A play returning to its original stage has a subtle satisfying quality. The real stage in a major American theater, with a cast that carries weight before a single word is spoken—not a movie adaptation, not a streaming revival. This fall, Lincoln Center Theater will present Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men, and it is difficult to avoid the impression that this particular revival is more about the current state of American theater than it is about a courtroom drama written almost forty years ago.
While working as a coat-check clerk at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in 1989, Sorkin is said to have written early drafts of A Few Good Men on cocktail napkins.
A career that would eventually result in The West Wing, The Social Network, and The Newsroom was started by the play, which ran on Broadway and received positive reviews. However, Rob Reiner’s 1992 film is how most people are familiar with the story. Tom Cruise. Jack Nicholson. The line. Since then, the play has, in many respects, been overshadowed by its own film. Lincoln Center is offering it an opportunity to return to its own light this autumn.
This seems like an event worth watching just because of the casting. Bradley Whitford, who previously portrayed Lieutenant Jack Ross in the Broadway production, is back as Colonel Jessup, the commanding officer whose unwavering resolve serves as the moral compass of the play. It’s an amazing example of theatrical symmetry.
Whitford and Sorkin have collaborated on television for decades, and returning to the play that sparked their creative partnership has an almost poetic quality. Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee is played by Tom Blyth, best known to moviegoers from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. In order to persuade a Broadway audience used to evaluating performances in real time without the advantage of a second take, Blyth must possess charm and ultimately moral courage.
Michael Arden, a Tony Award winner whose work on Maybe Happy Ending won him a lot of praise last season, is directing. It’s worth noting that this will be his first Broadway production of a play instead of a musical. Arden is gifted, but it’s not an easy transition from the musical stage to a courtroom drama. It will be intriguing to see how he handles Sorkin’s renownedly fast-paced, rhythmic dialogue—writing that equally rewards accuracy and momentum.
The play is essentially about state-sanctioned violence, according to Lear deBessonet, artistic director of Lincoln Center. This framing feels purposefully modern without being oppressive. Sorkin’s script is beautiful because it is honest about its moral complexity. This is not a straightforward tale of good and bad soldiers. It is about the consequences of silently obeying orders from institutions and the costs associated with defying them. That question doesn’t seem abstract in 2026. It seems instantaneous.
The Vivian Beaumont Theater will host a thirteen-week run, with previews starting on October 8 and opening night scheduled for October 29. Here, the theater itself is important. There is a certain weight to the Beaumont because it has been the site of serious American drama for many years, and there is an expectation that the events that take place there will have significance.
It’s important to keep in mind that Lincoln Center’s Ragtime revival just finished a Tony-winning season. A Few Good Men appears to be a production intended to maintain the institution’s momentum. It remains to be seen if Sorkin’s minor script changes—what deBessonet tactfully referred to as “finessing of dialogue”—will feel essential or distracting. 1989 scripts bear the marks of their time. It’s worthwhile to keep some of that texture.
However, Lincoln Center appears to be the best option if there is currently a theater company in New York with the resources and reputation to make this work. The Sorkin revival is more akin to a reclamation of a story, a stage, and the unanswered questions than it is to a nostalgic play.
