LIBERTY CALL [Drama/Homosexuality/Military/Race/Sex/Ship/Trial] A: Burial Clay; D: Anderson Johnson; L: Sandra Ross; P: Negro Ensemble Company; T: St. Marks Playhouse (OB); 4/23/75-5/4/75 (8)
Note: no photo is
available for this production.
The Negro Ensemble Company produced this play as part of a
month-long series of new plays limited to eight performances each, under the
general title “A Season-Within-A-Season.” It concerned a proud Black man, Boatswain Mate 1C John Wilheart (Samm Williams), on board a Navy ship in Southeast Asia who befriends a wealthy, young White sailor, H.O.B. Rothschild III (Michael Jameson), only to discover the latter has fallen in love with
him.
Willing to do anything for money, the heterosexual Black has
sex with the gay White, an act that eventuates in the latter’s suicide. The
boatswain is then tried for sodomy and manslaughter, thereby coming in contact
with a Black Navy lawyer, Lt. Priest (Ramon Raffur), assigned to defend him. The action is
recounted in flashbacks, and is set on the ship, a brothel, a bar, ,and a shower
room.
“[T]oo much lumpy and needless exposition” got in the
playwright’s way, declared Edith Oliver, but he nonetheless managed to provide “playable”
scenes and a “dramatic” plot. “[T]he playwright’s writing is rich with barracks
humor,” noted Mel Gussow, but melodrama intruded where it should not have. This
workshop production was well presented and Samm Williams (a.k.a. Samm-Art
Williams, who wrote the successful play Home)
gave a strong performance.
