The Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s latest upcoming production, “The Whipping Man,” is the story of Confederate officer Caleb DeLeon who comes home at the end of the Civil War badly wounded, but just in time to celebrate Passover with the rest of his Jewish family. When he arrives, he finds them missing and only two former slaves remain, Simon and John, who are forced to take care of him. What unfolds as they wait for their loved ones’ return is full of pain, faith, horror, strength and secrets.
We got a chance to sit down to discuss the show with returning director Gilbert McCauley, who you might remember from 2013’s “Gee’s Bend”; Michael Shepperd, who plays Simon; and Damian Thompson, who plays John.
“The Whipping Man” opens Jan. 23 at The Rep. For tickets or more information, click here.
Give me an idea of the background of the story of the whipping man, where it came from and how it ended up at The Rep.
Gilbert McCauley: It’s been done quite a bit around the country.
Michael Shepperd: It’s one of the top regional shows produced in the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 seasons.
GM: I think because it deals with the ending of the Civil War, the change that the whole country went through at that time, and it talks about that larger story by looking very closely at the lives of these three men, two former slaves and their former master. It really questions ideas about what freedom really is and how you create a future out of the ruins of the past. I think it’s really intriguing because of that. We see these three men trying to create these futures for themselves in very different ways and with very different goals and desires, and I think that the characters are very compelling.
I think that’s what makes the show so good. If you get really good actors, which we do have, it makes the show that much more rich because we get a chance to watch these men realize that they can’t go back but they don’t know how to go forward, and we watch them try to figure it out right in front of us. Really good actors make that really interesting.
What topics and messages from “The Whipping Man’ and from this period in time do you think we can learn from in 2015?
Damian Thompson: I would put this show in the category of a relationship play. I feel like when the audience comes and sees it, that will be the biggest impact: just examining your relationships with others regardless of race or culture or sex. In the play, that’s the key thing among the three characters is how we relate to each other, the obstacles, the love, the distaste and all the stuff that we have between us and how that plays out.
MS: I really liked what Gilbert said: “…how you create a future out of the ruins of the past.” Even in 2015, there’s the repercussions of holding on to secrets and not being able to express yourself fully because you have to keep something protected because someone may not like you if they found this out. It’s the same thing we go through every day. We keep some of our true selves secret. I can’t tell you this because you’ll dislike me, but I can tell you because you find it titillating. It really speaks on that.
GM: The playwright wrote it in a way that, even though it’s fairly historical accurate, it’s written with kind of a contemporary feel to it. I feel he’s trying to make the point that as human beings, we’re all kind of wrestling with the things that enslave us, always wrestling with our own ability or inability to do the things that will free us. We’re always struggling with how we treat other people. That’s a constant thing we deal with. It didn’t just start with slavery, it’s man’s inhumanity to man that we’ve had to deal with. The story keeps changing, but the ideas and the themes remain the same.
DT: The idea of the future and what we want as individuals and how to get there, it’s exactly what these characters go through and what we go through in our everyday lives.
So the play takes place in one setting. It’s burned out and falling to pieces. What kind of relationship do you think that has with the story itself?
GM: I think [set designer Mike Nichols] did a great job of capturing that sense of ruin that the place has to have. It was someone’s home, a place where somebody made a life. Now we can tell by the way it looks that it’s going to be really difficult to make a life there, so something has to change. These three man come into this place and you watch them go about trying to make that change. That’s where the country was at that point, it was in ruins, right before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The possibilities of where the country could go have shifted dramatically.
The playwright is very specific about where and when it happens. It’s in Richmond, essentially the seat of the Confederacy, just after the fall. He’s put everything at this crucial tipping point and he’s put these men here for us to watch them deal with that. It’s very well crafted.
DT: The key thing is that when you look at that set, it’s not a place of comfort. You know that something has to change, the house, the people.
MS: And the crew here, their attention to detail is amazing. No one thinks they can get away with anything that’s 1872 and not 1865. They’re very specific, and it’s great to be in that sort of environment. When people create that world around you, it’s so much easier as an actor to put yourself in that world. I have to commend them. Their commitment to creating not just good, but great theatre makes me excited about working here at The Rep.
