued, is 'direly miscast' in a role that 'should radiate imperious menace.' The critic acknowledged that Whitford has proven he can handle Sorkin's signature rapid-fire dialogue across two television series, and is 'now doing great work on the Sorkin-esque series The Diplomat' — but the review drew a sharp distinction: Jessep, it argued, is not one of Sorkin's quick-witted talkers. He is something primal and threatening — a bull, a bear — and that territory, the review suggested, lies outside Whitford's range. Blyth, meanwhile, was credited with having 'the arrogant, golden-boy strut down pretty well,' but found to be struggling 'to convincingly convey Kaffee's legal acumen.' Rodriguez was called 'a bright presence,' though the critic wondered aloud 'what a plucky ingenue from a 1940s romp is doing at a court-martial.'

The production's physical scale compounded the problem. Working with scenic designer Dane Laffrey, director Arden spread the action across nearly the full depth of the Beaumont's vast stage, filling it with looming beams and a guard tower intended to conjure Jessep's Guantánamo Bay outpost. According to the Guardian, that volume 'effectively swallows up the rapid, close chatter of the play, rendering it all quiet and tinny.' The result, the review concluded, is 'a starchy, listless production that never finds a proper sense of scale.'

The climactic courtroom confrontation — the scene that culminates in Jessep's confession and the play's most famous line — reportedly faltered badly at the performance the Guardian critic attended. Both Whitford and Blyth lost their footing in the dialogue, pausing on several occasions as though the lines had momentarily escaped them, draining whatever energy Arden had managed to build. The review described the scene as arriving and departing 'at a limping stagger.'

Not every notice was negative. The Guardian singled out Nick Blaemire as a 'wise-cracking and morally concerned second-chair lawyer,' Thom Sesma as a 'conflicted lieutenant colonel,' and Michael Oberholtzer as the lead prosecutor — performers who, the critic wrote, 'find the right cadence and timbre to make Sorkin's ornate language sound casual and credible.'

The play's origins trace to a real incident. In 1986, a young Marine private named William Alvarado nearly died during a hazing at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay — an informal disciplinary action known as a 'code red.' Sorkin learned of the case in broad outlines from his sister, who was then a Navy lawyer. The proceedings against those who assaulted Alvarado provided the framework on which the play was built. The real outcome was less dramatic than the fiction: Alvarado survived, and most of the Marines charged avoided trial by pleading to lesser charges. A federal lawsuit brought in 1994 by five of the charged Marines against Sorkin and others connected to the film ended in dismissal 'on merits' following what court documents described as an 'amicable settlement.'

She told me about something called 'code red.' And my imagination took off.— Aaron Sorkin

Sorkin had resisted a revival for years, citing his own reservations about the work.

I was very young when I wrote it. And I thought I could do better.— Aaron Sorkin

Earlier this year, Sorkin was approached by Arden, a two-time Tony winner for his direction of 'Maybe Happy Ending' and a 2023 revival of the musical 'Parade.' The Guardian noted that 'Parade' had songs to rely on, whereas 'A Few Good Men' has 'only its complicated Sorkin dialogue to propel it along,' and found Arden 'less adept at turning that fast talk into music.' The production runs at the Vivian Beaumont through January 10, 2027.

The play has always divided critics. Frank Rich of the New York Times greeted the 1989 debut by calling it 'lightweight' and 'too predictable to satisfy as courtroom entertainment,' yet audiences kept it running for 14 months. The 1992 film, directed by Rob Reiner and starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson, was Oscar-nominated and became a cultural touchstone. In its current review, the Guardian advised readers drawn to the story's 'crackling drama and sentimentality about the military' to watch that film rather than spend a considerable sum on the revival.

Why it matters — The revival tests whether a play built on snappy dialogue and moral clarity can translate to a large Broadway stage in 2026 — and whether its themes of military accountability resonate differently now than they did in 1989.

Reported by flipboard.com, people.com, dnyuz.com, theguardian.com