The members of G Company are going stir crazy in Hawaii. The only fighting they’re doing is in the boxing ring and their perfectly polished guns have barely been fired. “I love the army. I hate the army,” the soldiers spit out and sing. It’s a typically pared back refrain from Tim Rice, whose lyrics are the most striking aspect of this musical set two weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack, as frustration and tension builds and the army begins to turn on itself.
Brett Smock’s tight production is certainly an improvement on the 2013 London premiere. There’s an intimacy and intensity to proceedings, despite Donald Rice and Bill Oakes’ fractured book. Everything feels crisp, well-drilled and focused, although there are one too many projected images of the lapping ocean – perhaps in a nod to the famous 1953 film adaptation of James Jones’s novel.
