The Department of Performing Arts' production of "Poor Tom," a show conceived by Marquette theater students and workshopped here and in Dublin, is a valiant exercise in presenting difficult themes to an audience. Unfortunately, good intentions do not automatically make great theater, and the ambitious production ultimately falls flat.

The play focuses on the response at home to violent conflict. In its attempt to encompass the experiences of a wide variety of characters, the play cannot give enough attention or development to any of its plots. There is Hannah, driven to a violent rampage of grief; Faith, determined to silence dissent to respect her husband's memory; Frances, seemingly disaffected by the conflict; a jailer rejected as too young to fight; two minstrels who appear periodically to sing protest songs; and the titular Tom, who refuses to fight and walks about calmly spouting platitudes.

There are glimmers of an interesting story attempting to break through, from Frances's wistful song about inner strength, to Faith's internal conflict over her blind acceptance. There's a fascinating play somewhere about how women respond to the stress of war.

But it fails to materialize as the show is bogged down by the question of whether Tom will escape the state agents looking to execute him for desertion. The show's title tells us he is doomed from the start, but Christ allusions alone does not a compelling character make. Hannah's demented, murderous grief is far more interesting, but in an implicitly sexist turn, she is transformed from an agent of fear to a non-entity.

The show's direction by Patrick Sutton of the Gaiety School of Acting is striking and befuddling by turns. A moment of "Stomp"-esque percussion in the beginning of the show nicely establishes the brittle stress of the women in the factory, desperately making the gunpowder which their husbands will use to kill. But the repeated image of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" does nothing to advance the story.

The design and acting are uniformly strong. Cast standouts include Jennifer Shine as Frances, Bonnie Auguston as Angela and Ashlea Woodley as Hannah. The set, designed by David Krajec, evokes a sense of pervasive dinginess. The potential for a show asking difficult questions about the nature of the state during war is present in "Poor Tom" but can't quite break through the muddle of ideas presented.

Check out Marquee's article about "Poor Tom."