We all know that
slave owners fathered children by their slaves. We know that a good number of
our Founding Fathers founded families by theirs. Thanks to Ken Burns, we know
the personal stories of slaves and soldiers who fought for and against
emancipation. There’s never a shortage of movies about the Civil War. Is there
a new way to tell those stories?
Playwright
Matthew Lopez has found a new angle on the struggle with his Civil War tale of
a Jewish family from Virginia
whose slaves keep the faith even after they’ve been declared free men. THE
WHIPPING MAN (at New Repertory Theatre through Feb. 16th) is set in
Janie E. Howland’s eerily resonant, gutted and looted shell of a plantation
house where Dewey Dellay’s creaks and moans transport us to the smoking ruins
of Richmond, 1865.
Director Benny
Sato Ambush has a remarkable cast to breathe humanity into what might have been
the stereotypical characters we often see in film and on television: The
wounded rebel soldier who finally makes it home, only to find his family gone
and the only people left are his former slaves, a young man about his age who
finds/steals anything abandoned in nearby mansions and the trusted
“jack-of-all-trades” former slave who headed their household.
Johnny Lee
Davenport makes the fatherly man both kind and righteous. He answers the
soldier’s indictment of God with “War is not proof of His absence. It’s proof
of His absence in men’s hearts.” He is under no obligation to stay with his
former owner’s son but he’s a humane man so he ministers to his wounds. Nor is
he under any further obligation to remain Jewish but Lopez makes a good case
for parallels with the Israelites, ties witnessed in many an African-American
spiritual.
Jesse Hinson
manages to portray both the hubris of a slave owner and the desperation of a
pathetic man broken by war. Keith Mascoll gives a wry performance as the
bitter, sardonic ex-slave who puts his own interests above anyone else’s…and
who wins us over with his secret. Lopez trades on revelations (which aren’t so
hard to anticipate) but Sato Ambush and company create a moving portrait much
larger than its secrets.
