An interracial couple fall in love on VJ Day 1945 only to find their post-WWII hopes and dreams dashed by the discovery that, as the French so aptly put it, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” in the Victory Theatre Center West Coast Premiere of Warren Leight’s eye-opening, emotion-packed Home Front.

First encounters don’t get much more romantic than that of James (C.J. Lindsey) a handsome, decorated Navy Lieutenant, and Annie (Austin Highsmith Garces), a lovely 20something war widow, at a Times Square bar on the night the US has just declared victory over Japan after nearly four years of worldwide war.

And hopes don’t get much higher than James’s that WWII had forever changed the playing field for blacks in America.

He had, after all, been one of the “Golden Thirteen,” a baker’s dozen black men elevated to Navy Officer status thanks to first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, proof in James’s mind that “the world will never be the same.”

Reality begins to rear its ugly head when he, like his fellow black officers, is put last in line for discharge papers, and forget any idea of the couple tying the marital knot any time soon, miscegenation then being grounds for a dishonorable discharge, and perhaps even worse.

With James re-stationed down South, Annie must await his return in their shabby New York basement apartment, single, (unbeknownst to James) pregnant, and all alone were it not for the friendship of sassy gay neighbor Edward (Jonathan Slavin), a returning war medic recently hired by Lord and Taylor to decorate their Christmas windows.

Though this opposite-sex friendship doesn’t sit well with James, it ends up the last thing on his mind when he suddenly finds himself facing a dishonorable discharge for something entirely unrelated to his relationship with a white woman, but equally damning in the eyes of those living deep down in the Jim Crow south.

Not only has Tony-winning playwright Leight (Side Man) written an adeptly constructed three-hander that segues effortlessly from comedic romcom to suspenseful drama, he gives 21st-century audiences a rare glimpse into what life was like in the pre-Civil Rights Movement, pre-Women’s Lib, pre-Stonewall 1940s, and under Maria Gobetti’s incisive direction, Home Front’s three charismatic stars deliver electrifying performances.

His hair cropped short and slickly pomaded as was the fashion for black men of that era, Walker’s dashingly handsome James is both heroic and heartbreaking as postwar optimism gets slowly stripped away and life’s ugly realities begin to emerge.

The always captivating Garces matches her leading man every step of the way, and if Annie’s initial scenes serve primarily to reveal the L.A. stage star’s girl-next-door appeal, just wait until Annie’s pent-up fury gives Garces the chance to display bona fide dramatic chops in the most devastating of confrontations.

Slavin is instantly sympathetic and (as Edward himself might put it) simply divine as a gay man allowed the freedom to live a relatively open New York City life that would have been unthinkable pretty much anywhere else in the country.

Scenic designer Evan Bartoletti and video designer Jermaine Alexander have joined creative forces to give Home Front a terrifically detailed multi-locale set whose upstage “wall” serves both as a screen for Alexander’s scene-setting projections and as a transparent scrim with hidden surprises to reveal.

Add to this Benedict Conran’s vibrant lighting, Carin Jacobs’ excellent period dresses, suits, and uniforms, and Noah Andrade’s 1940s-infused sound design and you have as topnotch a production design as any theatergoer could wish for.

Home Front is produced by Tom Ormeny, Gobetti, and Bartoletti. Cody Hathcock is stage manager. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

John Paul Dunn and Emerson Collins understudy the roles of James and Edward.

Interracial marriage may no longer raise much of an eyebrow, women may have made significant strides in attaining their equal rights, and gays may now marry and serve openly in the military, but as recent Supreme Court decisions have made painfully clear, nothing is set in stone.

Warren Leight’s gut-puncher of a play is a powerful reminder of how things were, and where we might once again be headed. It gets the 2023 theater year off to a bang-up start.

The Victory Theatre Center, 3326 West Victory Blvd., Burbank.
www.thevictorytheatrecenter.org

–Steven Stanley
January 13, 2022
Photos: Tim Sullens

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, The Victory Theatre Center, Warren Leight