Mikael Ayele, Rob Faithe, and Van Overton

The play is full of drama. Caleb (Rob Faithe) is a Confederate soldier who has just returned to his Richmond, Virginia, home from a harrowing two years in Lee's army. He is exhausted and suffers from a bullet shot to the leg. At first, his boyhood home seems deserted. But soon he is nearly attacked by Simon (Van Overton), his former slave who is staying at the family home. Simon notices Caleb's infected leg and knows it has to come off. Caleb refuses to go to the hospital, so the brutal task falls on Simon.

They are both soon joined by John (Mikael Ayele), a ne'er-do-well former slave who has been scavenging the temporarily abandoned neighborhood homes for clothes, silver, and whiskey. John gets to hold Caleb down as Simon takes his leg.

Over the course of the next two days, the three men reveal their tangled family ties and betrayals. One layer of deceit and complicity is stripped off only to find another layer of careless brutality. Yet, in spite of the dark history, there is an unmistakable bond with these three men, a bond that is born of deep resentment and burdened affection. It's a powerful script that can reveal the tenderness that can live alongside cruelty.

The family history begins to come to light as the three recognize Passover by holding a Seder, the Jewish religious ceremony that acknowledges and celebrates the freeing of the Israeli slaves from Egyptian bondage. The great irony in this Southern home is that the 1865 Passover is marked by the freeing of the Southern slaves. The three conduct a makeshift Seder, using Civil War hardtack as the unleavened bread and whisky instead of wine. During the Seder and through the remainder of the play, we learn the harsh secrets that crush these characters' hearts.

All three actors are strong. I left the theater wondering if the trick was in the casting. These actors so command their roles, it doesn't seem like acting. It feels like they are exhibiting their natural personalities. Perhaps it is a mix. I'm sure some of the credit goes to director Barbara Geary, both for selecting just the right actors and in guiding them into naturalistic performances. I would have thought casting was the primary element of the realism if I hadn't seen Ayele in a recent Adobe play in which he inhabited an entirely different personality.

The Vortex production is staged as theater-in-the-round. This is often an awkward presentation, since part of the audience at any given moment is looking at the back of an actor's head. In The Whipping Man, the staging delivers an intimacy that helps to elevate the drama. Thank you to set designer Mary Rossman and stage manager Maddie Barker. Also present are nice lighting (Anna Nichols), costumes (Leslee Richards), and sound atmospherics (Sunny G. Jacobs).

This is a powerful, if somewhat old fashioned, drama that is not weakened by its ties to American Southern theater of the past. The Whipping Man is a splendid play and this is a solid production with strongly dramatic performances.

The Whipping Man will run at The Vortex Theatre, 224 San Pasquale SW, through March 1, 2015. The show starts at 7:30 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and at 2:00 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. All tickets are $22. You can buy tickets online at vortexabq.org or by phone at 247-8600.

Photo: Alan Mitchell Photography

--Rob Spiegel