Freed slaves celebrate Passover in a high-concept period piece. Read more: Review: The Whipping Man - Theater - Time Out New York
Adam Feldman
January 31, 2011: The ritual meal observed by Jews on Passover is called a seder, from the Hebrew word for “order,” but the one at the climax of The Whipping Man strays far from the prayer book. It is the spring of 1865 in Richmond, Virginia, and a Jewish Confederate officer, Caleb (Wilkison), has recently returned to his gutted family manse. Having lost a leg to gangrene, and his trust in God to four years in the Civil War, he reclines lamely on a couch as two of his former slaves, raised as Jews in his house—the loyal Simon (Braugher) and the dodgy John (Holland)—try to approximate the traditional feast as best they can. (A horse’s leg stands in for the seder plate’s shank bone, a brick for mortarlike haroseth.)
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