I mean, they spent hours on Caleb’s jacket because the epaulettes for the Confederate Army have to be in a very specific place. The wool that they got is from the actual factory that created the uniforms in the Civil War.
DT: Something else I’d like to mention is that it is a drama and it does deal with slavery and it does deal with these issues, but I don’t want people to get the wrong idea. It’s not a tragedy. You’re not just going to sit there and weep the entire time. It’s a very well-balanced show. It has lightness, it has humor.
MS: People as us if this is anything like “Elf.” Well, no. I feel like most of the time with musicals, there’s a pretty bow wrapped around it and you walk out feeling good. With this, you’re going to walk out and feel like you need to talk about this. This is a conversation that needs to happen.
Tell me more about the balance of light and dark.
DT: For me, my character is dealing with a lot of heavy stuff, but within that, he’s a very clever guy. He does plays on words, he tries to crack jokes, lighten the mood, escape whatever’s going on inside of him.
GM: I think the thing about it is that that balance is through the depth of the piece. All those things are there. It’s up to us to make it all work. That’s why it’s so fun working on it. We have to get in alignment with what the play’s trying to do, and it’s always exciting for artists to do that. There’s a lo more exploration and things to bring to it. It’s really an actor’s play. The Rep has pulled some great people here to do it, and I think people here are really going to enjoy watching them.
Is it difficult personally to throw yourselves into a character, but not get bogged down by the heaviness of a message?
DT: That’s the thing, I don’t think that’s it. There’s a difference between an important subject and a heavy subject. I’ve never felt heavy from this. In general, it’s a play that deals with a very important subject matter, but I don’t feel people will leave feeling guilty, that’s not the point. The point is to open our minds to the world that is around us and just experience that in a more positive way.
MS: For me as an actor, bring on the drama. Actors love throwing themselves into someone else.
DT: I think what’s so great about this show is that it doesn’t seem very foreign, it doesn’t seem like I need to become this completely different person. There’s so much of it that’s relatable to today’s life that you find yourself in a lot of these parts because it’s so accessible.
GM: The title may kind of throw people off, but we never actually see “the whipping man” in the play. The play deals with what that represents, that physical domination of another human being. It’s more about the symbol of that and how it actually plays out in people’s lives in a real way.
Have there been any moments so far that stood out to you, that you connected with in a meaningful way?
GM: The fact that this is a Jewish family makes you look at the way in which people’s faith affects their culture and the way they do things, how they look at the world, how they grapple with the world, I think that’s what has stood out to me.There’s a line in the play that says “You don’t lose your faith by not getting answers, you lose your faith by not asking at all.” I think the play really does a good job of asking questions. These men are wrestling with really deep questions.
We’ve all learned so much already. We went to a seder the other night and the conversation was just really rich and all about asking questions and learning from each other. This play allows that opportunity.
MS: For me, one of the moments that strikes me to my core, because I’ve never thought about this person in this way, is President Lincoln. I get to do a monologue about him and it’s just like wow, to have that weight placed upon you that he had and what that means. You’ve made this declaration that you know will cause 49 percent of the population to hate you, but you still do it because that’s your belief. There’s just a different meaning for me because of the way I speak about him in the play.
GM: I’ve known some artistic directors who say Civil War plays are some of the most powerful things you can do because it was kind of what created the United States. It’s a great tool to help recognize how it changed the country and has us asking the questions we’re still asking today.
Also, when we did the photo shoot at the State House, we read about how Arkansas was really divided on the issue of slavery. The state lost a great deal of people to the war on both sides; it decreased the population by almost half. It was something that affected the place here. It’s always good to think about these historical things in this contemporary context. Arkansas actually wrestled with this just like the men in the play are wrestling with it.
What do you think the audience will walk away with?
DT: I think they’re going to walk away with kind of what I did. I walked away a little bit in awe, it just sat on me for a bit and had me thinking. I feel like you’re going to walk away from this play and then after maybe a day, two, three, four, it’s just going to hit you. You start thinking about the play in a more in-depth way.
GM: I think it’ll hit everyone in different ways. You have three different characters who are wrestling with it and trying to create their future in very different ways. When people come to see it, different aspects of the play are going to hit them. The different questions that the play asks will touch people in different ways. It makes you seek to answer those questions for yourself. I think it’ll be a really rich experience for people.