HOME FRONT - Review

   After news broke that World War II was over, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt took the famous picture of a sailor jubilantly kissing a woman in Times Square. “I wondered what their lives would have been like had they been an interracial couple?” asks playwright Warren Leight. “As the son of a jazz musician, I grew up around many interracial couples, and I saw early on the pressures on their lives and marriages.” In his challenging play, Austin Highsmith Garces and C.J. Lindsey star as a white woman and an African American soldier who fall in love the night World War II ends. Jonathan Slavin plays a gay army veteran modeled after Leight’s uncle. Says director Maria Gobetti, “Racism was rampant in the military during World War II. At the time, it was still illegal to marry outside one’s race... Have things really changed all that much?”

This is what I announced in my theater column in NOT BORN YESTERDAY and I must admit I was quite unprepared for the emotional power of the play. A couple meet on that same glorious night, filled with the joy of believing this victory heralds a change and their love can bloom. Their scenes together are electric – at first with a gentle hum, then a sensual reality. Yes, it’s a love story that evolves into a domestic tragedy, but most of all it’s an indictment of our society even today.

C.J. Lindsey brilliantly portrays a man living in a society that denies his manhood, that mocks him by pretending to acknowledge his worth, while undermining his self-image. What happens to this man who believes in the promise that winning the war against racism means there is now authentic acceptance? That night of nights was the fulfilment of a promise – but was it – and the realization that nothing has changed has the cruel power to harden a man’s soul, to destroy the love he feels, and punish those his heart longs to protect and serve.

            Austin Highsmith Garces moves gracefully from naïve charmer to passionate lover to bewildered waiting woman. Jonathan Slavin as a gay understanding neighbor moves from playful friendship to compassionate determination while facing a society that he is aware also demeans him.

Langston Hughes famously asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?” and author Leight answers with the fate of this proud gentle man. At Victory Theatre Center, 3324 W. Victory Blvd, Burbank. For tickets: 818-841-5421 or www.thevictorytheatrecenter.org

Cover photo by Jennifer Logan.   Performance photos by Tim Sullens