Deputy Andy Rubens (Larry Mitchell) explains himself to his colleague, Mary (Shannon Patterson), in Scott Organ’s 17 Minutes.
In the aftermath of the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., there came the revelation that Scot Peterson, a sheriff’s deputy stationed outside the school at the time of the attack, failed to engage the shooter, staying hidden at the base of a stairwell for some 48 minutes. Though Peterson is never mentioned, he is clearly the inspiration for Scott Organ’s poignant and piercing tick-tock drama, 17 Minutes. Tracking the steady demise of a good man who makes a bad mistake, the work chronicles a life that not so much shatters as it does dismantle, like a service revolver being disassembled one piece at a time.
Andy and wife Samantha (DeAnna Lenhart) try to hold their marriage together. Photographs by Joey Moro.
The drama unfolds across seven two-person scenes. In each, one of those people is Andy Rubens (Larry Mitchell), a veteran who served in Iraq, now a sheriff’s deputy who has put on a few extra pounds in a contented life watching over the local high school. Scene 1 finds him in a police station interview room, shortly after a shooting has occurred on his watch. As he is questioned by a detective (Brian Rojas), it is revealed that Andy not only has yet to learn exactly the extent of the carnage, he firmly believes that he acted as he should have, attempting to track down the killer. But over the course of the interrogation, his memory is called into question, a gap in the timeline of events is revealed, and what at first seemed to be cool professionalism on Andy’s part transforms into something more akin to trauma.
Adding to the well-wrought tension of these opening moments is the clever scenic design by Edwin T. Morris. The ceiling is dropped low, creating a claustrophobic sense of entrapment. The stage is in a traverse configuration, with five rows of seats on one side of the house and another six rows placed directly across. Thus, in the spot which cop shows have always reserved for the one-way mirror, audience members instead look up to see a group of strangers, like themselves, bearing witness to a disturbing testimony.
Three of the subsequent scenes trace the decline of Andy’s marriage. With his job at risk and the media spreading his story, his determined and good-hearted wife, Samantha (DeAnna Lenhart), senses the danger of what lies ahead and struggles mightily to keep their relationship afloat, even as Andy’s ever-growing remorse threatens to bring both of them down. Here, the playwright borrows not from police procedurals, but from Shakespeare. Like a reverse Lady Macbeth, Andy cannot stop cleaning his gun in his wife’s presence. With no damned blood to wipe out, he endlessly oils and swabs his unfired Gen5 Glock, knowing that if only it had been splattered red, his own personal tragedy might have been avoided.
Michael Giese as Dan, the shooter’s father.
The three remaining scenes, each powerful in its own way, drive Andy into even riskier emotional territory. In the first, he is having coffee with his partner, Deputy Mary Stevens (Shannon Patterson). It was she who ultimately subdued the teenage shooter and became the town hero. Now, with polite muzak playing in the background, the two struggle to maintain their friendship. But with her having endured the horror which he avoided, Andy’s sense of failure only deepens.
The night’s most empathetic scene finds Andy, at a bar, running into the shooter’s father, Dan (Michael Giese), who in a moment of commiseration observes, “You just found the guy everybody hates even more than you.” The two engage in a verbal battle of blame and what-ifs that ends in a sad tie, with Dan declaring, ”You stood outside for 17 minutes staring at the goddamned clouds. And here we are. The two most despised men in the entire goddamned town. Why? Because of what we didn't do. Both of us. What we did not do. No matter what you and I actually fucking do in the future will always pale in comparison to that. Always. You and I are the same.”
By the final scene, Andy has reached rock bottom and it seems his gun may yet find a fatal purpose. But a ray of hope is offered by Cecilia (Lee Brock), the mother of one of the victims, who offers her forgiveness even if he may never forgive himself.
Scott Organ’s crisp dialogue, never approaching maudlin, demands the audience’s attention while director and Barrow Group co-founder Seth Barrish proves to be at the top of his game in a beautifully paced 75-minute production that overcomes some otherwise disruptive scene changes. As Andy, Mitchell’s long fuse of a performance is stirring both in its controlled physicality and emotional slow burn. Mitchell’s castmates offer strong support, from the no-nonsense approach Rojas brings to the police detective, to Giese’s ability to layer bitter sorrow onto Dan’s anger, to Patterson’s ability to portray Deputy Mary as a compassionate work wife, even as Lenhart brings Andy’s actual wife to her breaking point.
The Barrow Group production of 17 Minutes plays through Feb. 15 at The Barrow Group Mainstage Theatre (312 W. 36th St.). Performances are Wednesday through Monday at 7:30 p.m. For tickets and information, visit barrowgroup.org.
