If the past four years have left you thoroughly exhausted—and if they haven’t, wow, really?—you might pause before tuning into Anne Washburn’s Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017. A sprawling, partly fantastical three-part work that takes us from a converted farmhouse where a group of fortysomething friends has reunited, to Donald J. Trump’s New York offices in 2003 as well as his current residence on Pennsylvania Avenue, Shipwreck first premiered in London under the direction of Rupert Goold, and was produced last year by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, with Saheem Ali helming.
Shipwreck‘s next destination was supposed to have been the Public Theater’s stages, but COVID interfered; now the Public, in conjunction with Woolly Mammoth, has made it available in an audio version, “freely adapted” by Ali. The result is an intimate, often hypnotic experience that will occasionally challenge your patience, though that’s part of the point: Washburn’s subjects can be immensely frustrating – and I’m not just talking about the president, or other public figures who pop up here.
The majority of Shipwreck‘s characters— those who gather in the old farmhouse, six months after the 2016 election–are Gen Xers who emerge as rather less resourceful, more narcissistic variations on the educated, middle-class baby boomers who have entertained Public audiences in Richard Nelson’s Apple Family Plays and The Gabriels series. Where Nelson’s characters have discussed life and politics over lovingly assembled, home-cooked meals, Washburn’s opine and kvetch in the course of discovering that there is virtually no food in the house, because hosts Jools and Richard—respectively voiced by Sue Jean Kim and Richard Topol—couldn’t get their shopping and dinner plans coordinated.
Others emerge as similarly hapless. Jim, who turns up late with Mare after helping a friend through a home birth—Rob Campbell and Mia Barron deliver two of the more understated performances as the couple—asks for hot cocoa upon his arrival, like a pre-tween waking up after a slumber party. Then there’s the social media-obsessed Allie (Brooke Bloom, appropriately grating), who will prattle on about any subject she’s spied in a headline. “I’m not encyclopedic, but my phone knows all about it,” she assures her friends.
An adventurous, thoughtful, whipsmart writer, as evidenced by previous works such as Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play and The Internationalist, Washburn clearly isn’t interested in the sort of preaching to the choir that has provided instant gratification to duly enraged citizens and theatergoers in recent years. The stage directions situate the farmhouse “in the middle of nowhere. In winter. But don’t worry—we’re surrounded by the warmth of Our Own Kind.” The character listing identifies many of them as “liberal,” a word that comes up frequently, always with a wink, in the increasingly droll narration crafted by dramaturg Sarah Lunnie, in collaboration with Ali, to introduce different acts and settings: “In a moment we’ll return to the farmhouse, rejoining the liberals as they attempt to salvage their evening,” narrator Michael Braun intones at one point.
While capable of taut, sharp dialogue, the playwright is perfectly happy to let a character ramble or speechify in service of a point—or shifts in tone, which occur repeatedly as Shipwreck veers from the farmhouse scenes to more lyrical and fantasy sequences. We’re introduced to Lawrence, a farmer who presumably lived in the place a while back, and adopted a Black son from Kenya. (The son, Mark, was a character in the stage productions, but isn’t featured in this version.) Spoken with a folksy grace by Bruce McKenzie, Lawrence’s monologues convey an earnestness and unfussy humility that pose a marked—and self-conscious, it must be said, on Ashburn’s part—contrast to the contemporary professionals and self-styled bohemians now occupying the space.
Lawrence is given both a foil and an ironically sympathetic spirit in Luis, a lawyer who is among Jools and Richard’s guests, along with his partner and fellow attorney, Andrew (Jeremy Shamos, dry and potent). Voiced with trenchant intelligence and rueful wit by an instantly recognizable Raúl Esparza, Luis gets some of Washburn’s juiciest lines, often packed into short, dense monologues that touch on topics ranging from Euripides to Trump’s followers and, eventually, the president himself—about whom Luis has some astute and troubling insights.
Trump is brought to vivid life, vocally, by Bill Camp—but not as the walking, talking caricature he has revealed himself to be. Washburn indicates in her directions that he should suggest “an Ayn Rand hero in a world in which that is actually a good thing.” Camp nails that description; his voice deep and sure, his enunciation crisp (no trace of Queens, New Yawk here), he exudes masculine authority and, of all things, gravitas. In a neat twist on revisionist accounts that have painted George W. Bush as a relatively articulate, dignified leader, a brisk Phillip James Brannon makes him sound—in a hilarious, surreal scene set in Trump’s headquarters, just before Bush’s march into Iraq—like an even bigger, and certainly funnier, oaf.
The marvelous Joe Morton enhances another darkly comic, exhilarating segment, playing former FBI director James Comey in a stark reimagining of the infamous private dinner in which Trump demanded Comey’s loyalty. Eerie and majestic strains of violin and timpani resound, then fade back comically to generic, pseudo-classical music, the sort you’d imagine Trump listening to (or not) as he digs into his steak. (In the more naturalistic scenes, the music can be spooky in a more subdued fashion, and accompanied in Palmer Hefferan’s sound design by the crackling of a fire or the rustling of cutlery.)
Like Brannon, Morton is Black; both Comey and Bush were written for Black actors, according to the character listings (as was a British-accented secretary to Bush), and race and privilege figure prominently in the sometimes babbling exchanges back at the farmhouse—along with observations about ‘70s cult leader Jim Jones, The Lord of the Rings and, of course, Ivanka. If Washburn’s characters can seem to talk in circles, or say ludicrous things, there can be glimmers of insight even in their more superficially silly or disturbing comments.
Pondering Trump’s appeal, Luis posits, “Maybe it takes a clown to destroy the structures and maybe we only let that happen when we’re laughing, when we’re entertained –and make no mistake everyone in this room is on some level deeply entertained.” He adds, more hearteningly, “And maybe the man who comes next, who rises out of this rubble, the man who brings order to this chaos, law to this carnival, maybe that man will be our man, or woman.” That history has yet to unfold—but Washburn will be watching keenly, I’m sure, along with the rest of us.
