This 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning thriller has rocketed back into the spotlight, thanks to this 2020 Tony Award®-winning Best Revival from Roundabout Theatre Company. “This is a play that deserves to be staged regularly all over America—though it’s hard to imagine that it will ever be done better than this. It keeps you guessing all the way to the final curtain” (The Wall Street Journal).
In 1944, on a Louisiana Army base, two shots ring out. A Black sergeant is murdered. And a series of interrogations triggers a gripping barrage of questions about sacrifice, service, and identity in America. Broadway’s Norm Lewis leads a powerhouse cast in the show Variety calls “a knock-your-socks-off-drama," directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon.
An observation for me is the relevancy of the storyline racism is still as prevalent today as it was during the time period in which A Soldier's Play was set. Major kudos to director, Kenny Leon, the cast of A Soldier's Play, and of course the playwright, the late Charles Fuller (who passed away last year) for reminding this audience that we still have a long way to go to knock down the door of racism, whether it is systemic or individualized.
When “A Soldier’s Play” was first staged in the 1980s, playwright Charles Fuller took heat for highlighting how racism-at-large infected relations among his Black characters. Some critics charged that the play perpetuated stereotypes that needed burying. Fuller argued that all communities suffer from a wide range of emotions and behaviors and that his characters also lived in a context where the dynamics of hate, self-hatred and resistance demanded exploration. Four decades later, with the help of a strong production and fantastic cast, Fuller (who died last year) seems on firmer ground than ever. This is a story about Black soldiers in a certain time and place, but the issues for Blacks and whites still manifest. The ousting of two African American legislators from the Tennessee Statehouse was unfolding the night I saw this show. Black people certainly are not the only ones who must mediate complicated power relations that can work against what others might see as common cause. Kindred stories can be told of prisoners, refugees, concentration camp populations and many others. Indeed, “A Soldier’s Play,” is adapted, in part, from Herman Melville’s unfinished classic “Billy Budd,” set in the class-riven British Navy of the eighteenth century. “A Soldier’s Play” has a depth all its own, however.
1981 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2005 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2020 | Broadway |
Roundabout Theatre Company's Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2022 | US Tour |
North American Tour US Tour |
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