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NEW YORK -- David Schwimmer, the latest screen star to arrive on Broadway, is no dilettante when it comes to theater.
Before finding fame on the sitcom Friends, Schwimmer co-founded Chicago's noted Lookingglass Theatre Company, and his stage credits have since stretched from Chi-town to Williamstown to London. But as the new revival of Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (** 1/2 out of four) makes plain, an impressive resume does not guarantee a brilliant performance.
Neither do good intentions. Schwimmer's bio for Court-Martial, which opened Sunday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, lists five great-uncles who served in World War II; and the actor clearly brings personal commitment to the role of a Jewish U.S. Navy lawyer presiding over a trial in February 1945, just as Allied forces were putting the kibosh on Hitler's reign of terror.
But Schwimmer's portrayal of Lt. Barney Greenwald, who is called to defend a fellow lieutenant accused of defying his superior during a crisis, has the self-conscious, at times preening quality of a diligent but overeager student.
His tonally repetitive line readings, particularly in the first act, aren't nuanced enough to relay Greenwald's conflicted feelings about representing a young man whose actions and attitude disturb him.
In fairness to Schwimmer, much of the acting in Court-Martial has the flavor of posturing. Under Jerry Zaks' direction, Wouk's dialogue -- not the most natural to begin with -- is recited, shouted and imbued with a too-knowing wryness, so that the production can acquire the canned, melodramatic feeling of an old movie dragged kicking and screaming onto the stage. (Court-Martial, first presented as a novel, was adapted into a film in 1954.)
The player who fares best under these circumstances is the always-compelling Zeljko Ivanek.
As Captain Queeg, the troubled officer who is deposed at sea, Ivanek delivers a dynamic, textured performance, reinforcing the dual themes of military dysfunction and valor that still make Wouk's play intriguing in spite of its shortcomings.
Terry Beaver is robust as another captain presiding over the trial, while Tim Daly is polished but less affecting as the prosecuting attorney.
Joe Sikora is overwrought as the immature lieutenant charged with mutiny; his banter with Schwimmer is seldom convincing.
Schwimmer is better toward the end, once the setting has shifted to a booze-laden hotel dining room.
Liberated from duty, his Greenwald delivers his most heartfelt testimony with a passion that contrasts with both the character's previous ambivalence and Schwimmer's own relative stiffness earlier on.
Sadly, the scene offers too little too late to make Court-Martial worthy of more than a mixed verdict.
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