Pulitzer-winning playwright John Shanley's Defiance starts inauspiciously, with a sergeant hurling abuse at the audience, who serve as brief stand-ins for a Vietnam War-scarred marine battalion at Camp Lejeune. But sit tight. Defiance gathers interest and momentum as scenes shift, and characters and moral issues sharpen into focus under the sure hand of veteran director John Cranney at Park Square Theatre.

It's 1971. Marines are returning from Vietnam to base camp in North Carolina demoralized, drug-addicted and racially polarized. The battalion has had a string of race incidents, and Black Power grows among black enlisted men. Ambitious Lt. Colonel Littlefield charges the problem like a rampant bull. He's a crusader, all action and command, his eye ever on the role of military hero. He knows the answers and has the power to make them happen. Littlefield commandeers reluctant Captain King to help him, a black officer who has risen through the ranks; but the Lt. Colonel humiliates his newly appointed chaplain in front of King. This act is the fulcrum on which the entire play pivots.

Shanley intends to reflect America's stages of maturity in a trilogy of plays. Prize-winning Doubt, the first play in the cycle, lifts the hem on rigid thinking within institutions—in that case, the Catholic Church. Defiance is the second play in the cycle and it, too, challenges institutional absolutism—this time in the military. It also confronts ambition, the corrupting nature of power, racism, integrity, retribution and faith. The role of manipulative Chaplain White, for whom God is a concrete fact, introduces to the cycle the rise in power of the Christian right.

Director Cranney's casting is right on. Charles Fraser as Chaplain White appears to be a harmless man, an ineffective, homily-spouting minister. Fraser plays him as faintly ridiculous, with his strong Southern accent and his certainties. But under-estimated Chaplain White is an observer of human behavior. He spots and uses the vulnerabilities of stronger men.

As stentorian Lt. Colonel Littlefield, Kurt Schweickhardt assumes confident command of the space and people around him, a natural bully. He's bound for the "full bird," a promotion to rank of colonel. His wife Meg saves him from being a caricature. In her company, he reduces to being a person with feelings; he loves her and needs her intelligent perspective and her loyalty. Katherine Ferrand is wonderful as the put-upon Meg, who does not like military life. She appears to be an air-headed Southern belle, all fluffy grace and sugary politeness, but, like Captain King, she's a reader and a thinker. She speaks truth to power and serves as the rational anchor of the drama.

Ashford Thomas plays reserved Captain King with dignity. The Captain served in Vietnam and lost hope when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Now, he's marking time in the military. He serves as a judge advocate for the enlisted men, and knows that what the job requires of him is not the right thing to do. But he keeps his head down, seeking invisibility. Littlefield promotes him to be his Executive Officer, a job the Captain does not want. He resents being a black symbol, whom Littlefield uses to resolve the race problems in camp.

When anguished P.F.C. Davies, affectingly played by Samuel Van Wyk, comes to report an incident to the Captain, King is forced beyond the fence of his comfort to make a moral decision that will affect lives, including his own.

On Rick Polenek's bare set, video projection provides a backdrop for scene changes, and archival snippets of President Nixon and Dr. Martin Luther King set the play in its historical context.

In this one-act of 90 minutes, Defiance works metaphorically on several levels and can be seen to represent the adolescence of America in the person of Lt. Colonel Littlefield, with his brash, dichotomous thinking, his longing for a "good clean fight" and for acknowledgment as an American hero. Hmm! That sounds all too current and familiar ... It's a play worth seeing.

Defiance October 24 - November 9, 2008. Tickets $20 - $39. Thursdays - Saturdays 7:30 p.m. Sundays 2:00 p.m. Call 651- 291-7005 for tickets, or visit www.parksquaretheatre.org. Park Square Theatre, 20, West Seventh Place, St. Paul.

- Elizabeth Weir

Be sure to check the current schedule for theatre in the Twin Cities area