By MIKE DUNHAM

Writers of historical drama since Shakespeare have faced the dilemma of whether to make their main thrust the history or the drama. The first explains a vanished society in terms that the current society may find relevant; the second explores how individuals past and present respond to and are changed by challenges.

Peter Porco notes that his play, “Wind Blown and Dripping,” now showing at Cyrano’s, is a fictionalized treatment of Dashiell Hammett’s stint at an Army post newspaper in the Aleutians during World War II. But the play succeeds more with the history part of the assignment, tossing up numerous curious details about the war era.

With just five performers -- and without dwelling on, or needing to, Hammett’s prewar fame as a detective novelist -- Porco directs a train of intriguing and potentially transformative subjects through Brian Saylor’s admirable cutaway Quonset hut set: Racism, sexuality, censorship, blackmail, journalistic ethics, resistance to authority, the temptation to bully, to give into bullying, to give into drink.

Any of these topics might supply a platform for digging into individual human nature. The tantalizing conflict between skepticism and patriotism that emerges briefly in one exchange suggests an especially rich opportunity to find out something about what makes people tick.
I can say that did not happen.

What I can’t say is whether it was the result of the writing. Some scenes had plain and compelling direction; others, like the opening interview between Hammett and a black cartoonist, went for longer than needed for exposition. Perhaps precision performance, the type of fast, dead-on exchange of punches required for a David Mamet play would reveal the quality of the script.

Unfortunately, “Wind Blown and Dripping,” directed by the usually-dependable Dick Reichman, staggers with the clunkiest acting seen at Cyrano’s since “The Medal of Honor Rag” in 1994. Dropped and mangled lines, stock gestures, characters speaking over one another.

Kelly Williams II, as the cartoonist, can be excused since this was his first stab at a play. But both Mark Stoneburner, who as the post commander was stuck on windblown bluster, and Jeff Aldrich, who as a sexually conflicted reporter dripped with strident self-pity, have experience with complex roles that go well beyond these one note interpretations.

Bradford Jackson, as a corporal who, despite his own problems, strives to keep a certain esprit de corps going at the paper, had the best control and delivered the closest thing to a fully-rounded character with natural nuance.

The grand distraction came from Marius Panzarella as Hammett. He fumbled worst of all, holding the script in his hands – trying to make it look like a not-very-convincing prop — and reading his lines from it throughout the second act. When the lead character lights into a chin-to-chin confrontation with his nose in a book it drains credibility from the action. An audience deserves to see actors who know their lines before opening night.

But this wasn’t opening night. It was Sunday, the third night of the run. If the problem was failure to memorize, then the fault lies with the actor; if the problem was due to last-minute rewrites, the fault lies with the author.

Wherever the blame lies, the Aleutian Front is a fertile setting for story-telling that hits home and Hammett provides an excellent portal into that chaotic cosmos. It just doesn’t happen here.

I hope, but am not optimistic, that the situation will improve with subsequent shows (at 7 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. and 3 p.m. Sun. through Jan. 27). Like a mis-assembled Quonset hut, “Wind Blown and Dripping” may need to be taken apart, its components spread out and examined, then bolted back together with more attention to the nuts and bolts and a corrected set of blueprints.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.