From the Battalion to Broadway
Like the gung-ho sailors of “On the Town,” the actor Alex Ekker, twenty-seven, is a military man new to New York City and game for sightseeing. Ekker, who has kind eyes, close-cropped hair, and excellent posture (How tall? “Six-two, but people say I’m six-four for some reason”), served in the U.S. Marine Corps for four years, and currently plays a marine in Aaron Sorkin’s “A Few Good Men” at Lincoln Center. On a recent day off, he cheerfully stuck to a plan to visit the Empire State Building, despite fog, wind, and a downpour; presumably, he’s endured worse. “There’s zero-per-cent visibility,” a gruff guard said at the entrance, with a hint of What’s wrong with you idiots? Ekker, in a zip-up jacket and khakis, proceeded through the building’s near-empty museum, enjoying its immersive marvels: twenties street scene; theatre of E.S.B. fare (he’d seen “Sleepless in Seattle,” “ ‘Superman,’ of course,” and “the Jack Black ‘King Kong’ ”); Kong room, with vibrating ape hands. The elevator simulated the skyscraper’s construction, complete with New York accents. “It’s an amusement-park ride,” Ekker said. “What is going on?”
On the eighty-sixth floor, he ventured toward the observation deck: “Ready to brave it?” Outside was blustery, loud, hail-like. “Whoa, yeah!” Ekker yelled, with military vigor. He gazed out at the fog. “It’s hard to see any of the lights,” he observed. “Oh, there’s some stuff! Whoo!” A few lights, possibly a river. Ekker laughed and headed back in: “Oh, my goodness gracious.”
Ekker was cast in Sorkin’s play this summer, having just graduated from acting school in North Carolina; his Broadway début is also his professional début. “A Few Good Men” (in movie form: Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, “You can’t handle the truth!”) centers on a court-martial of two marines and a possible coverup. In this production, featuring the Sorkin veteran Bradley Whitford, Ekker’s roles include regular M.P. (“Ten-hut”) and sergeant at arms (“Ten-hut!”). He also understudies two others. “I’m excited, if the day comes,” he said. “But I like my tribe now, and I get to wear the dress blues.”
An indoor gelato stand sold Empire State Building Hot Chocolate; Ekker got in line. “I never thought I wanted to be an actor,” he said. “I love stories. In the Marines, I met people from all around the world, listened to these incredible things. . . . I think we have a sheltered view here.” When his service ended, he decided to try acting. He said, “I wanted to express, in a way, what I wanted to do when I joined the Marine Corps”—to help people. “I didn’t know exactly how to fit in with everybody when I was younger, and I hated bullies. But I love people—or what people are capable of.”
Ekker, the son of two now retired Navy officers, grew up in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. As a kid, he admired marines, who’d come to his school for Toys for Tots drives; his parents admired them, too. “I wanted to be a protector,” Ekker said. He enlisted at nineteen. Boot camp was humbling, he said, but later “you think, ‘Why was I such a wimp?’ ” He loved the marines’ unbreakable brotherhood (“You’re in the suck together, and the barriers fall away”) and learned about “what honor means for different people.” In “A Few Good Men,” he said, “everybody is fighting for what they think is right, a lot of them for a greater cause. How much has to be sacrificed in order for it to work? And maybe it’s the greater good, maybe not.” His E.S.B. Hot Chocolate was ready—and towering. “Whoa,” he said. “It’s mostly whipped cream!”
After the Marines, “going to an arts conservatory was a complete one-eighty,” he went on. From brotherhood “no matter what you say to the guy next to you” to “Oh, man, I have no idea what anybody’s talking about. I don’t know the next-generation celebrities. I don’t know why everybody’s singing and dancing.” But his acting cohort became a family, too.
Before leaving, he took one more spin around the observation deck. “I wonder what this looks like from the ground,” he said. He looked up, to a beautiful sight: the top of the Empire State Building, glowing like a lighthouse in the fog. And between it and him, an old, somewhat tattered friend. “The American flag!” Ekker said, taking a picture. “This is so awesome.” Afterward, on the sidewalk, a tourist approached. “Where is the Empire State Building?” he asked. Ekker lit up. “Just go around the corner and turn left,” he said. ♦