Melvin Carter Jr. is greater than just the St. Paul mayor’s father. This child of the Rondo neighborhood has led a really interesting life, a story of redemption that’s led a St. Paul kid with a propensity for stepping into trouble to turn out to be a person dedicated to getting St. Paul kids out of trouble.
Along the way in which, he was a street fighter, a sailor, a police officer and a linchpin leader in his community. And such an attractive storyteller that his 2019 autobiography from the Minnesota Historical Society Press, “Diesel Heart,” has found an enthusiastic audience.
Now Brian Grandison has adapted that book right into a play. “Diesel Heart” premiered this past weekend at History Theatre, and it’s a show that works higher as history than as theater. While it’s often engaging — especially when one in every of its 20-some vignettes stretches into something that looks like a turning point — I discovered myself wishing that it sounded more like Melvin Carter.
For he’s indeed a person filled with charm and charisma who nevertheless pulls no punches in terms of describing how boys fall into crime or talking in regards to the racism that ran rampant within the St. Paul police force during his tenure there. And each topics come through clearly on this adaptation, which employs rougher language than you customarily hear in a History Theatre show.
However it’s clear that Carter’s ideal target market is teenage boys who’re used to such talk. In the event that they come, they might find much value in a story that assures them that their experiences aren’t unique or latest, and that it’s possible to show a life around.
Yet Grandison’s script is so drowning intimately that it’s easy to lose track of an important lessons of Carter’s life. An excessive amount of of the show has a sense of “this happened, then this happened, then this happened,” when Carter’s story would likely have been higher served by focusing upon just a few key life-changing events that add as much as a cogent theme.
Yet the performances and design elements are each quite strong. Mikell Sapp carries the show as Carter, acting as narrator and protagonist. He’s never more compelling than when Carter’s “diesel heart” is clearly racing as he struggles to make sense of an experience that’s suffused him with anxiety.
Sapp is complemented well by a nine-member forged under the direction of Warren C. Bowles, each actor tasked with taking up several roles. Standouts amongst them are Darius Dotch, who employs cool reserve and violent explosiveness in comparable measure, Monica E. Scott as Carter’s exasperated but ultimately supportive mother, and Ninchai Nok-Chiclana as a wildly disparate collection of characters.
While Katharine Horowitz’s soundscape of jazz and soul fills the air, Seitu Jones’ set design and Kathy Maxwell’s projections are invariably impressive. And the Twin Cities theater scene’s foremost fight choreographer, Annie Enneking, does yeoman work on a show filled with physical conflict.
Yet it may need been rewarding to get a greater sense of why Carter is renowned for his role as a peacemaker. And I wish that Melvin’s wife, Toni Carter — who recently concluded a protracted tenure as a Ramsey County commissioner and was named to the Metropolitan Council last week — wasn’t just presented as a serial child bearer. Possibly she’ll get a show of her own someday.
Diesel Heart
When: Through April 2
Where: History Theatre, 30 E. tenth St., St. Paul
Tickets: $58-$15, available at 651-292-4323 or historytheatre.com
Capsule: A chronicle of a life loaded with more details than insight.
Rob Hubbard may be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.