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A Soldier's Play | Introduction

A Soldier’s Play opened November 20, 1981, at the Negro Ensemble Company for the first of 468 performances. Fuller has stated that his play is modeled after Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, which explores a confrontation between evil and innocence that results in tragedy. While it is about the investigation of a murder, A Soldier’s Play is not a murder mystery in the strictest sense. The investigation does not consist of policemen unraveling clues or of the simple analysis of physical evidence. Instead, the investigation by a black officer is primarily an exploration into who the slain Waters really was and how racism influences men’s behaviors and ideals. The investigator, Captain Davenport, tries to solve this mystery by interviewing the men who served under Waters.

These interviews provide pieces of a puzzle, that when assembled, create a picture of a complex man who often bullied his men but who saw the war as an opportunity for blacks to escape the constraints of segregation. The portrait of Waters reveals a man who has found the only power white men will give to a black man—as a non-commissioned officer in the army during World War II. Critics were enthusiastic about Fuller’s play, which won a Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Award in 1982, but A Soldier’s Play also provoked controversy. Where some critics argued that Fuller was forcing audience members to confront their own prejudge, a leading black dramatist, Amiri Baraka, accused Fuller of working against his own race and of fulfilling the dreams of white power. Fuller’s play was never produced on Broadway; rumor has it that Fuller refused to remove the last line of the play, ‘‘you’ll get used to it [Negroes being in charge].’’

A Soldier's Play Summary

The play opens with the murder of Sergeant Waters. The audience sees Waters on stage; he is drunk. Immediately there are two shots, but the audience never sees who fires the weapon. In the next scene, five black soldiers are being searched for weapons and they are confined to their barracks, presumably until the risk of a revenge killing ends. Captain Davenport appears on stage and addresses the audience in a monologue that explains why a black lawyer has been sent to a southern army base to investigate a murder. There is immediate conflict when the company captain, Taylor, learns that Davenport is black. Taylor warns Davenport that he will get no cooperation and that no one in authority will allow a black officer to arrest a white man, if the murderer turns out to be white. Taylor also tells Davenport that white officers at the post will not... » Complete A Soldier's Play Summary