PicksInSix Review: A SOLDIER'S PLAY - Broadway in Chicago
Fistfuls of alternating power and hate.
Guest Contributor Ronald Keaton|PicksInSix® Review
“They still hate you!” The words ring out as the first moments in witnessing a murder. They are accompanied by a seeming prisoner’s work song from soldiers in an impressionistic barracks– the set piece of the painful, eloquent “A Soldier’s Play,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by American playwright Charles Fuller, whom we lost last October. And it’s all deftly staged by the marvelous director Kenny Leon and now revived through Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2020 Tony Award-winning production on tour throughout North America and at Broadway In Chicago’s CIBC Theatre through April 16.
It’s a phrase with a fatalistic implication, as uttered by a drunken Sergeant Vernon C. Waters (a masterful presence throughout by Eugene Lee) from the 2nd floor of a US Army barracks set design by Derek McLane. It’s stark and hazy, both at once, reflective of a time (the Deep South in Louisiana during World War II) that shows how stunningly small the progress for the civil rights movement in America was in its segregated military from the Civil War to these moments.
Captain Richard Davenport (a stylish, emotional Norm Lewis), a Black Army officer, has been sent to Fort Neal, Louisiana, to investigate the killing. He is received at first with mocking and almost disbelief by Captain Charles Taylor (William Connell), who expresses his displeasure with Davenport questioning anyone, no matter their race, because of their low regard in a military placed in the old Confederacy…A Black officer? AND a lawyer? Indeed, the initial suspects are local Klansmen. Then later on, two bigoted white soldiers (strong turns by Matthew Goodrich and Chattan Mayes Johnson) fall under Davenport’s suspicion.
The story is told in atmospheric flashback sequences, as Davenport’s piercing questions create memories for the audience to absorb, through each man’s story in the unit being questioned. Sgt. Waters–ambitious, of strong intellect and self-regard–treated the soldiers in his unit as almost sub-standard, making them fit into the stereotypes he views as “holding our race back.” But in that same regard, he belatedly realizes in his drunken state that his white ‘superiors’ will never allow him his equality, no matter how much he might emulate their own behavior and attitudes. For those actions and his persecution of the soldiers he commands, Waters is murdered while uttering his own death knell–they do still hate him. All of them.
Mr. Lewis offers a strong military man who is not afraid to take charge of the investigation. His Davenport acts also as a kind of gentle, principled narrator who guides us through the maze of this complex tale. Mr. Lee is magnetic and grabs his moments in fistfuls of alternating power and hate. Mr. Connell’s Captain Taylor is properly doubtful and disdaining. For this writer, the strength of the story lies with the men in the barracks. The one modicum of respect given them (if one can call it that) is that all these men are baseball players from the Negro Leagues, and they play ball against white teams every Saturday during the season. They are skilled athletes who fiercely bond together in that baseball experience, even as Waters denigrates them for doing so. Our eyes and hearts are drawn to the wonderful Sheldon D. Brown as CJ Memphis, a gentle and pure soul who is driven to suicide and a fine, prickly Tarik Lowe as Peterson, who challenges Waters with his own misguided passions. There is a host of clear, articulate characterizations from a topnotch ensemble of artists–Howard Overshown, Branden Davon Lindsey, Malik Esoj Childs, Alex Michael Givens, and Will Adams.
A SOLDIER’S PLAY - at the CIBC Theatre through April 16, 2023. Broadway in Chicago
As the albatross around the country’s neck, the battle of racism in America continues as a piercing-hot specter to face, to understand and to deal with in all its forms. Mr. Fuller’s forceful, passionate prose makes us do so with issues that still tragically ring true in our contemporary world. Mr. Leon, one of our great theatre craftsmen, shows us in his wily direction straight-on how such issues stand up and make us stare. And wonder. And in moments good and bad, take action to address. A full experience here to view for us all.
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | RONALD KEATON received an Equity Jeff Award for the performance of his one-man show CHURCHILL. www.solochicagotheatre.com Coming soon, his new solo play “Echo Holler.” www.echoholler.com
PHOTO|Joan Marcus
BROADWAY IN CHICAGO
A SOLDIER’S PLAY
CIBC Theatre
through April 16, 2023
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