D.B. Woodside

It hardly matters whether Michael Murphy deliberately planted Barack Obama moments in “The Conscientious Objector.” This play about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s decision to oppose the war in Vietnam is fraught with contemporary resonance, as a charismatic black man takes a stand against a white president who is stubbornly continuing an unpopular war. Marveling at the news that the recently appointed secretary of defense claims to be shocked at the lack of a war plan, Dr. King says, “I mean, has it ever looked like there was a plan?”

If such echoes had come thundering down, the play would have been flattened. But the Keen Company’s shrewdly understated production never leans too hard on its historical parallels, and the fine actors — including D B Woodside as Dr. King and John Cullum as President Lyndon B. Johnson — never fall into impersonations.

The play is an unapologetically talky debate, ranging from 1965 to 1968, in which Dr. King and his advisers consider whether he should speak out against the war. Running two and a half hours, the work could be trimmed, yet under Carl Forsman’s sharply focused direction it becomes surprisingly engaging. On one level its central question is locked in the past: If Dr. King publicly opposed the war, would that create a backlash and possibly damage the civil rights movement? In broader terms that question has timeless urgency: How should a leader spend his political capital?

At times Mr. Woodside (who played President Wayne Palmer on “24”) reaches for the rolling cadences of Dr. King’s speech, but more often he wisely concentrates on portraying a believable man who is heroic yet human-scaled. Dr. King faces a moral choice; as a believer in nonviolence he can no longer condone the war. Yet he is politically astute and does not instantly dismiss the legitimate arguments from allies who worry about the cost of that stand. The actors who help make the debate come alive include Jimonn Cole, as the firebrand, antiwar James Bevel, and Bryan Hicks, as the calm, level-headed Ralph Abernathy.

Mr. Cullum, in a relatively small role, plays Johnson as the ultimate political operator who cozies up to Dr. King when it is convenient, then turns on him after Dr. King denounces the war. In a conversation with J. Edgar Hoover (Jonathan Hogan), Johnson uses a racial slur against Dr. King and adds, “After all I done for his people.” When Hoover calls Dr. King a “subversive radical” here it rings true, but in a good way. Beowulf Boritt’s Expressionistic set design — a black, white and gray detail of an American flag painted across the background — adds a dreamy distance to the straightforward realism of the play, which draws on the historical record.

This work could be a companion piece to Richard Nelson’s current “Conversations in Tusculum,” set during the rule of Julius Caesar, another history piece that resonates with contemporary meaning. Intellectual debate may never replace dramatic fireworks onstage, but with its sharp yet nuanced dialogue “The Conscientious Objector” shows how theater can be absorbing and also earn a place in today’s political conversation.