‘Wave’ Wrestles With Thoughts on Racism

How would U.S. soldiers feel relinquishing their seats at a USO show so that their German POW charges might have a better view?

Bitterness doesn’t justify brutality, but it does make it more understandable in Leslie Lee’s “Ninth Wave,” a Black Artists’ Network Development production at the Lillian Theatre. Despite poorly developed peripheral characters and hazy motivations, this play’s center contains a heartfelt, well-acted conundrum--how black soldiers wrestled and reacted to racism.

In 1944, the U.S. military was still segregated. The so-called Negro troops were relegated to service units--building roads, moving supplies and providing medical service. They were mostly led by white officers.

For Lee’s black soldiers in liberated France, the Germans are just arrogant white men, but ones they have some measure of control over. They offered them freedom but shot the fleeing prisoners. Ranger (Russell Andrews) keeps a scoreboard, gleeful over the growing tally of dead “Krauts.” Only one man, the churchgoing, studious Bert (Carl Gilliard), hasn’t a mark to his name--and the peer pressure mounts.

Some moments ring false. With a white commander’s (Chris Bloch) enlightened attitude and his careless affair with the black chanteuse, Maizie (Juanita Jennings), Lee sweeps away layers of racial issues. Why Maizie flirtatiously encourages one of the soldiers despite her lover is also not well-delineated.

The best moments are in the barracks where director Andi Chapman keeps the men’s interaction (Andrews, Roscoe Freeman, Gilliard, Wheaton James, Maurice McRae and Kelvin Shepard) snappy.

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* “Ninth Wave,” Lillian Theatre, 1076 Lillian Way, Hollywood. Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 12. $17-$20. (323) 655-TKTS. Running time: 2 hours, 55 minutes.