The Arden Theatre presents Kash Goins’s ‘74 Seconds…to Judgment’

The play’s title refers to the time span between engagement and execution in the officer-involved killing of Philando Castile. After Castille informed a police officer that he possessed a legally registered handgun during a traffic stop, the officer shot Castille seven times at close range, as his girlfriend and her daughter looked on from inside the car and broadcast the incident on Facebook Live. The entire incident unfolded in less than a minute and a half. A jury acquitted the officer, Jeronimo Yanez, of second-degree manslaughter charges.

Names that haunt the stage

Goins doesn’t dramatize Castile’s case — or any specific real-life incident, for that matter, though elements of real cases bleed into the proceedings. Names like Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Renisha McBride, and Botham Jean will likely also flood the minds of audience members during the performance. But the action focuses on the societal microcosm found inside a jury room, as a group of six individuals performing their civic duty deadlock while adjudicating an all-too-familiar scenario.

Pirandello meets 12 Angry Men

The assembled parties who occupy Dustin Pettegrew’s appropriately sterile set represent a cross-section of society. Goins himself appears as Bill, a beleaguered businessman in a sharp suit and silver watch. (Alison Roberts did the costumes.) Acting student Brandon (Travoye Joyner) gives voice to the millennial generation, while ex-cop Doug (Peter Bisgaier) offers the Fox News perspective. Harried mom Kim (Julianna Zinkel) and enigmatic Ramona (Kala Moses Baxter) round out the panel, and foreman Pat (Dan Hodge, distinctive in a somewhat underwritten part) tries fitfully to keep the peace.

Tensions run high and personal biases bubble to the surface, even as reminders to follow the letter of the law abound. (Elizabeth Atkinson’s sound design has a disembodied voice reciting jury instructions as the audience files in.) With no resolution in sight, Brandon proposes an acting exercise: to better understand the particulars of the case, why not role-play the events under scrutiny? The jurors become a makeshift acting troupe — creating backstory, setting scenes, and burrowing beneath the skins of victim and assailant. Think Six Characters in Search of an Author crossed with 12 Angry Men.

Before and after

The device makes a taut theatrical frame, allowing Goins to eschew too much dry debate or background summary. Information unspools organically, as the sextet blend recorded testimony and personal presuppositions to paint a broad picture of the hours preceding the fatal moment. The participants also use the exercise to further their own conclusions.

74 Seconds… to Judgment seems designed to spark debate, so much so that a talkback inviting audiences to share their reactions follows every performance. To that end, certain moments strike me as overly orchestrated to provoke a specific reaction or introduce a talking point, and some of the dialogue pushes buttons a bit too deliberately. Although the drama features many fresh, strongly articulated perspectives, characters occasionally hover close to archetype — this is especially true of Doug, who rails against “black privilege” and bristles at being told not to use the word “faggot” in 2019.

Necessary new theater

Yet more often than not, the situation at hand and the urgent questions underpinning it receive a thoughtful, frank treatment. The jurors gradually recognize how their lived experiences influence their viewpoints, aware of the subtle ways prejudice seeps into an outwardly civil discourse. The conflicted Bill stands as the strongest example of this, his personal conservatism chafing against the realities of life as a black man in America, and Goins is wonderful in the role. Joyner, the only other holdover from the previous production, brings magnetic energy to the idealistic Brandon — and when he enacts the teenager at the center of the case, he’s heartbreaking.

I can’t say for sure whether 74 Seconds… to Judgment will change hearts and minds on one of the most important and frequently misunderstood issues of our time. It undoubtedly engages its audience, making us consider what has formed our belief systems and how we would react were those systems challenged. In that respect, it joins the pantheon of necessary political plays that ask tough questions and won’t settle for easy answers.