ON TARGET WITH MILITARY MATTERS.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

It seems unfathomable to apply the words ``unwieldy'' and ``overwritten'' to a play as seemingly tight and compactly structured as John Patrick Shanley's ``Defiance.'' Imagine, a quick and edgy 90 minutes after you've taken your seats, you're back on -- in this case -- El Molino Avenue, chewing over themes and questions that Shanley's previous play, ``Doubt,'' didn't raise. Only a cultural Scrooge would dare grouse that in crafting his play, the playwright has erred in tossing in the kitchen sink and the accompanying plumbing to boot.

There's the rub of being the same man who wrote ``Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,'' ``Beggars in the House of Plenty,'' ``Four Dogs and a Bone'' and, most recently, the Pulitzer Prize-winning ``Doubt.'' Shanley has set his bar high, and anything short of greatness risks being viewed as a disappointment.

That said, ``Defiance,'' the second in Shanley's trilogy about the nature of hierarchies, outshines many other playwrights' best efforts. And in Andrew J. Robinson's production at the Pasadena Playhouse (the same arena where ``Doubt'' had its West Coast premiere, by the way), the cast acts the pants off of it.

Married on, off stage

Real-life spouses Kevin Kilner and Jordan Baker are marvelous as a colonel and his wife who have reached a difficult transition. Robert Manning Jr. shines as an officer who -- in the midst of racial tension -- would rather serve than lead. There's no instigator more compellingly ambiguous than the military chaplain.

The play's setting, you may have guessed, is a military base: North Carolina's Camp Lejeune in 1971. The spit-and-

polish-seeking U.S. Marine Col. Morgan Littlefield (played by Kilner) is looking to steady a command post shot through with racial tension. He intends to bring about harmony by any means necessary, including mixing it up with the operators of a civilian apartment tract that operates on discriminatory practices.

The colonel may be a latent glory hound, but he's no fool. He brings in one of the corps' few black captains, Lee King (Manning), first for input, later as an executive officer.

Col. Littlefield also solicits the opinion of the base's new chaplain (Marks). While King would rather steer clear of the entire business, Chaplain White has no such reluctance.

Fled to Canada

Margaret Littlefield (Baker) is still smarting from her son's draft-dodging flight to Canada and has had it with life in the military. She'd like to retire to Colorado and get back some semblance of her marriage.

``What's your ideal?'' Margaret asks the colonel. ``You,'' her husband truthfully returns. ``Well, you shut me up,'' is Margaret's only reply.

Indeed, ``Defiance'' turns on an incident that has nothing to do with race and everything to do with human failing. The incident -- not to be revealed here -- is gasp-inducing. Until that moment, the play appears to be heading in one direction, toward one type of conflict. Then, artfully, Shanley takes it down a quite different road.

Which leaves Kilner and Baker -- whose characters are each a combination of great strength and inner brittleness -- to play their final scene quietly and believably together. A phone call is placed. One man's career is probably over, and an audience is asked to ponder not so much what has happened, but where matters are headed.

The third part of his trilogy, when Shanley gets around to writing it, figures to be well worth the wait.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

[e-mail]

DEFIANCE - Three stars

Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Feb. 18.

Tickets: $40 to $60. [phone] or visit www.Pasadenaplayhouse.org.

In a nutshell: A short play, overstuffed with weighty themes and splendidly performed.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Jordan Baker, left, Robert Manning Jr. and Kevin Kilner are part of the splendid cast of John Patrick Shanley's ``Defiance.'' The three must deal with racial tension and other issues at North Carolina military base Camp Lejeune in 1971.