Review: UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME is Searing and Sensational at Woolly Mammoth

It can be unsettling to reflect on the experience of learning about slavery in middle school: was the content accurate and appropriate, or harmful to our perceptions of history and the present day? Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard explore this - and much more - in their creative, fearless production of UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. No matter how uncomfortable or thought-provoking you found American history class, it's nothing compared to this searing comedy.

Actors Kidwell and Sheppard also created the play, which premiered off-Broadway at Ars Nova in 2016. In the roles of two teachers at Hanover Middle School, they make up the whole cast and break the fourth wall by addressing the audience as their class. The opening scene involves an escaped slave who seeks freedom via the Underground Railroad. She's helped by a Quaker, a white savior who embodies her only hope of salvation. The Underground Railroad, the teachers explain, was the "silver lining" of slavery. That this system of helping escaped slaves is the main thing that makes white people feel better about American atrocities is problematic, to say the least.

At first, it seems like Teacher Caroline (Kidwell) and Teacher Stuart (Sheppard) are going to use their bubbly, enthusiastic schoolhouse banter to make us squirm a little as we laugh. They explain the title game, which is based on Sheppard's real-life fifth-grade experience in Pennsylvania. The class is split up into Union soldiers and Confederate soldiers, with the first group trying to smuggle slaves (in this case, rag dolls) past the second group to areas representing safe houses. Slaves as rag dolls? The Civil War as a classroom game? Again, we know this is problematic.

But this is only the beginning of what becomes a deep dive into our collective subconscious and the troubling ways race is tied to sex and power. Peeking behind the curtain, things get graphic and all filters fall away. Aided by excellent scenic design (Steven Dufala) and lighting design (Oona Curley), striking images are created. Kidwell and Sheppard are inflated to caricatures of themselves, becoming various offensive stereotypes that Americans usually repress to preserve their own peace of mind. In this setting, we can only lean on the crutch of supposedly self-aware comedy for so long. The actors' portrayals make it impossible to comfortably place America's atrocities squarely in the past.

Kidwell and Sheppard are relentless, ripping through the coping mechanisms we've developed to avoid acknowledging the deepest issues of race in America. They make us laugh, but they show no mercy in UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME. It's tough to watch, but it's for the best.

Running time: approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes with no intermission.

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME runs through April 29, 2018, at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, 641 D Street NW, Washington, DC 20004. Tickets can be purchased at woollymammoth.net or by calling (202) 393-3939.

Photo: Scott R. Sheppard as Teacher Stuart and Jennifer Kidwell as Teacher Caroline, courtesy of Woolly Mammoth Theatre.

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