There is a certain breed of Washingtonian who obsesses over Donald Trump to the point that their mania approaches religious devotion.
Anne Washburn’s Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017, which opened at Woolly Mammoth Theatre this month, imagines that type of overzealous liberal, plus a few struggling progressives and one political gadfly gathering for dinner in a farmhouse consumed by a winter storm. But one isn’t trapped inside the farmhouse for the duration of the show—through a series of brief asides, rhapsodizing monologues, and hallucinogenic set changes, the audience is transported out of the claustrophobic, rural setting.
The play had its world premiere in London, but Washburn’s prose applies to the mostly wealthy, woke, and white patrons at Woolly. That provocation can come in a lighthearted form, as when the dinner guests point out the hypocrisy of their slacktivist, smartphone-dependent friend Allie, played with jittery, New York neurosis by Jennifer Dundas. At other points, the show steps away from the dinner altogether to explore the life of a son adopted from Kenya named Mark, a tender Mikéah Ernest Jennings, who struggles with his black identity while living with a white family. His monologues are the most human part of a show that zips from one percenter dinner drama to magical realism.
Tensions between these well-meaning liberals are supposed to build inside the farmhouse as the snow piles up outside. But the stakes don’t seem high enough (The guests didn’t bring wine! They could have eaten a sumptuous dinner paid for by their wealthy lawyer friend!) for the guests to really get at each other’s throats.
By the second act, the Neil Simon banter dissipates just enough to reveal uncomfortable truths about white privilege and voting histories. Without giving too much away, audiences will see glimpses of that from Louis, played with cool and cerebral cynicism by Jon Hudson Odom. We first see Odom on stage recounting a meeting with Trump from the point of view of FBI Director James Comey. It’s a dramatic retelling, one that Odom delivers as an amuse-bouche before two courses of fantastical Trump stories that break up the dinner party.
Between set designer Arnulfo Maldonado and projection designer Jared Mezzocchi, the 18th-century wooden structure quickly evolves from charming to haunting. Both designers shine during the magical realism scenes—I was particularly awestruck by a towering cave gilded with candelabras.
While the London production featured an Arthurian round table, Maldonado plays on the show’s heavy, Christian iconography with a triangular roof framing a rectangular table that evokes Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” If you didn’t catch that more subtle New Testament nod, not to worry. The second act features a blazing montage of Trump, his daughter Ivanka, Nancy Pelosi and other D.C. fixtures superimposed on images of the Madonna and the Pietà. Indeed, the mishmash of pulsing images depicting Trump as Christ, or perhaps the anti-Christ, is quite heavy-handed.
The self-aware cast more than winks to the notion that staging plays about the current moment always poses challenges.“Art needs time, space, and reflection,” one character says.
In spite of the bizarre retellings of recent history and the Trump fantasies that elevate Comey to either a prophet or Frodo Baggins battling the darkness, “Shipwreck” strands its audience uncomfortably in the Potomac swamp rather than transporting them to a new shore. In a few years’ time those macabre speeches about Trump might stand out, but it’s hard to compete against the enticing melodrama playing out on C-SPAN right now.
Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017 runs at Woolly Mammoth through March 8. Runtime approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes with one 15 minute intermission. $20-$93.
