"The issue before this council is just what kind of community do you want to live in. The issue before this council is what kind of people we are."
A comedic play written by Tracy Letts (author of August: Osage County) about small-town politics and real-world power. When newly elected Big Cherry Town Council member Mr. Peel misses a council meeting due to the death of his mother, he finds things have subtly shifted when he returns. His fellow council member Mr. Carp is missing from the assembly, and every other council member (from Mayor Superba to the council clerk, Ms. Johnson) is keeping tight-lipped as to why. The minutes from last week's meeting, which could potentially shed some light on Mr. Carp's sudden departure, are unavailable.
As he tries to piece together what happened while he was away, he meets increasing resistance from the other council members and bureaucratic obstructions at every turn. Tension grows as the council discusses parking spaces, a proposal for renovations to the fountain in the park, the fate of bicycles confiscated by the town's police force, and the sacred tradition of the Big Cherry Heritage Festival.
This play provides examples of:
- Black Comedy Rape: Ms. Innes makes several mentions of how she was assaulted by the town's violently drunk former mayor, which resulted in an unwanted pregnancy that she terminated.
- Dirty Old Man: Mr. Breeding gets handsy with Ms. Matz during the reenactment — it's made worse by the fact that he's playing the role of the farmer and she's playing the role of his daughter.
- Empathic Environment:
- Played Straight for the majority of the play: the constantly drumming rain, rumbling thunder, and intermittent power brownouts caused by the storm make the already fraught council meeting seem more menacing.
- Inverted during the flashback to the meeting the week prior, when Mr. Carp revealed the dark truth behind the founding of Big Cherry — the lighting design on stage indicates that the sun is shining brightly outside the council room.
- Everytown, America: Big Cherry is a charming, quiet little middle-American town with good schools, good people, and a good reputation. Until the façade begins to fall away, revealing it to be a Town with a Dark Secret.
- Flashback: How the reading of the minutes is portrayed.
- Loophole Abuse: How Mr. Peel finally gets access to the eponymous minutes from the last town council meeting. His knowledge of obscure bureaucratic notation allows him to get bits and pieces of the story until he finally forces the council to allow Ms. Johnson to read the minutes aloud.
- Naïve Newcomer: Mr. Peel is the newest council member — he's still getting the hang of how the council meeting proceed. On top of that, he missed the last meeting due to his mother's death.
- Pull the Thread:
- Mr. Peel interrupts the reenactment of the general's rescue several times, pointing out that the rifles used by the soldiers wouldn't have been able to perform all the amazing feats recounted in the reenactment. Mr Peel repeatedly pauses to ask questions about how the action unfolded, but Mayor Superba brushes off his comments. This leads Mr. Peel to doubt the veracity of the story...
- Later, Mr. Peel asks why the town is called Big Cherry when there don't seem to be any cherry trees around.
- Running Gag:
- The pronunciation of Mr. Assalone's name as "ASS-alone" by Ms. Johnson.Mr. Assalone: It's asa-LONE-ay!
- Ms. Johnson accidentally reading Mr. Carp's name aloud during roll-call and council votes.
- Mr. Blake's repeated insistence that the town fair should offer an attraction where visitors can pay to participate in a cage match with a wrestler dressed like Abraham Lincoln.
- The pronunciation of Mr. Assalone's name as "ASS-alone" by Ms. Johnson.
- The Savage Indian: The portrayal of the Sioux tribe in the reenactment of the general's rescue — they indiscriminately attack the "poor, defenseless" white settlers, kidnap an innocent young girl, and shoot the general full of arrows as he rescues the child. This portrayal is the result of history being Written by the Winners — the Sioux who lived on the land where Big Cherry was founded were massacred by the army in order to seize the territory for white settlers.
- Shame If Something Happened: Mayor Superba doesn't outright threaten Mr. Peel's wife and daughter, but he does imply that Mr. Peel's actions will determine whether his daughter ends up like the real Native American girl killed by the soldiers: terrified and running for her life in the last moments before her sudden and violent death, or like the rescued settler girl from the fictional account of the town's founding: safe and warm in her family's home with a bright future all but assured.
- Token Minority: Mr. Blake is the only black person on the council.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Big Cherry is actually built on land stolen from a Native American tribe — the name "Big Cherry" even comes from a slur that the soldiers used in reference to the Native Americans: cherry n*ggers. The story of the General's battle against the Indians and rescue of a little girl is a fiction designed to obscure the genocide of the native tribe that actually took place, and the Town Council is willing to go to scary lengths to keep this secret under wraps.
- Trippy Finale Syndrome: As the tensions reach a boiling point in the council room, the council members excepting Mr. Peel strip down to their underclothes, apply bright red warpaint, and engage in a synchronized, ritualistic dance (similar to a haka
). Mr. Peel flees in revulsion at the council's unwavering complacency with the atrocities of the town's founders. Shortly thereafter he returns and joins them in the ritual, signaling his willingness to uphold the façade of the town's past if it will ensure the future of his family.
- War Reenactors: The moment the council learns that Mr. Peel hasn't heard the tale of the General's rescue, they immediately suspend the council meeting and put on an abbreviated reenactment of it for him - right in the middle of the council meeting room.
- Written by the Winners: As revealed in Mr. Carp's impassioned monologue in the last act, "Big Cherry" stems from the settlers' derisive nickname for the Indians — "cherry niggers" — but the town covered it up by saying it comes from the town's famous cherry trees, even though there are no cherry trees present in the current day. The massacre of the native Sioux has been swept under the rug, with the town's leadership promoting a fictional founding mythology centered on a made-up battle between the noble army and The Savage Indians.
