Review of The Plagiarists' War Song

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called. War Song. It was by Jessica Wright Buha and directed by Jack Dugan Carpenter. It is about a man who was in the Civil War and his name was Christian Fleetwood (Breon Arzell) and he wants to go and tell people in the South that they should treat African-American people more fairly, specifically that they should be able to be in the army and be something higher than a soldier, like a general. He encounters something that does not want him to go give his speech, in other words, his wife Sara Fleetwood (Jyreika Guest). But he keeps trying and Abraham Lincoln (Derik Marcussen) and Walt Whitman (Christopher Marcum) come and talk to them. She is worried that he'll get hurt or people will see that he was in the Union army and kill him. Lincoln and Walt Whitman are not scared because they are both dead and ghosts. This show tells you about someone's actual life and what it was like at that time and how even after the Civil War African-American people still were not treated equally.

The character of Abraham Lincoln was I thought a little bit strange because I found out when I saw this play that he was not actually fully not racist. That made me feel like, oh my gosh, I never knew that. It is sad to know that because you wanted him to be a good person, and he was not actually always the kind of person we wanted him to be. He did do good things but not all his thoughts were the kind of thoughts that were good. He contradicted himself, but I think that should have been Walt Whitman's role. (People have to get the joke by themselves.) I didn't like it how Abraham Lincoln was like, keep the gun outside because it reminds me of the incident; it seemed very cheesy because I understood that it reminded him of when he died and that seems like a Dracula movie or something. I think they wanted the audience to notice it more than I would have liked.

I thought that Sara and Christian's relationship was a really interesting one. It wasn't like most things where the wife is like very supportive of the husband. She is very scared for him and she doesn't want him to go. Christian thought that the war was a chance to show the world what African-American people could do. And Sara thought that people got hurt in war and that is bad no matter what they think. Sara thought that Liberia was a nice place and they should go there instead of here. And then Christian didn't want to go because he loved America too much. Sara feels like some of America is a good place and some is a bad place but in Liberia everywhere is good.

It thought it was really cool how Walt Whitman baked pie because he actually was a good baker in real life. And I liked how when they were talking about the smell of the pie you could actually smell pie. Then I thought it was a little bit weird when he came out that he didn't have any real pie at all, just ghost pie. That was a little bit more appropriate because he was a ghost. I liked the character of Walt Whitman; I thought he was an interesting character to have in this show because he thought war and death were both beautiful things. He loves pie and death because they are both beautiful things. He thought that everything was beautiful and he was almost always happy. I don't think that everything is beautiful, so I am not exactly like Walt Whitman, but I am kind of like Walt Whitman.

People who would like this show are people who like protective wives, Abraham Lincoln contradicting himself, and ghost pies. I learned about the Fleetwoods from the the Civil War who I hadn't heard of before. It wasn't an I-love-everything-about-America show because Sara didn't even want Christian to support even the good parts of America. We need to have shows that are like this one because it would be a lie that everything about America is good. I think the right thing is to support the good part of America but find a way to make the bad parts good.

Photos: Joe Mazza--Brave Lux Photography