‘Caine’ trial feeds reporter’s addiction L.A. Theatre rendition stunningly suspenseful

It’s been an incredibly dry year for this court reporter.

Last year, I covered half a dozen trials, including a murder trial with a dismembered corpse, a complex environmental dispute over who will pay to clean up pollution in the Penobscot River and the trial of a political operative charged with conspiring to jam his opponent’s get-out-the vote phone lines in 2002.

This year, I had to attend the L.A. Theatre Works performance of “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” on Friday at the Maine Center for the Arts to see a trial. But what a trial it was.

Herman Wouk’s 1954 adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel two years earlier has everything a court reporter could wish for in a trial – the breakdown of the prosecution’s key witness on the stand, clashes over strategy between the defendant and his attorney and a little humor wrapped up in a moral dilemma.

LATW was founded in 1974 to produce and preserve significant works of dramatic literature on audio. The national touring company’s performances, with some actors playing multiple roles, are staged like radio plays that were broadcast live 70 years ago before a studio audience,

Wouk’s play, except for one final scene, takes place in a military courtroom where the “action” is in the dialogue. It is well-suited to radio play staging with actors carrying scripts, the way attorneys clutch notes and exhibits in real courtrooms. The performers also move onstage from microphone to microphone, something lawyers are doing more and more as technology improves in Maine’s courtrooms.

Because it is based in Los Angeles, LATW is able to lure some of the film and television industries’ best actors and directors to its productions. John Rubinstein, who starred in the 1983 Broadway revival of “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” directed the road show that stopped in Orono.

Grant Shaud, who played Murphy Brown’s young producer on the groundbreaking TV series of the same name, played Lt. Barney Greenwald, the reluctant defense attorney. James Vickers, who was Scar in the popular Broadway musical “The Lion King” played Lt. Cmdr. Philip Francis Queeg, the man relieved of his command.

Bill Brochtrup, familiar to “NYPD Blue” fans as the squadroom’s gay administrative assistant, created three distinct characters. Relative newcomer Matt Gaydos portrayed Lt. Stephen Maryk, the man who felt his commander was unfit for duty.

What made “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” stunningly suspenseful, even though I knew the outcome of the case, was the respectful homage these actors and the three other cast members paid to the Wouk’s script.

In an era when the written and spoken word appears to be under attack from blog-speak and instant-messaging lingo, LA Theatre Works deserves to be applauded for its efforts to preserve significant works of dramatic literature and reminding this trial-starved court reporter what she’s been missing.