Slavery to Freedom in Washington and Baltimore

Kevyn Morrow and Johnny Ramey in Centerstage’s production of The Whipping Man. Photo by Richard Anderson.
“The Whipping Man,” a taut Civil War drama about a wounded Jewish confederate soldier and his encounter with the Jewish slaves owned by his father, has been on a nationwide roll since its world premiere in 2006. With more than a dozen productions from New York to Tampa Bay, San Diego to Philadelphia, Cincinnati to Fort Worth, the three-character play by newcomer Matthew Lopez seems to have a leg up, literally. This month “The Whipping Man” is running both at Baltimore’s Centerstage through May 13, and in Washington, D.C., at Theater J, from April 18 to May 20.
This unusual confluence has allowed the two companies to share dramaturgical resources, and to engage in a bit of friendly competition. Centerstage’s new artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah jokingly opined that because of its proximity, Theater J “will be able to steal the good bits of mine and make theirs better.” Kidding aside, both productions touch a chord, drawing back the curtain on the little-known and little-talked about world of southern Jewry during the Civil War, including confederate soldiers and, reputedly, slaves who practiced Judaism. The play, opening in the waning days of battle, also has a gory coup de theatre to keep audiences riveted.
“This is a play we could not say no to, hard as we tried,” chuckled Theater J artistic director Ari Roth. Jennifer Nelson, the founding artistic director of African Continuum Theater in Washington, D.C., who is directing Theater J’s production, enumerated a few of the reasons, starting with the fact that it’s a small play with three strong lead roles, two for African American men. She added: “The Civil War is an era that Americans have continued interest in … it’s our seminal moment in American history when we had to decide what our nation was going to be: one that allows freedom for everyone, or one that will remain stricken under the purview of race and class.”
In Baltimore, London transplant Kwei-Armah admitted that he wishes he had written “The Whipping Man” himelf, “because it examines slavery and the first days of freedom in an interesting and new way.” Also a playwright, Kwei-Armah said: “Its take on the Civil War, its take on the first days of freedom, its take on inherited faith, its take on what it is to negotiate tomorrow, and its original take on slavery — all these at once really make it appealing to audiences.” With Caribbean roots — Kwei-Armah’s parents are from Grenada — he said that the play’s context spoke directly to him. “It’s in my very DNA to say negotiation with slavery is present. Slavery spawned from the same head whether in England or America … the only difference is that our labor, our tool, was sugar and the tool here was cotton.”
Nelson was moved by the onstage Seder conducted in the war’s immediate aftermath. Aside from being seasonally appropriate, she said, “The playwright’s realization that Abraham Lincoln died during Pesach … wow what great background. There was a lot of research and a lot of imagination, so [a seder] doesn’t seem implausible. For me the big issue is that it is a story that both African Americans and Jews can say, yes, we were both here in this seminal moment in American history, it was our history, too.”
While the Jewish character is not the play’s hero, Roth noted that this should not be a provocative play for the Jewish community: “It’s about an inheritance, a spiritual inheritance and religious one, what we beget. Both directors have wonderful things to say about why and how they are engaging as African Americans in an aspect of Jewish history.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Dave Portnoy revokes Auschwitz trip for student who said ‘F– the Jews’
-
Fast Forward Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian writer targeted by far-right pro-Israel activists, wins Pulitzer for commentary
-
Fast Forward A Jewish nonprofit may have accidentally caused Michigan to drop charges against pro-Palestinian activists
-
Culture For Christian nationalists, Trump’s pope picture isn’t a joke
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.