Charles Fuller’s 1981 off-Broadway A Soldier’s Play achieved a great accomplishment when it was named the year’s Pulitzer Prize winner, over every show that made it to the Broadway main stages. Turned into a hit movie, A Soldier’s Story in 1984, the piece remained dormant for 40 years until it was revived finally on Broadway in January of 2020 to critical acclaim. Six weeks later, Covid shut down the entertainment world as we knew it and closed the show. It was vindicated a year and a half later when it was awarded the Tony for Best Revival of a Play for the abbreviated season, and we are now treated to a fascinating national tour camping out at the Kennedy Center.
Taking place in 1944, when our army was still segregated, a black sergeant, Sgt. Vernon Waters (Eugene Lee), is murdered off base in a fictional Louisiana town. The obvious assumptions are that it was the white locals who resented black soldiers, or, more likely, the Klan. But the soldiers under him understand the KKK would have stripped him of his stripes, resenting the black soldiers who “contaminated” army. When Capt. Richard Davenport (Norm Lewis), a Howard University grad (which received cheers from the local audience) and the first black officer anyone on base has ever seen, arrives to investigate the murder, he meets resistance from his white peers in the person of West Point grad Capt. Charles Taylor (William Connell), who genially just wants to put the situation to rest without stirring up the ire of the black soldiers or the white townspeople forced to answer to a black investigator. Within a few brief interviews, it becomes apparent to Davenport that Waters, commanding officer to a unit of former members of the Negro Baseball League who now play for the highly successful base team, was a ball-busting tyrant who tolerated nothing less than exemplary behavior from his black subordinates, loathing laziness and Uncle Tom foolery that perpetuated stereotypes to their white counterparts.
Davenport quickly formulates a theory that the most likely suspect is among the black soldiers he bullied and ridiculed on a daily basis. He focuses his sights on family man Pvt. James Wilkie (Howard Overshown), a former sergeant that Waters stripped of his career stripes (and the privileges that came with them) as punishment for participating in a drunken brawl, gentle giant Pvt. C.J. Memphis (Sheldon D. Brown), the good-natured star baseball player who became the butt of Water’s loathing for entertaining the white officers with his musical and athletic abilities, and PFC Melvin Peterson (Tarik Lowe), a proud soldier who refused to tolerate Waters’ belittling behavior and was the only one who stood up to him.
The further Davenport digs, the more the action shift from whodunnit to why. He also dissects the intricate layers of racism, not just from the white officers and townies, but the black self-hate inflicted by Waters on his men for what he considered feeding into white racism and black shame. All these issues resound as strongly today as they did 40 yeas ago when the play debuted (and 40 years before that when the play is set).
Lewis (Broadway Center Stage’s The Music Man) is a commanding presence at the center as Davenport, and exudes confidence in his work and in himself as a black man in a white world. Brown’s Memphis is heartbreaking as a sweet, gentle man being persecuted for wanting to be liked. Overshown’s desperation as a family man who’s been unjustly robbed of all his career achievements is wrenching. Lowe is simply riveting as a man pushed to his limits by authority. But Eugene Lee is fascinating to watch delve the depths of internalized hate, humiliation, and the cruelty he draws upon to make his points as Waters. His performance is the triumph of a strong show.
The rest of the athletic corp (Will Adams, Brandon Davon Lindsay, and Malik Esoj Childs), each shine uniquely in their individual moments. Not just strong actors, this company was assembled with some consideration for superior, muscular torsos (not the type of taut athletic bodies baseball players of that era would have possessed). And Director Kenny Leon seizes every opportunity to flaunt their strong shirtless frames, which did not go unnoticed or unappreciated by the audience at this performance.
But Leon can be forgiven for pandering to these urges, because from start to finish, he has an exceptionally strong and commanding handle on the action, which flies back and forth between present day, depositions, and flashbacks seamlessly. He also draws clear lines and contrasts between the professional precision of the troop when in presence of officers, especially Waters, and their more informal, individualized behaviors like singing spirituals and stylizing their drills with syncopated claps and steps when alone—the very “buffoonery” that Waters detests and penalizes them for.
Set Designer Derek McLane’s two-tier wood beam set is functional despite being a little necessarily huge to fill the spaces of most touring houses. Costume Designer Dede Ayite provides all the proper military uniforms and undergear, with one special touch of having one of the unit’s baseball jerseys numbered 42 to obviously salute Jackie Robinson. Lighting Designer Allen Lee Hughes does an admirable job of mood lighting especially the murder scene and the flashbacks, and Dan Moses Schreier’s sound is flawless as usual at the Kennedy Center.
It was an interesting contrast to attend the Kennedy Center on two successive evenings to review megamusical Wicked on Wednesday and the small, precise, and intense A Soldier’s Play on Thursday. But what smart programming it was on the part of the Kennedy Center to provide such an incredible antidote to the sumptuous, otherworldy Ozian megahit with this extremely focused, sharp event that centers on so many real world themes.
all photos by Joan Marcus
Running Time: Approximately 2 hours with one 15 minute intermission
A Soldier’s Play currently plays through January 8, 2023, at the Eisenhower Theatre at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F Street NW, Washington DC 20566. For tickets, call the box office at 202.467.4600 or purchase online at http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index