Proud mans story told in Reflections of a Heart

6/21/2010 11:44:27 AM

NEW YORK – "Reflections of a Heart" casts a spotlight on an ugly period in American history when black soldiers who had fought in World War II returned home to face bigotry, violence and disrespect.

Christopher G. Roberts wrote and directed the powerful SteppingStone ensemble production, which is based on a real-life incident. Roberts also gives a complex performance as Isaac Woodard Jr., a decorated U.S. Army sergeant who was blinded in a vicious assault by a white sheriff in Batesburg, S.C.

We first see Woodard in 1951, in the Bronx, N.Y., where he ekes out a living playing his guitar on the street, drinking too much, trying to support his two young children and his loyal but disillusioned wife, Rosie .

When the Woodards are visited by two menacing police detectives, who seem determined to convict Isaac of a petty crime he says he didn't commit, he begins to have flashbacks to the terrible incident in 1946 that ruined his young life.

In disturbing scenes that do not shy away from raw, ugly language and behavior, Woodard is shown with friends in military uniform at a segregated rest stop where he is falsely accused of causing a disturbance, detained without cause, then remorselessly beaten, more than once, by the racist sheriff.

Deliberately left in a jail cell for several days without medical treatment, he becomes permanently blind, and is eventually shipped off to a veterans' hospital.

Mark Ellmore gives a stereotypical but effective performance as the unrepentant, smug sheriff, who even steals the gravely injured Woodard's government paycheck, muttering, "For all the trouble you caused me."

Reginald L. Barnes is touching as Woodard's best friend, Henderson, who appears several times during the play, both alive and as a ghost/conscience for his friend. He speaks to the audience about social conditions of the time, and urges his gravely injured friend to not let this terrible thing change him, to remember his special strength and to begin healing himself.

Rosie finds Isaac weeks later with the help of an idealistic, white college girl , who witnessed the beginning of the incident at the bus depot and wants to help turn Woodard's plight into a national cause.

But Roberts' characterization of Woodard is dark and self-pitying, rather than a portrait of a willing national champion. In 1946, he doesn't know what the NAACP is, and doesn't want to become a national cause.

While Roberts depicts the offstage beatings and subsequent neglect of the injured soldier in extended scenes that are disturbing to watch, the casual racism depicted is even more disturbing.

A strong ensemble cast portrays multiple people at the bus depot and the veterans' hospital, including David Wirth as a white police detective who appears to waver at times in his hostility toward Woodard.

Roberts' play, and his portrayal of a proud, broken man, take the audience on Woodard's tortured personal journey to accept a terrible injustice. "Reflections of a Heart" is in a limited run through June 27 at the Clurman Theatre.