OnStage: Penumbra drama tackles historical minefield of black-Jewish relations

Playwright Matthew Lopez is neither black nor Jewish. But that |did not stop him from wading into the historical minefield of black-Jewish relations in his Civil War-era drama "The Whipping Man."

To his happy surprise, the play is being celebrated by both groups. It received its first production at a Jewish-led company in New Jersey in 2006 and is now getting its regional premiere at St Paul's Penumbra Theatre.

"I'm Puerto Rican who grew up Episcopalian," he said last week from New York, where he was reared, the son of avid history buffs. "But because of my family's [interests], that Civil War era speaks to me."

Lopez traces the genesis of the play to a moment in 2000. A student at the University of South Florida, he was screening a video of "Fires in the Mirror," Anna Deavere Smith's powerful show about black-Jewish tensions that boiled over into violence in Brooklyn in the early 1990s.

As he watched Smith channel the various characters, Lopez thought: "How can these two groups be at each other's throats when they share such a similar history?"

"Until World War II, both groups had freedom and overcoming slavery as the central part of their defining narratives," Lopez said. "There is so much overlap that the two groups would be natural allies."

Lopez's question led him to write a scene that he later developed into a full-length play.

"The Whipping Man" is set in the first hours after the Civil War.

Caleb, a Jewish Confederate soldier, returns home from the conflict badly injured. He is helped by Simon, the former slave who raised him and is now free. Together, they celebrate the Passover Seder, a thanksgiving feast that marks the movement of a people out of bondage.

Lopez did not have to go far for research. His parents participate in Civil War reenactments. Among the many books on the subject in their New York City (Queens) library was Robert N. Rosen's "The Jewish Confederates."

"It was such a fascinating idea, such a revelation," he said of finding the book. "I'd read my Alfred Uhry, so I knew there were Jews in the South. But I sort of thought that it started around 'The Last Night of Ballyhoo.'" (Uhry's best-known work is "Driving Miss Daisy.")

That Jews owned slaves in America is not a surprise. The peculiar institution pervaded all layers of American society.

Blacks also purchased other blacks, as depicted in Edward P. Jones' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Known World."

"This idea of blacks owning other blacks is very complicated," said Penumbra's Lou Bellamy, who is directing the play with a cast that includes Joseph Papke and Penumbra veteran James Craven. "There were reasons like buying your wife or child to keep your family intact."

"The Whipping Man" touches on the paradox that a people who celebrate being led by Moses out of slavery in Egypt would in turn own slaves -- a contradiction that has been the subject of spirited arguments by black and Jewish activists alike.

Playwright Lopez has complicated the discussion by taking religion out of it, said Rabbi Joseph Edelheit, professor of religion and director of Jewish studies at St. Cloud State University. Caleb and Simon, because he was property, are both Jews.

Black and Jewish

The playwright also spotlights a double minority -- black Jews. Some have been practicing for generations and may have gained their religious identity during slavery, the way Simon does. Others emigrated from Africa, especially Ethiopia, while some are converts like Sammy Davis Jr. or Chicago comedian Aaron Freeman. The roster of prominent black Jews also includes Rabbi Capers Funnye, a cousin of First Lady Michelle Obama.

Whether reformed, conservative or orthodox, all observe the Passover Seder, said Edelheit, who has been a consultant to Penumbra.

In "The Whipping Man," the rite is improvised, as it is performed by illiterate people. But because the text is in the third-person plural, the statements about Pharaoh and freedom also apply about blacks, said Edelheit.

"Anytime anyone reads it, they are instantaneously included in the story," he said. "Lopez has not just created an exposé of trashy 19th-century Jewish behavior, but a much more fascinating ethnic, religious spiritual experience in which people re-commit themselves through a ritual which takes them back into history in which their roles, master and slave, are now turned on their heads."

Still, the subject remains touchy. The theater, which is planning post-play and panel discussions, expects a lot of questions.

"When we do this art, it is to clear a space for the community to engage itself," said Bellamy. "This play is a perfect vehicle for that."

Added playwright Lopez: "We have a responsibility to face our demons, to face our collective shame," he said. "We cannot move forward until we have wrestled with the past."

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390