Talk about experience.
Steven Anthony Jones is bringing a wealth of it to his current assignment. He's directing Charles Fuller's "A Soldier's Play" as a guest artist at UNC School of the Arts, which will present the show beginning Feb. 17.
"A Soldier's Play" dramatizes the tensions that arise from racial segregation in World War II Army barracks. When the Negro Ensemble Company premiered the show in 1981, Jones was in the cast. He played Private Wilkie more than 400 times in New York, helping the show win a Pulitzer Prize and a Drama Critics Circle Award. After that, he joined a 21-month national tour, during which he picked up the role of Sgt. Vernon Waters.
Jones, who acted prolifically after his stint in "A Soldier's Play," recently was named the artistic director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in his hometown of San Francisco.
So how are the actors, all college juniors and seniors, faring under the direction of a man who not only knows the play inside out but also appreciates the rigors of presenting it eight times a week for a few years?
"He's so passionate," Gabe Brown, a cast member, said of Jones. "He knows the play so well. He knows what works and what's extraneous."
Brown likened Jones' style to that of a football coach. He urges them to practice the play again and again until it is done perfectly.
"They're all doing well," Jones said. "These are young actors. In most of the cases, they're playing characters that are older than they are. You can't acquire life experience that you don't have. They're simply developing their skills within the boundaries of the craft of acting and gaining experience in the process."
In "A Soldier's Play," black soldiers at Fort Neal, La., wait for their chance to fight in World War II. Shortly after Waters stumbles drunk on stage, a shot pierces the silence. An unknown gunman flees the scene, and Waters, who is black, falls dead.
Capt. Davenport, who also is black, arrives to conduct a murder investigation. He clashes with his fellow white officers about who has ultimate authority. Flashbacks show that Waters berated "unfit" blacks whom he felt were holding back his race.
The resulting tensions not only force the audience to confront their own prejudices but also highlight the power struggles of a racially segregated time.
Jones said that he's teaching the actors how to work. That means helping them find believable ways to inhabit the play's now-distant world. The script — if it's read closely — provides guidance. An example: The audience learns that Waters was awarded the Croix de Guerre when he fought for the French in World War I. At the time, the U.S. Army didn't allow blacks to participate in combat. The Croix de Guerre is the highest military honor in France, equivalent to the American Medal of Honor.
"Think about it," Jones said. "You come back to the United States (with a Croix de Guerre) and you're expected to accept segregation and racial prejudice. How would that affect you? That kind of research opens the door to a state of mind and an emotional place that you wouldn't be able to access otherwise."
Jones has instructed cast members to ask a neighbor or relative who lived through World War II to recollect the racial issues of that time and how they were affected.
Brown, who plays Capt. Davenport, was unable to find someone who lived through World War II. But he did talk to a black uncle from Mississippi who fought in the Vietnam War. The uncle became a highly decorated soldier. Yet when he returned home, he was refused service at the front of a Dairy Queen.
"It was eye-opening," Brown said. "We as 21st-century 20-year-olds don't understand how serious it was."
KKeuffel@wsjournal.com
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