Writer: Scott Organ
Director: Seth Barrish
Calling to mind the 2022 Texas High School shooting where police were accused of doing nothing to prevent the shooting even after it had began, 17 Minutes is a play about Andy Rubens, a deputy sheriff who is on the scene of a shooting in an Ohio school and is accused of taking no action to prevent it.
17 minutes is the length of time Rubens leans against a wall claiming to be trying to work out where the shooter is and how many shooters there are. It is also a length of time he disputes. In his account there were only a few minutes between hearing the first gunshot and calling it in. Opening with a meeting with Detective Virgil Morris who is investigating the response to the shooting, other inconsistencies in Rubens story emerge. Why would he think the shooter may be on the roof when he knows all of the children are in the school?
Rubens, played by Larry Mitchell, is always portrayed as an honest cop fully believing what he says, calling into question whether it was the unreal nature of events and fears for his personal safety that made time stand still and 17 minutes seem like a far shorter amount of time. Rubens honesty and conviction is something that makes Scott Organ’s play so interesting. His pride and resolve mean that he can not accept his wife’s proposal that he takes early retirement and protect his pension rather than risk being thrown out of the force. He can’t accept that his integrity will be called into question.
He is also in awe of his colleague, Mary Stevens, who showed a bravery and courage that failed him when she confronted the student responsible for the killings. As he hits rock bottom and returns to drinking after almost 12 years sober, an unintended meeting with the father of the boy who informs him that he is the only person the public hate more than Rubens at that time, only serves to make him start to blame himself for what happened. At a memorial for the dead children, while hiding in the school gym, he meets one of the mothers who tells him how much his son liked him when he saw him every day at the school. But Rubens will not forgive himself or be forgiven for the thing that he didn’t do that day. The weight of responsibility he feels is clear.
Mitchell stands out as Rubens, for his portrayal of a proud but flawed individual forced to confront his own failings, but there is no weak link in the entire ensemble cast. Seth Barrish’s direction makes each of the scenes both intimate and played out for public consumption as each person Rubens has contact with offer up a different take on the situation shaped by their own position in relation to it.
It is easy to be judgmental, to criticize failings and to look only at the lives lost in a tragedy. It is harder and braver to note the weaknesses and ask ourselves whether we might fail in the same way in the same situation, or to ask us to sympathise with or understand someone who does fail. This superbly written, performed and directed play does this.
Runs until 28 August 2023 | Edward T Morris
