The Caine Mutiny Court Martial

By Herman Wouk

Directed by Dr. Abbott

A 3 act drama, presented at Lexington St. Jr. High School: Producer Doris Fuchs, set design Bob Flaherty other crew members included Miss Judith Wilkinson, Miss Annette Fanara and Mrs Angelina Emberley. The Cast included Norman Ferdinand as Capt Queeg, Sam Norberg, Jerry Leventhal, Fred Wilder, Dr Karasoff, Bob Gilkie and Ralph Tomao in his FIRST role for Hovey.

Some Interesting Stuff….One of the reasons the Play Reading Committee chose Caine was because we had so many Sailor suits left over from our November ’59 Mr Roberts show. There may still be a Sailor suit hanging up in the men’s room.

Another FIRST, I think, Bob Gilkie and Judi Wilkinson met at Hovey about this time, fell in love, married and had Hovey members at their wedding reception…. drinking enough champagne to be talked into singing Guys and Dolls show tunes (there is a lesson to be learned in here somewhere). This is History not Tradition; I think Hovey, like all theater groups, has spawned more divorces than marriages.

Most important…Norm’s performance as Captain Queeg was beyond outstanding. There have been a few efforts in cast or crew in the last 45 years that I would say have gone beyond good, great, excellent and have become memorable. Norm’s Queeg is up there with the others. The group voted to use the ‘mental breakdown, marble rolling scene’ for the ’61 NETC competition.

We went into that comp. knowing we would win, at least Norm would get Best Actor. Due to date conflicts we lost our defendant and our defense lawyer from the original production. I went from Sailor Urban to Lt. Marek. (No blocking, few lines, no problem.) For the defense attorney, who helps build the scene for Queeg we got Russ MacClure from the Auburndale Players. Russ was a very good actor and had done much for Hovey and other groups in the area, from romantic leads to drama. We rehearse, we’re ready we go to NETC competition.

During the big scene, (Queeg cracks up, the long soliloquy followed by deafening applause). Russ forgot his lines, he’s on stage hammering Queeg to the breaking point, and stops, on stage we freeze, everyone is silent, Russ turned, faced the stage left wings and said, LOUDLY; “Line, Line Please” …..but we had no prompter, no off stage script readily available…we all thought it wasn’t necessary (we should have checked with Russ).

Anyway he got no response so he walked off stage, found his script in his jacket, got his line and returned on stage to continue. Norman was great during the ‘delay’ and picked it right up. But alas the only performance and line remembered was Russ’s line request, exit and return. It was a one time thing, I never saw anything like it before or since.

And I was afraid Norm might drop one of those damn steel balls that would roll across stage, and down a flight of steps.

Performances: December 2 and 3, 1960

Courtesy of Ralph Tomao, Hovey Historian