The Public Servant

Written and created by Jennifer Brewin, Haley McGee, Sarah McVie and Amy Rutherford. Directed by Jennifer Brewin. Until April 3 at the Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley St. CommonBootsTheatre.ca or 416-368-3110

Won’t somebody think of the bureaucrats?

A new play from Common Boots Theatre, in association with Nightwood Theatre, takes a closer look at the dutiful civil servants in Ottawa, the ones that report to Tunney’s Pasture instead of the House of Commons. The ones that do the leg work and have their projects cancelled at the last minute. The ones that feel the brunt of the budget cuts that make the top brass more electable.

It’s not a glamorous life, but it’s the life of the characters in The Public Servant, co-created by director Jennifer Brewin and actors Sarah McVie, Amy Rutherford and Haley McGee (McGee appeared in the play’s Ottawa premiere but is replaced here by Amy Keating), who interviewed more than 40 government workers during the process.

The comedy we now see onstage was created through improvisation, keeping the result heavy on short and funny skits, and light on an impactful plot.

Keating begins the play as Madge, a 22-year-old daughter of a Saskatchewan farmer and recent graduate of a master’s program in public policy, arrived in Ottawa for her first day as a policy analyst in the Ministry of Agriculture: very eager, very patriotic, a younger Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation.

McVie is her superior, Lois, a warm and kind mother hen of the department, which she’s been in for 12 years. Rutherford starts off by whipping through a series of characters in the office, from a high-heeled Russian scientist to a touchy engineer on the verge of retirement, but establishes herself as Cynthia, the senior policy analyst with a sharp brain dulled by years of having her hands tied at the whims of changing priorities and parties.

Each of these three women could be imagined as the same woman at various points in her career: the young go-getter; the middle-aged worker who knows the guidelines, formats and routines by heart; and the cynical, tired senior.

It’s as if Cynthia’s fate is inevitable for all government workers, the creators think, because of the fickle nature of their work. The answer, it seems, through Madge’s trajectory, is to just not get involved at all.

The play does shed some light on the sense of alienation, frustration and endless hoops that come with government work, more so than in your average office job, and it creates three endearing characters. But it feels like the show’s creators never landed on why anyone still finds value in this work.

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Nevertheless, The Public Servant has some truly impressive comedic turns from McVie and Rutherford, both Ottawa natives. McVie’s Lois is utterly charming, especially when outlining her daily Weight Watcher’s Points breakdown and vacation schedule.

Rutherford does the most character gymnastics, with some excellent clownish moments behind a set of movable cubicle walls of beige and frosted glass. Keating has a tour-de-force dance routine as she changes from her regular clothes into Reitman’s chic office wear. And though she pulls off an opening monologue about her love for Canada (rattling off the typical features: Margaret Atwood, Tim Hortons, hockey, the provincial flowers, you know the rest), there’s something about the tone of it that feels off — as if someone could be as plugged in as Madge and still see the country with rose-coloured glasses, even after, for example, the extensive coverage of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.

It, like the show in general, is funny if a bit shallow.

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