An Elegy for the Trump Era, Part 1: Shipwreck
Flip through the US History books. Pick an era- any era- in our nation’s history. Pick the most exciting, eventful, and earth shattering 15 year-period in which to grow up. I. would. never. pick. post-9/11 era. EVER. Being entrenched in local politics from the time I was four years old, I felt oddly settled. I knew what was going on, to the extent that any young person could fathom Al-Quaeda, the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc. I knew how to feel about these things, more or less. I understood the “sides.” Democrat. Republican. Donkeys. Elephants. When I was younger, the elephant was my favorite animal. That’s the closest I came to having any “political views” back then. All of this was okay. It all felt… static, complacent. There was a way that things had always been done, more or less, since I was born in the late 90’s. And then 2016 happened. I imagine there are thousands of sentences on the internet that go that way.
And then 2016 happened…
And many of us found, to our shock and surprise, that something more sinister was always simmering underneath. This is precisely what manifests, in both real and unreal time (more on this later), in Anne Washburn’s newest play, Shipwreck.
Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017 premiered on October 16, 2020 as an audio play. Its episodic format, in three digestible parts, will be familiar to anyone who is a fan of podcasts and podcast bingeing. As in most of Washburn’s plays, time is intentionally, totally not linear. Jumps in time from scene to scene occur without warning. Sometimes we don’t even know in what year the scene takes place (shoutout to the final scene!), but there is one thing that unites them all: the year 2017.
What happened in 2017? Let’s brainstorm.
Trump was inaugurated as America’s 45th President, white supremacy resurfaced in Charlottesville, Hurricane Harvey destroyed my hometown, Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Irma… we saw one of the deadliest hurricane seasons in Earth’s history, the Astros finally won the World Series (sorry, just had to), hundreds of thousands of women marched around the country, hundreds of thousands protested the 2016 election and the Electoral College, #MeToo, Russia stuff, Comey stuff, countless White House staff were fired and hired and fired, oh, and there was a solar eclipse too.
So…in short….a lot.
Several artists from both Wooly Mammoth and The Public Theatre, who co-produced the play for its audio format, cite the importance of Washburn setting this play in 2017. They also remind us how difficult it is to write about an era in which you currently live. This argument is directly addressed, actually, in the first act of the play. Through the ensemble’s discussion of Shakespeare, theatre, and reflecting the history of our time through this media, they point out a possible flaw in the ways we think about art and creation. Art is not merely a reflection of our time, but rather, an elegy to it.
And so, we enter into the middle of a snowstorm, in a dilapidated farmhouse, recently bought by a white, affluent, liberal couple. Right off the bat, we get a heavy dose of symbolism. The house has only ever been owned by one family, until now. What year was the house built? 1776, BUT the top floor is more like 1850. Okay, so the inception of our country and then the Civil War. There’s some brick that they want to remove for cosmetic reasons, but they say, “we’ll get to that later.” Okay, brick is a symbol for Black labor, so immediately, I am pretty haunted by this house. There are many elements of spooky to this, and many other Washburn plays, so I’m not surprised.
But for as much heavy symbolism as the play promises in the beginning, it quickly devolves into a Lucas Hnath-like, tell-it-like-it-is conversation of Big Ideas— ideas like, facts are not the equivalent of the truth (which I like) or whether or not Trump was for or against the war (which is, frankly, irrelevant at this point). This Big Ideas talk gets agitating at many points, and you begin to realize what most of us have slowly come to realize: the archetypal, white, liberal elite is just as much a part of the nation’s problem as the stereotypical Trump supporter. Both of us suck. All of us suck. And yet, we co-exist in this crazy, brand-new era.
Another not-as-obvious takeaway from this period play is our addiction to destruction. Here is where I feel my generation- the post-9/11 generation- can really engage in a meaningful way. It’s clear that we’re hungry for revolution. We’re hungry for change (though maybe not exactly the “change” Obama promised?). An immediately recognizable entry into this idea is through the character of Luis, who, we find out, voted for Trump in 2016 despite being an upper-middle class gay, Latino, New Yorker. I have to say, it’s pretty hilarious how this (discovering that one member of the group actually did vote for Trump, on purpose) plays the role of Chekhov’s loaded gun.
“Maybe he’s what we need…. a dark reckoning…”
Luis lets his freak flag fly as he explains what, exactly, led to him voting for Trump. “I did it because I could,” he says. He wouldn’t do it in a purple state or a red state, but in a blue state? Yes. A scene between Comey and Trump sneaks up on us shortly after this big reveal, where Trump unveils a new phrase he’s been working on (what it will be used for since this takes place a week after his inauguration is unclear): “A voice for the voiceless.” More like, a voice for the afraid. A voice for the eager? A voice for all of the Luis’s who did it simply because it was an option. Because it was there. A brand-new era, filled with destruction, drama, action, and the overt performance of inaction.
Or, as the ensemble notes in their final scene:
“Hello, new era. Beautiful because you are new.”
And with that, I say, goodbye.
