In general, A Soldier's Play received very favorable reviews when it debuted Off-Broadway in November 1981. Critics were enthusiastic and audiences receptive to Fuller's mystery. For example, Frank Rich's review in The New York Times, calls Fuller's play a major breakthrough and "in every way, a mature and accomplished work." A Soldier's Play is also "a relentless investigation into the complex, sometimes cryptic pathology of hate." What Rich calls a "skillful portraiture of a dozen characters" creates "a remarkable breadth of social and historical vision." Rich is also enthusiastic about the cast, especially Charles Brown as Davenport, Denzel Washington as Peterson, and Peter Friedman as Taylor, but Rich's greatest praise is for Adolphe Caesar's performance of Waters, a role that is "hateful... one moment and a sympathetic, pitiful wreck the next." Referring to Douglas Turner Ward's direction as "superlative," Rich notes that Fuller's play "tirelessly insists on...