“Mothers Shall But Smile,” an original drama written and directed by Ara Barlieb and produced and performed by Crowded Kitchen Players in its world premiere through Oct. 22, Charles A. Brown Ice House, Bethlehem, takes its title from a monologue in a William Shakespeare play.

It’s not just any monologue. And it’s not just any Shakespeare play.

The phrase, “Mothers Shall But Smile,” is from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” Act 3, Scene 1, which is set in the Capitol, as Marc Antony, observing the body of Caesar, who was stabbed to death, declaims:

“Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood! ...

“Blood and destruction shall be so in use,

And dreadful objects so familiar,

That mothers shall but smile when they behold

Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;

All pity choked with custom of fell deeds,

And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, ... “

The implication is the violence that Antony calls down as revenge for the death of Caesar will become so commonplace that even mothers will be inured to their own children’s deaths and “shall but smile.”

The play, “Julius Caesar,” believed to have been written in 1599, resonates in light (or dark) of the Israel-Hamas War, the War in Ukraine, the Syrian Civil War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War and the some 32 nations now in conflict (in Africa, these include Algeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Niger, Sudan, Uganda, Yemen, Ethiopia and Libya).

“Mothers Shall But Smile” doesn’t hark back to the days of Julius Caesar and the start of the Roman Empire, roughly 44 BC, but rather to the Vietnam War of a half-century ago (1955 to 1975, the years of the United States’ involvement).

The double irony of the play’s title, “Mothers Shall But Smile,” is that a Vietnamese mother is, it would seem, beyond tears, and is merely demanding the return of her son’s bicycle so that the family can resume its commerce, apparently of transporting rice to market.

In “Mothers Shall But Smile,” it’s 1971 at the Bien Hoa Air Base, Republic of Vietnam. A young United States Army recruit Andrew (Robert Trollinger) is tasked to investigate a report by a Vietnamese woman who claims her son was killed by a United States Army helicopter gunner who thought the youth was a Viet Cong soldier. Andrew is aided in assembling the probe by Quan (Phuong Tran), a Vietnam native.

The investigation pits Andrew against fellow soldier Troy (David Donado), as well as Col. Baxter (David Oswald), who wants the investigation to wrap up as soon as possible. The involvement and meddling of William (John Cusumano), Congresswoman Farrington (Katie MacMillan) and Senator Thompson (Bruce F. Brown) only complicates matters.

“Mothers Shall But Smile” brings the banality and grim reality of war to the stage, augmented by running reports and commentary by a war correspondent, Norma (Sharon Ferry), similar to the way the Vietnam War was brought to the living rooms of America on TV’s nightly news.

The script by Barlieb is in the style of documentary theater. The incident under investigation happened when the playwright’s brother was a U.S. officer in Vietnam during the war there. The play is not agitprop theater, but a rather dispassionate telling of the tragedy, writ small in the case of the Vietnamese youth, and writ large in the case of the soldiers, Vietnamese people and United States.

The actors in the play acquit themselves well and believably, most notably Phuong Tran as a Vietnamese soldier most authentically affected by the play’s story and who rightfully claims it as his own, and David Oswald as a bombastic colonel perhaps least affected by the play’s story, but not that that stops him as he provides the play with several comic-relief moments.

The production utilizes a set design by Barlieb that represents the play’s pivotal scenes. Super graphics identify place and characters and include archival films of Vietnam War scenes.

The sound design has songs contemporary to the play’s era, notably “War,” written by Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield and originally recorded by The Temptations in 1968. It was a No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit in 1970 for Edwin Starr (1942-2003), a Vietnam veteran, who sang, “War, huh, yeah, What is it good for?,” a question posited by Marc Antony to great Caesar’s ghost, and ruminated in theaters (war or otherwise) to this day.

“Mothers Shall But Smile,” 7:30 p.m. Oct. 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21; 2 p.m. Oct. 8, 15, 22, Charles A. Brown Ice House, 56 River St., Bethlehem. Tickets: box office, 610-704-6974, https://www.ckplayers.com/