A SOLDIERS PLAY on Broadway with Blair Underwood

Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize Winning Play is making its Broadway debut at the American Airlines Theater.  The play first appeared off-Broadway in 1981 & made into the movie "A Soldiers Story" starring Denzel Washington which earned an Acad. Award nom.  Fuller's play is set in 1944 at Fort Neal, LA.  A Negro's only squadron, under the command of Capt. Waters (an astounding David Alan Grier) is eager to be called to serve overseas. The first Negro battalion to encounter combat was Oct. '44.  The army was segregated, Negro officers were rare & vicious racial hatred prevailed over the Jim Crow south.  Fuller's play calls out racial injustice & the hypocrisy of American morals fighting in WWII.  Capt. Davenport, (an electrifying Blair Underwood) is a black officer & atty. assigned to Fort Neal to investigate the murder of Capt. Waters assumed murdered by the KKK.  Davenport is met with disrespectful & reluctant co-operation by Capt. Taylor (a miscast Jerry O'Connell).  This storyline mirrors "In the Heat of the Night" with a diminished bite.  Davenport is unflappable & methodically proceeds to interview all the men in the regiment and several white officers.  The Black soldiers have unfettered astonishment for a Black captain & mostly contempt from white army officers.  There's cageyness from some & startling revelations from others uncovered during investigation.  Life for these men on the base, their dynamics & relationships to Capt.Waters and others begin to emerge.  All the privates paint a similar but varying & insightful view of their Capt. and one another.  Knowing who done it hampers the suspense of the mystery, still the play packs a painful punch.  Regardless, the impact of racial hatred & systemic injustice during this time period reverberates boldly today.  The intentional conspiring to create an elitist race resounds with putrid irony.  The ensemble cast is terrific.  Stand out performances were from Pvt. C. J. (J. Alphonse Nicholson) and Pvt. Tony Smalls (Jared Grimes).  Grimes' short tap dance was terrific and fell into step as did the regiment's drill.  The uncredited choreography may be Grimes' gift to the play.  A SOLDIER'S PLAY was well staged and engaging.  The audiences' outburst & catcalls for Blair's shirtless moment was an amusing distraction.  The smattering of hoots & laughter may signify mitigating gravitas to the heavy undertow of racial hatred.  Still, Fuller's plays maintains a significant place in theatrical & American history; past & present.