The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a Navy court martial in World War II has been adapted by the author into a suspenseful evening of theatre. A young lieutenant has relieved his captain of command in the midst of a typhoon on the grounds that the captain, Queeg, is a psychopath in crisis and would have sent the ship and its crew to their destruction. Naval tradition is against the lieutenant, but testimony eventually reveals a devastating picture of Queeg's mental disintegration.