Peter Jaskowiak in "War Room."

War Room, the new play by Darryl Schneider at Road Less Traveled Theatre, is an engaging and thought-provoking piece of theater, well acted with fully dimensioned characters. Developed in the Road Less Traveled new play workshop, War Room has distinct echoes of Arthur Miller. Personal values collide with human needs in this story of a husband/father who becomes estranged from his family at a time of crisis. The plot and its execution are reminiscent of All My Sons or Death of a Salesman.

The husband/father in War Room is a Vietnam veteran who has become obsessed with the death of his son in Iraq. The ambiguity of the circumstances surrounding the young man’s death becomes an all-consuming preoccupation, as the father struggles to uncover any information he can, and converts his dead son’s bedroom into a research room—a war room. Soon, the needs of his living family become secondary to the fate of the son he has lost.

Under the direction of Scott Behrend, Road Less Traveled has given the script a first-rate production with a fine cast. Behrend’s own set design uses the Rumi Matsui-Pacific Overturesque device of a giant American flag that rises to serve as a canopy over the proceedings. Even without this unsubtle yet effective device, there is no mistaking War Room for anything other than a drama intended to coincide with today’s headlines. The play serves to question the foreign policy of the Bush administration at every turn, but it is much more than that as well. The journey of loss and regret, introspection and guilt in War Room is universal, and Schneider has taken a very even hand in laying out this morally ambiguous territory.

In terms of plot, Schneider does depend a bit heavily on such melodramatic devices as the delayed revelation and the surprise turnaround, but in terms of character development, he offers us something rather superior. He is aided by some fine performances, none better than Christina Rausa’s as Karen Schiller, the wife and mother who must suffer her husband’s apparent breakdown, all the while, holding the secret of his past with total loyalty. Rausa’s character is the most fully written and her performance lives up to the challenge, proving a model of perfect restraint as she fights back emotions with decreasing success, marking her character’s dramatic evolution with impressive clarity and power.

Peter Jaskowiak is very good as well in the role of the troubled husband, Carl Schiller. Here is a character who has reached the limit of his mental strength before the curtain rises. Jaskowiak successfully keeps the ball in play as he steers the character into murkier waters still, as Carl must confront his own past war experiences.

Abby Holland and Rich McGrath are very pleasing as the squabbling brother and sister of the family. Holland’s character is trying to plan her own wedding, the event that will serve a the backdrop to the play’s climax, as her father demonstrates himself to be increasingly remote. McGrath’s performance is quite poignant as the son who can never seem to live up to his dead brother, but who is willing to make a fool of himself in the effort.

Jermain Cooper and Randy Evans give strong performances as a government investigator and as one of the dead son’s marine buddies.

Great care has been taken with the production elements. In addition to the set by Behrend, which also features a well decorated room in which we can see the transformation of a young man’s bedroom into a war room, Katie Menke’s sound design is also very compelling. John Rickus has designed the lights. Maura Price did the costumes.

Road Less Traveled is endeavoring to make its reputation on productions of plays by local playwrights. It is encouraging to see a first production as strong as War Room coming out of the workshop. Let’s hope there is plenty more to come.