Philadelphia-born playwright Charles Fuller’s riveting drama “A Soldier’s Play”—continuing at the Ahmanson Theatre through June 25—won a 1982 Pulitzer Prize and became the basis for a 1984 film. The play also won a Tony Award for Best Revival when it ran on Broadway in early 2020, before COVID-19 forced it to shut down.
Fuller passed away last year, leaving behind a body of work immersed in the African American experience, incorporating his military experience as well. Reporting on his death last October, CNN noted that “Fuller wrote plays that aimed to portray Black Americans authentically as multidimensional, complex characters rather than confine them to stereotypical roles or erase them entirely.”
That complexity is brought to visceral life in “A Soldier’s Play” at the Ahmanson, expertly directed by Kenny Leon (who also directed Center Theatre Group’s “King James” last year). Set in a Louisiana army barrack in 1944, the story focuses on the enigmatic shooting death of Black army sergeant Vernon Waters (a sharp and spry Eugene Lee)—whom plenty of people had motive to harm, including the local Ku Klux Klan.
Deciding who actually killed him falls to our narrator, Captain Richard Davenport (a warm Norm Lewis), a Black lawyer serving in the army’s military police. But Davenport meets resistance from white Captain Charles Taylor (William Connell), who doesn’t believe Davenport will be able to convince higher-ups of his findings, whatever they might be, due to the color of his skin, and all Taylor wants is the truth.
Hearing Taylor’s bald-faced condescension of Davenport, even though both are captains, may be disconcerting to 2023 ears yet its casual racism familiarly real. Later in the play, blatant racist hate by an MP (Chattan Mayes Johnson)—who is among the last to see the sergeant alive—is similarly intense but reflective of attitudes even now. Sound design by Dan Moses Schreier embraces that continuity between then and now with modern music at the beginning and end.
But the play probes the effects of ingrained racism more deeply as well. For we come to see that Sergeant Waters was a man of extremes when it came to “advancing” the Black race. He wants to send his own children to “learn the ways of the white man” at college so as to take over their world while disparaging certain “Negroes” he says make the entire race look bad.
One of those is muscular Private C. J. Memphis (Sheldon D. Brown), who sings the blues with his guitar in a deep, velvety voice every chance he gets. But as Davenport learns while investigating, Waters had it in for the private from the get-go because of the boy’s relative innocence and docility, which Waters despises to the point of wanting to eradicate him from the race.
Self-hatred thus emerges as a theme, its consequences explored especially through the testimonies of the other soldiers under the sergeant’s watch, who also comprise the division’s winning Black baseball team. As we get their stories about Waters and the events leading up to his shooting—effectively enacted in flashback as they recount (thanks to an open set design by Derek McLane with lighting by Allen Lee Hughes)—we slowly learn that the truth may be more complicated than surface appearances.
Each of the soldiers is uniquely drawn by Fuller and fluidly portrayed by the cast (Will Adams, Tarik Lowe, Alex Michael Givens, Branden Davon Lindsay, Howard W. Overshown, Malik Esoj Childs and Brown). Their camaraderie—often infused with soulful and rhythmic singing, along with military saluting and marching—is spirited and delightful.
Ironically, eager to deploy and defeat the Nazis, these soldiers navigate insidious racism in their own country—even within their own army, in which they supposedly serve equally with whites, equally willing to give their lives. A compelling final scene features a large American flag as if to underscore that point.
Beautifully staged and acted—portraying a gripping psychological tale both of its time and timelessly true—“A Soldier’s Play” is not to be missed.
“A Soldier’s Play” continues at Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, through June 25, with performances Tuesdays through Fridays at 8:00 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Tickets start at $40 and can be purchased by calling the box office at (213) 628-2772 or visiting CenterTheatreGroup.org. Run time is 2 hours and 15 minutes, including intermission.