THEATRE REVIEW: "Minneapolis" offers an entertaining and poignant take on fragile masculinity
After a long day of teaching, I scramble my way home, decide to ditch doing Uber deliveries, and make my way to Subiaco Arts Theatre to see a performance of Minneapolis directed by Frances Barbe.
The narrative of Minneapolis centres on an up-and-coming musician refereed to only as Boy (played by Will O’Mahony), who is grappling with a self-inflicted situation in his career.
Minneapolis starts off exciting and loud, by having a live drummer on stage. Local drummer Liam Hickey represents the emotional energy of Boy, dynamically drifting through his consciousness and emotional realm.
Have you ever said the wrong thing, at the wrong place and at the wrong time?
This story of Boy is the story of so many, a journey we’ve all taken, if we’re to be honest with ourselves. It is a cautionary tale about taking accountability for our actions; an unflinching reflection of our own inability to accept when we’ve said or done something wrong. Minneapolis explores the state of white fragile masculinity, from the perspective of a white man, a white woman and a teenage boy of colour. As you can imagine, which such heavy themes on its mind, it would have been very easy for the play to mine the poignancy of its subject matter by settling for a mostly dramatic tone, but it is a testament to Minneapolis’ script that it manages to inject its story with a wonderful dose of hilarity, through its characters’ funny quips and witty commentary on different subcultures or generational habits.
Helping Boy circumnavigate his mess are two unlikely friends, Roo and Girl performed by Tobias Muhafidin and Andrea Gibbs respectively. These two characters help explore Boy’s psychological state exposing him publicly and privately of his setbacks and downfalls.
Minneapolis is a must-see. This message and narrative pertaining to the piece affects men of all colours and ages. Quite often we’ve come across, or maybe you were, a hard-headed man with no consideration of others. This performance dissects this wonderfully from two key perspectives that were particularly important.
