By JULES SHINKLE
BG Independent News
Most theatregoers are accustomed to a pre-show “silence your devices” speech delivered in-character. Besides being a reliably fun bit (thank you, King Lear, I nearly forgot to turn off my cell phone), the speech is an invitation to the audience to start buying into the fiction.
Black Swamp Players have fully committed to immersion with their latest production, “The Minutes.”
The black box theatre on Oak Street is no more – in its place is the Big Cherry Town Hall, where an “invite-only gathering concerning the business and continued prosperity of our community” is taking place. Waiting for the city council to arrive, you might enjoy yourself with a water bottle stickered with the town insignia and listen to the local FM station.
Before the show has started properly, even before the mayor asks the assembled crowd not to take photos, it’s clear who we, the audience, are: concerned citizens. What are we concerned about? The events of last week’s city council meeting certainly come to mind.
“The Minutes” is written by Tracy Letts and directed by Joe Capuchini. Performances will run this weekend and next (Nov. 6-7 and 13-15) at 115 E Oak St. Click here to purchase tickets.
If you aren’t aware of what unfolded the week prior, you’re not alone. Neither is Mr. Peel (Trevor Kaz), a fresh face in Big Cherry’s City Council who’s just returned from a family emergency. He’s the first to arrive at tonight’s meeting, presumably so he can reintroduce and ingratiate himself with the community’s leaders.
Peel’s enthusiasm is met with a mixture of opportunism and indifference. Mr. Hanratty (Heath Diehl) seizes on his naivete and presses Peel to vote for his pet project.
Ms. Johnson (Gloria Wang), a public servant in charge of writing the minutes, brushes him aside to focus on her job.
As a foil to Peel’s bright-eyed naivete, at least half the council is so unserious that you wonder how they entered politics in the first place. Derailing the agenda almost immediately is Mr. Oldfield (Gary Insch), who pulls seniority to demand a better parking space. Mr. Blake (David Loehr) proposes an MMA fighting exhibition between Abraham Lincoln impersonators.
Robert’s Rules of Order barely survive the strain of everyone clamoring to say their piece. Against the odds, parliamentary procedure manages to get the council through the agenda.
Trying his best to hold the meeting together is Mayor Superba (Thom Sinn). He’s positioned as a reasonable family man with unshakeable pride for his town. If there’s anything that unites the council, it’s a love for Big Cherry—not just how it is today, but how it came to be.
In fact, looking backwards to Big Cherry’s past is a cherished tradition for its residents.
Provoked by Peel’s ignorance on the matter, the rest of the council erupts into a reenactment of their town’s origin story (this scene, highly choreographed and the show’s turning point, is credited to Assistant Director James Pinkelman). Peel remains distracted in spite of everyone’s antics—where are the minutes for last week’s meeting? And why is Mr. Carp no longer a councilman?
“The Minutes” uses the bureaucracy of small-town politics as a source of comedy and drama. The front half, full of hilarity and low-stakes gags, shifts gears to a much darker second half. It’s a rug pull that drags the audience into a confrontation with how history is told.
The mythology of a nation (or say, a small town) is told and retold to serve the interests of specific people. In “The Minutes,” we’re asked a gut-wrenching question: Do we care about the difference between fables and history?
Many of us know the difference and opt for fiction anyway. We’ve spent so much time buying into fables, being immersed in them since birth, that changing course would prove monumentally difficult.
It’s possible, however. Lots of people care about setting the record straight – the council meeting is packed with concerned citizens.
