Aaron Sorkin's A FEW GOOD MEN

The Royal Underground Theatre Company presents Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men, directed by Enrico Banson, running June 5 through 21, 2026 at Live Oak Theater in Berkeley. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 2 PM, with a special post-show cast and crew talkback on Sunday, June 14. Tickets are $35. Long before Hollywood turned it into a cultural touchstone, Aaron Sorkin’s blistering legal drama electrified Broadway with its mix of courtroom suspense, military pressure, and razor-sharp moral combat. In this gripping judicial thriller, one misfit U.S. Marine is dead, two others stand accused of killing him, and an ambitious team of young military lawyers begins uncovering a conspiracy that reaches far beyond a single courtroom. Inspired by actual events at Guantanamo Bay in 1986, A Few Good Men crackles with the quickfire intelligence and verbal precision that would later define Sorkin’s work on The West Wing, The Newsroom, and The Social Network. The result is a taut, often funny, entertaining, and deeply unsettling play about duty, loyalty, institutional self-protection, and the cost of telling the truth in a room built to resist it. Royal Underground’s production approaches the play not simply as a famous courtroom drama, but as a warning shot. A Few Good Men examines the danger of systems that prize unquestioning loyalty over moral courage and wrap their worst impulses in the language of patriotism. At a time when the country continues to wrestle with truth, power, gender, leadership, and the meaning of public service, the play feels less like a period piece and more like an alarm bell. “What makes A Few Good Men feel urgent now is not simply the famous question of who gave the order,” says director Enrico Banson. “It is the larger question the play keeps pushing at us: what happens to truth when power decides it is inconvenient? We all know the line, ‘You can’t handle the truth,’ but that line hits differently in a country where truth itself feels constantly argued over, buried, branded, or weaponized. Underneath the courtroom thriller is a fight over loyalty, ego, rank, gender, patriotism, and who gets believed when the room is built to protect itself.” Featuring a formidable company of Bay Area stage veterans and standout performers, this production launches The Royal Underground Theatre Company’s comeback season with scale, urgency, and bite. A Few Good Men runs approximately two hours, including one intermission. Content advisory: mature themes, strong language, references to violence and suicide, hazing, abuse of power, intense moral and institutional conflict, imitation firearms, sudden loud sound effects, and flashing lights. Recommended for ages 15 and up. For tickets and more information, visit theroyalunderground.org.

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