A Soldier's Play is a 1981 stage play by Charles Fuller.
The setting is a military base in Louisiana in 1944, as the U.S. Army is gearing up for the invasion of France. The Army is still segregated in 1944 and most of the characters are African-American members of the 221st Smoke Generating Company. A sergeant, Vernon Waters, is murdered, shot to death. It is originally feared that the Klan or other white Louisiana racists killed Sgt. Waters. A black officer, Captain Davenport, is sent to Louisiana to investigate the crime.
The story plays out over a series of flashbacks as Capt. Davenport interviews members of the platoon. It turns out that the platoon in question was a sort of specialty unit consisting of Negro League baseball players. Sgt. Waters, a black man from up north, is eventually revealed to have a dislike for Southern blacks and specifically a seething hatred of any black people that might be perceived as behaving in a stereotypical manner. Sgt. Waters focuses his hatred on one particular player on the baseball team, Private C.J. Memphis, with tragic consequences.
The original cast featured future stars Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson as, respectively, Privates Peterson and Henson. In 1984 a film adaptation called A Soldier's Story was released, with Washington reprising his role along with Adolph Caesar (Sgt. Waters) and Larry Riley (Pvt. Memphis).
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: A sorrowful Captain Davenport reflects in his monologue at the end that two people are dead and two more are in prison and none of it had to happen if they'd had "bigger hearts" and if they'd understood that it was institutional white racism that brought them to this point. Oh, and the whole unit, officers and men, was "wiped out" by a German attack in the Ruhr.
- Asshole Victim: Sgt. Waters, a real Drill Sergeant Nasty who even went above and beyond that, deliberately provoking C.J. into striking him just so he'd have an excuse to put C.J. in prison.
- Boomerang Bigot: Sgt. Waters. He has spent his whole life emulating white people, acting like them, and hating other blacks that he believes act like racist stereotypes. He realizes too late, just before he's killed, that it was All for Nothing and racist whites will never respect him.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Capt. Davenport sometimes addresses the audience directly, like in his first appearance when he recounts the facts of Sgt. Waters' murder, and his last when he describes how Peterson was eventually caught and how the rest of the unit was wiped out in combat with the Germans.
- Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: Capt. Taylor, CO of the unit, and Sgt. Waters. Capt. Taylor isn't exactly an enlightened fellow—he tells Capt. Davenport that the very idea of a black officer makes him uncomfortable—but he is easygoing enough to let the men have the afternoon off after they win a baseball game. Sgt. Waters is a hard, stern taskmaster, who is eventually revealed to have an all-consuming hatred for blacks that he deems too stereotypical.
- The Dog Bites Back: Private Peterson, driven by Sgt. Waters's abuse of him personally and also wanting revenge for C.J.'s death, shoots and kills Waters.
- Double Tap: The opening scene shows the killer shooting Sgt. Waters, then after a moment, stepping back over and shooting him again in the head.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Sgt. Waters, who abuses and insults his men and is revealed to genuinely hate at least some of them.
- Driven to Suicide: Private Memphis comes unglued at the prospect of a prison sentence, and hangs himself in his cell.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Sgt. Waters went out on a drinking binge after Pvt. Memphis killed himself, and is still drunk when he is murdered by Private Peterson.
- Fatal Family Photo: It's a little bit backwards, since the audience has already seen Sgt. Waters get murdered in the opening moments of the play. But still, he does show the others a photo of his wife and son, in an early scene.
- Flashback: Many, as Capt. Davenport interviews various members of the company and the events that led up to the murder are shown in a series of flashbacks.
- Flashback Within a Flashback: Peterson asks Taylor about his interrogation of the white officers, Byrd and Wilcox, that confronted Waters just before Waters was murdered. That interrogation then plays out in a flashback, with Taylor questioning Byrd and Wilcox. Within that flashback there's another flashback in which the actualy confrontation between Byrd, Wilcox, and Waters is shown.
- It Will Never Catch On: Peterson sneers at the idea that the Army might ever be integrated. Harry Truman integrated the U.S. military in 1948.
- Posthumous Character: Sgt. Waters, who is murdered in the opening moments of the play but who appears throughout in a series of flashbacks.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: When Capt. Davenport makes his first appearance, the stage directions specify that he wears glasses. This signals that Davenport, the officer, is an intellectual.
- Starbucks Skin Scale: The opening stage directions specifically describe Sgt. Waters as "light-skinned." This obviously is part of Sgt. Waters' complex mix of psychological hangups and how he hates blacks that he regards as stereotypical.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: Sgt. Waters has taken this to a terrible extreme. Eventually he reveals that he goaded C.J. into hitting him so Waters could have him court-martialed for striking a superior—and that he's done it before, specifically for the purpose of putting "stereotypical" black soldiers in prison. And if that isn't bad enough, Waters eventually tells his sidekick Wilkie that back during World War I, he murdered a black man that allowed some white soldiers to dress him up in a humiliating minstrel costume.Waters: I'm the kinda colored man that don't like lazy, shiftless Negroes!
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Davenport is forced to work with Captain Taylor, the white officer in charge of Waters' platoon and initially in charge of the investigation. Taylor is dismissive of Davenport because Taylor suspects two white officers, one of them a known racist, of Waters' death and because Taylor knows a black officer in the 1940s could never bring charges against them. Subverted in that when presented with evidence and testimony by the two white officers, Taylor wants to arrest them, while Davenport is only looking for justice.
