Powerful and emotional Whipping Man

The Whipping Man takes a different look at the Civil War.  Matthew Lopez’s play receiving it’s Boston premier at New Rep focuses on a Confederate soldier just back at the end of the war and two of his now freed slaves, however the three are Jewish.       Caleb stumbles back in his family’s home – a wonder wonderful and grand home now showing its own battle scars.  Caleb crawls into the house unable to walk as his leg was hit by a bullet and has turned gangrenous and is discovered by Simon is (now former) slave who has stayed in the house waiting for the return of his wife and daughter.  Soon we meet John, another of Caleb’s former slaves who has been in hiding in and around the various houses in town.  Over the course of the next 2+ hours the audience is taken on an intense emotional journey learning what has brought these three men together.  Weaved through the story is the fact that Caleb’s family is Jewish and has raised their slaves in the Jewish faith and customs.  It’s an interesting twist on the tale but one that on occasion has the parallels between Jewish slavery and the Civil War struggle overemphasized, especially during the Passover scene – it’s powerful stuff but doesn’t need to be beaten over the audience’s head.  There were many powerful moments opening night where the audience sat in rapt silence taken in by the story, acting, and directing. 

Benny Santo Ambush masterfully directs this well crafted production.  Jesse Hinson does a wonderful job as Caleb and although he spends almost the entire play either on the floor or in a chair is able to provide depth and draw in the audience.  Johnny Lee Davenport gives an amazing performance as Simon showing great depth and variety of emotion in this role.  It’s always great to see such good acting.  It seemed that Keith Mascoll took a few minutes to settle in as John, but once he did he delivered a solid performance.  Kudos should be given to the entire design team for the beautiful set and the very cool rain effect.  There were some moments that were tough to sit through (and not because of the acting of directing!) watching the characters go through some of the scenes was tough – but that’s the intent – to make the audience feel uncomfortable at times and this production succeeded – and it was well worth it to be able to experience this production.   

~ Frank Furnari, New Rep Reviewer 

Why it's Worth Spending a Little Time with Bernie Madoff

I was somewhat reluctant to spend an evening with the repellant Bernie Madoff. Perhaps I was suspicious of the playwright’s motives. How could one tolerate Madoff’s slimy company? What could the play be other than an effort to help me understand a person whose actions have put him at the outer edge of the circle of people whose actions I wish to make the effort to understand. But Deborah Margolin’s brilliant play is titled Imagining Madoff, not Understanding Madoff, and she imagines brilliantly.

Jeremiah Kissel’s Bernie Madoff is indeed reptilian and cruel, repellant but also dazzling, charismatic, funny. As he talks with his friend, the Jewish poet, Holocaust survivor and scholar, Solomon Galkin, we believe entirely in his ability to fascinate and charm this good man. As the play opens, Galkin sits in his study surrounded by books. (It’s worth a ticket and a trip to Watertown just to see the great Hokusai-like wave of books that sweeps from behind Galkin’s comfortable library chair, tumbling over his head and down the ceiling of the stage to the other end where Bernie sits in a prison, also constructed of books, but orderly, rigid, a cell with bars built from what appear to be leather-bound law books. (I must admit that the wave of books was distracting: like any worshipper of print I was worried by the numbers of books that were destroyed to construct the set and spent too much time myopically peering at spines and chapter headings.)

Bernie thinks back to an evening spent with Sol, perhaps the only person he feels any admiration for. He tells us that he resisted involving Sol in his Ponzi scheme, but the old man, intrigued by what he could do for his shul and for charity with so much money, keeps urging Bernie to take him on as a client. The conversation between the two men is wide-ranging, with the older man assuming an interest in moral questions and niceties which Bernie only pretends to share. Sol has the wisdom conferred by scholarship and horrific experience, but he also has a terrible naiveté which leads him to make dangerous assumptions about the snake of a man before him. Much whiskey is consumed. At one chilling moment the old man pulls out one of his greatest treasures, his tefillin, which he teaches a reluctant Bernie to wrap around his arm. Bernie can scarcely contain his instinct to recoil from such holiness.

Sol’s conversation fascinates us as well as it does Madoff, who seems to be looking back from a great distance at a religious and cultural identity which should have great meaning for him, but clearly does not.

Gaps in their conversation belong to Mr. Madoff’s secretary who seems to be answering questions from an investigator, explaining her long relationship with Madoff and the walls he created to distance her from the realities of his business. Despite their long association he is an enigma to this woman whose sense of guilt highlights his complete lack of it.

I was reminded of Shakespeare’s treatment of Richard III, as a man who is evil but entirely human. I’m not sure what human instinct allows us to be fascinated by such villains, but fascinated and entertained we are. I would strongly recommend that you take this opportunity to imagine Bernie Madoff.

~ Johanna Ettin, with Shauna Shames, New Rep Reviewers

A Complex Tale of Good v. Evil

“Imagining Madoff” reveals three very different conversations about the collapse of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme: the secretary pleading her ignorance, the victim extending his trust, and the culprit humanizing his actions to an invisible biographer.

Jeremiah Kissel portrays Bernard Madoff richly, capturing the magnetic appeal of a salesman and the vulgarity of a manipulator.  He is a man at times too crass to be likeable and at times sympathetic as his guilt briefly overcomes him.  He brags about his ability to lie, lasciviously describes killing and eating a salmon, calls his sons “soft,” and then smiles with his whole face, the corners of his eyes crinkling in joy as he tells another off-color joke.  The fundamental complexity and success of the character hinges on the actor’s ability to appear both amoral and trustworthy; Kissel does both perfectly.

Joel Colodner as Solomon Galkin, a Holocaust-survivor and poet, with his stoicism and passion for literature and religion complements Kissel’s Madoff.  Though ultimately framed as a good versus evil discussion, Galkin’s character is also appropriately multi-dimensional.  He shares passages from the Torah, modestly discusses his own flaws and his belief that purely moral men do exist, but ultimately begs Madoff to take him on as a client.  Playwright Deborah Margolin gives the audience many gestures to appreciate in Galkin.  At one point, for example, he spills some scotch on the table and comments that good scotch should be left to evaporate; it should not be wiped up.

Adrianne Krstansky, as Madoff’s nameless secretary, plays a necessary, but obvious, role.  Her character reminds the audience of the non-abstract: the trial and the legal implications of Madoff’s guilt.  Her role serves to break-up the heavy, philosophical discussions led by Galkin. 

New Rep’s Black Box Theater lends intimacy to the performance.  Set designer Jon Savage creates a canopy of books, spilling over onto the floor behind Galkin’s study.  The books reinforce Galkin’s presence, the overbearing company of spirituality and history, the weight of truth hanging over all of the characters, tapering out over Madoff’s cell.

In addition to the skill of the cast, “Imagining Madoff” is successful because of its lack of answers, its lack of redemption or accusations for Madoff.  The performance instead raises the complex narrative of questions and history lying beneath the surface of a trial.  

--Victoria Petrosino, New Rep Reviewer