Near the end of A Soldier’s Play, set on a segregated Army base in the Jim Crow South in 1944, a white captain says to his Black counterpart, “I was wrong about Negroes being in charge… I guess I’ll have to get used to it.” And the Black captain, putting on his dark glasses, replies, “Oh, you’ll get used to it – you can bet your sweet ass on that, captain. You will get used to it.”
It’s an important, telling moment that does predict future changes in the armed forces. Unfortunately, those changes have taken decades—and they are not completed yet. As long as we have to note the first Black man or woman to achieve something, as long as it isn’t commonplace, we aren’t there yet.
Charles Fuller’s tightly structured 1981 play is at heart a fascinating murder mystery. But it’s far more than that, with its nuanced story and performances that highlight the conditions that Black soldiers worked under in the 1940s and it points the finger at racism in any multi-tiered organization today. A Soldier’s Play is today’s story.
The strong ensemble production is set at Ft. Neal, Louisiana, where a group of enlisted men, all talented baseball players from the Negro Leagues, have been sent to play ball against local semipro and industrial teams. Kenny Leon’s crisp direction of the cast of a dozen male and mostly Black actors brings these elements together in a smoothly choreographed production.
The play begins with the murder of Sergeant Vernon Waters (Eugene Lee), a “spit and polish” non-com (non-commissioned officer), who is mean and often tyrannical to his troops; Waters despises what he considers Black behavior and seems to want his men to behave more like whites. Waters berates soldiers like C.J. Memphis (Sheldon D. Brown) for his jive talk and guitar playing. When Waters is shot and killed on a country road near the base, both the Black soldiers and the white officers assume it was a KKK lynching.
The army brass try to play down the murder and avoid an investigation that would rile the white community. However, Lieutenant Charles Taylor (William Connell) reports the murder to Army headquarters and an MP officer is dispatched to Ft. Neal to investigate. Taylor is surprised to meet the investigator, a rare Black officer, Captain Richard Davenport (a fierce portrayal by Norm Lewis, Da 5 Bloods, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera). Taylor assumes that Davenport will pursue possible obvious suspects like the KKK or white officers. However, Taylor doesn’t know the kind of investigator that Davenport is. He interviews each enlisted man and officer, meticulously and fairly, to get at the atmosphere that Sgt. Waters created in the barracks and how and why he might have been murdered. The ending is a stunning reveal for everyone.
This production was originally staged by Roundabout Theatre in January 2020 and, post-pandemic, did not reopen on Broadway but instead began its national tour. Chicago’s production is presented by Broadway in Chicago.
Fuller said his play was a loose adaptation of Herman Melville’s novella, Billy Budd. Unlike some of his other plays (The Brownsville Raid and Zooman and the Sign), A Soldier’s Play is not based on historical events. Fuller uses it to explore Blacks’ attitudes toward each other as well as toward the white military community. The 1981-82 production by the Negro Ensemble Company featured Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson as enlisted men. The play won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as several major theatrical awards. The script was adapted by Fuller for the 1984 film, A Soldier’s Story. Fuller died in 2022.
Kenny Leon’s smart direction draws strong performances from these soldiers: From Lee as Sgt. Waters, Brown as C.J. Memphis, and from Tarik Lowe and Howard W. Overshown as two other soldiers, Peterson and Wilkie. And Lewis' commanding presence as Davenport reminds the Black soldiers how proud they are to see a man who looks like them with captain's bars.
The two-level, minimalist set designed by Derek McLane works beautifully as a way to show central action as well as what’s happening in the background. Lighting is by Allen Lee Hughes and sound by Dan Moses Schreier. Costumes are by Dede Ayite.
A Soldier’s Play, presented by Broadway in Chicago, continues at CIBC Theatre, 18 W. Monroe St., through April 16. Tickets are available online for performance Tuesday-Sunday. Running time is 110 minutes including one intermission.