For James Rodriguez, "The Courtroom: A Re-enactment of One Woman's Deportation Proceedings" is a kind of anti-theater theater that he has wanted to do for years.
Rodriguez, best known for his performances in Jane Austen adaptations at the Jungle Theater, makes his directorial debut at the Minneapolis playhouse where "The Courtroom" will be performed by a hotshot cast. (The show also will have an engagement at Hamline University in St. Paul.)
But performers will have to tamp down their urge to go big. The play was put together from years of sterile court transcripts by "Succession" star and Tony nominee Arian Moayed, who is currently starring on Broadway in "A Doll's House" with Jessica Chastain.
It tells the story of Filipina immigrant Elizabeth Keathley. After applying for an Illinois state ID, she unwittingly registered to vote while applying for a driver's license, then voted in the 2006 Congressional elections. Pretty soon she was facing deportation and got caught up in an overloaded judicial maze.
"There are 900,000 cases for 400 judges," said Rodriguez. "That's 50 to 80 cases a day. And the immigration courts are not in the regular judicial system. They're set apart with their own rules and so our ideas of what justice looks like in this system is different.
The Star Tribune caught up with Rodriguez and Stephanie Anne Bertumen, who plays Keathley, before a rehearsal. Here are their seven most intriguing things about the show.
1. The story is verbatim from court transcripts. All the words spoken in the show are drawn from lawyers and other officials as well as from Keathley herself as she navigated the immigration court and appeals process.
2. "Courtroom" has an unusual structure. It honors its source material. Some have likened it to a docudrama or "reality theater." Both have some truth. But Rodriguez and Bertumen like to defer to what Moayed named it in his title: a re-enactment.
"The structure and design of the play subverts my expectations of how to tell a story theatrically," said Rodriguez. "These are real words, truly spoken. It's not a heightened courtroom drama like 'Law and Order' or other procedurals. Our soundscape is minimal. The real argument lies in the drama between the lawyers."
3. It's an immersive, site-specific experience. The Jungle and the venue at Hamline feel like courtrooms. And the audience gets to witness the proceedings like people would in court.
"For me, it falls somewhere between theater and film," said Bertumen. "We're playing the naturalness of this because it's a re-enactment. It's dramatized, yes, and things are being presented to an audience but we're not pushing something onto viewers. We deliver an experience and allow an audience to witness it in three dimensions. It's not presentational like traditional theater."
4. From play to movie to playhouse. Moayed recently made the play into a movie, a source material for director Rodriguez who also consulted with Moayed.
5. The show is nonpartisan. Both immigration and voting are highly contested subjects in the political realm but "The Courtroom" is agnostic in all of it. It's as if it's evidentiary.
"What art and theater have the power to do is take things out of the realm of political demonization," said Bertumen. "We invite people in to listen to a story, to a true event. And it may be easier to put our trust in that."
6. It's highly relevant to Minnesota. That's not simply because of the state's large immigrant population but the Legislature recently passed a "driver's license for all" bill and an "automatic voter registration" law. Both intersect with some of the legal landscape of the play.
7. A different kind of partnership. The Jungle has partnered with the immigration legal community about how the newly passed laws come into play with a situation like Keathley's. The theater also is connecting with other community partners, including the Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota to assist with weekly talkbacks after Wednesday and Saturday performances.
'The Courtroom'
Who: Arranged by Arian Moayed. Directed by James Rodriguez.
Where: Hamline University's West Hall, 1492 Hewitt Av., St. Paul, June 3-11; Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Av. S., Mpls., June 13-July 2.
Tickets: $45 or pay-as-you-are. 612-822-7063, jungletheater.org.
