Mark Clayton Southers Founder/Artistic Director Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company Cast members of "Corps Values" are, seated left, Wali Jamal and right, Joseph Martinez. Joshua Elijah Reese is standing. 'Corps Values' Where: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, Jackman Building, 542 Penn Ave., Downtown When: Through Dec. 17; Fri. -- Sat. 8 p.m. 3 p.m.; some exceptions Tickets: $10 -$15; 412-394-3353

Since the Iraq War has now gone on longer than our part of World War II, isn't it time it started showing up on Pittsburgh stages?

Of course, we always see present concerns in older plays, and some can seem specifically prophetic of Iraq, like Brecht's "Man Is Man" (last month at CMU). And it takes time for subject matter to settle into the creative consciousness and go from idea to production.

I have seen some specifically Iraq-themed plays, like Lydia Stryk's "American Tet," directed by Tracy Brigden at last summer's Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia, and David Hare's "Stuff Happens," staged in London, Los Angeles and New York. There's a Jane Martin play, "Flags," about a conservative Vietnam vet whose son is killed in Baghdad, and Tony Kushner has a play in which Laura Bush reads stories to dead Iraqi children.

But not in Pittsburgh. The Public Theater did a reading of Victoria Stewart's "Hardball," which was more about the media than Iraq, and in 2003, City Theatre did Leslie Ayvazian's "Lovely Day," which questioned all war.

So unless I'm missing something, the first real Iraq play Pittsburgh has had is Brendon Bates' "Corps Values," now at the intimate Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, Downtown.

It's a solid production that starts slow and seems to meander but actually knows just where it's going, gradually raising the ante and extending the central conflict with what comes to seem an inexorable inevitability like that of war.

But it is no anti-war screed. Rather, it's the intense, 1³/₄-hour story of Wade, a patriotic former Marine lieutenant and Vietnam vet, and his son, Casey, now a Marine private in Iraq, who comes home for his mother's funeral and announces he's not going back.

Why? And since the play starts at mid-point, what has actually happened? Starting in the now, Bates flashes back to two days earlier, then alternates until the then catches up to where the now began. Initially this is irritating, as if he were complicating exposition unnecessarily, but it forces us to seek the realities beneath several mysteries, along with the investigating Marine colonel and captain. As the ante rises, we may even come to question our own responsibilities.

Gradually we learn about Wade's experience in Vietnam, which shaped his values and current isolation, and Casey's in Iraq, which has brought him to a position his father could never reach but learns to acknowledge.

"Corps Values," in other words, both admires the Marines' values, especially the brotherhood of combat, and questions their consequences. And it invites us to compare them to core values, too.

There's also a compelling deer-hunting metaphor, admirably sustained, somewhat in the manner of the movie "The Queen."

I don't think anything in the text specifies the ethnicity of the characters, so it seems unremarkable that Wade and Casey are black and the captain and the colonel, who is Wade's old corps mate and Casey's godfather, are white. This also fits the racial gulf-bridging mission of Pittsburgh Playwrights.

John Gresh directs with a simplicity, focus and attention to detail you don't always see. Artistic director Mark Southers provides a workable set, which the sound design helps locate believably in the woods. The military uniforms seem authentic.

Wali Jamal plays Wade with a rumpled passion. At first I thought he was underplaying, but we learn that he's pretending to a calm he does not feel. As Casey, Joshua Elijah Reese has more youthful flash and ignites when necessary. Joseph Martinez is particularly strong as the captain, smiling but forceful, all business. Marcus Muzopappa plays the lanky colonel.

Ultimately, I suppose the play wants to have it both ways, to endorse Casey's protest but also Marine strengths. It's an honorable conflict, painfully explored.