Josh Landay in “The Whipping Man.” (photo by Michael Brosilow)
Halfway through the second act of the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre’s production of The Whipping Man, something miraculous happens. We’ve known for a while that an unusual Passover celebration will take place, but nothing can prepare us for the beauty and emotional resonance in the moment that Simon (James Craven) begins leading his “family” in prayer.
His “family,” you see, is made up of two former slaves of the DeLeon household of Richmond, Virginia, and the wounded Caleb DeLeon, who has somehow made his way home. It is April 15, 1865, three days after Lee’s surrender, and Simon insists that the trio hold a Seder—just as the “family” has done for generations. (His resolve is strengthened by another historical event on that day, which I won’t remind you of.)
Playwright Matthew Lopez uses the moment to let the resonances between the Jewish and African-American experience—suggested by the very premise of the story—ring forth in Simon’s words. Until now, Craven—a company member of Minneapolis’s Penumbra Theatre—has played Simon as a time-weathered survivor, a man of gravitas who barely celebrates his emancipation because there is still so much to be done. But as he begins to intone the rituals of the Seder, the talk and prayers about bitter herbs and unleavened bread slip into the familiar and powerful rhythms of gospel-inflected sermons, and finally into gorgeous Spirituals themselves, sung with the radiance of a bright future in his eyes.
And when that future evaporates with a tragic revelation, Craven responds accordingly, with an eruption of powerful and deep-seated rage nurtured over a lifetime of oppression. It’s riveting.
That climactic scene—and the fine acting and direction that prepares for it—is the reason to see The Whipping Man. Lopez crafts that scene with a savvy sense of its dramatic possibilities, but the play as a whole has an odd trajectory, cramming one revelation after another into the final scene after a first act that all but sleepwalks through a few events that have little to do with the play’s big ideas.
Director Brent Hazelton helps his actors draw engaging characters from the script and story. Ro Boddie plays the younger ex-slave, James, with a confident and irreverent snap that masks the pain of his history in the DeLeon household. And Josh Landay (Caleb) finds subtle ways to show his character’s confused grappling with the new, post-emancipation world—all the more impressive since he immobile on the floor through most of the play.
But the production’s best moments belong to Craven. He handles Lopez’s lines with beautiful rhythm, and even the way he moves suggests something universal about that moment in African-American history. Anticipating the Seder, preparing for it, he suggests there will be a time for rejoicing, for marking this moment. But in the meantime, he moves around the shattered shell of his former household (rendered here with impressive detail by set designer Scott Davis) with steady resolve and a weary memory of past burdens. “Oppressed so hard they could not stand,” he sings in the play’s final minutes. And in Craven’s every step, you can see that history, as well as the hope for a more just future.
