A Soldier's Play: A Survey of Literary Criticism.
Charles Fuller is, according to Walter Kerr of the New York Times, one of the contemporary American theater's most forceful and original voices- (Malinowski 207).
Fuller has written several plays such as Zooman and the Sign, Brownsville Raid, The Village Party and an award winning A Soldier's Play. In all his plays, he deals with various social issues involving the African-American experience. Issues explored in his various plays range from interracial marriage to segregation and discrimination in the Army. Walter Kerr briefly describes the intentions of Fuller's plays:.
[ ] Fuller explores human relationships, particularly between blacks and whites, .
in what many critics find realistic, unbiased, and poignant terms. He's not.
tendentious: the work isn't agitprop or anything near it. Mr. Fuller isn't really.
interested in special pleading, but simply and directly and cuttingly observing .
what really does go in this world of ours after you've brushed the stereotypes way.
( Malinowski 207).
A Soldier's Play and Brownsville Raid the themes of are quite similar. They both focus on the issue of African-American discrimination in the Army. Brownsville Raid was based on true incident. It is set in the southern town of Brownsville, Texas. There was a mystery about a shoot up, which resulted in a fatality. The townspeople believe the nearby all-black 25th infantry is responsible. There was no trial ever conducted or evidence presented, but the whole infantry was dismissed. In the play there is a white .
James 2.
sergeant who is portrayed as a man who believes in his men. On the other hand, the men, according to critic Martin Gottfried:.
[ ] Are unaware that they should resent their segregation in an all black regiment.
They are too accustomed to being ineligible for commissions to be angry about it.