“These are archetypes,” playwright Ken Riaf says about his Gloucester-based characters, “individuals going up against a system, trying to accomplish something that gets thwarted.”
He may actually win this time.
With Gloucester poised to elect a mayor this week, Ken Riaf’s play “Think of Me Tuesday,” the story of perpetual candidate Jim “Buddy’ Chum, has a particular resonance.
The real election is Tuesday. “Think of Me Tuesday” gets its world premiere at the Gloucester Stage Company this weekend, and actual lawn signs touting “Buddy” Chum for mayor are popping up around town.
There’s a chance. That’s what Buddy hopes.
“Think of Me Tuesday” is Riaf’s latest work that mines the rich history of Gloucester characters and the town they live in. After the success of 2019’s “My Station in Life,” in which Ken Baltin won an Elliot Norton Award for portraying the irascible radio host Simon Geller, GSC has brought Baltin back to portray Buddy Chum.
Riaf’s perpetual candidate will remind locals of an actual relentless candidate, Daniel Ruberti, who ran haplessly for mayor in every election over the course of five decades.
Ruberti, who died in 2017, never came close to winning. But his antics—playing a trumpet at busy intersections, giving out handwritten “Vote Dan” cards, or shouting “think of me Tuesday” at passing cars—are part of local memory.
The play is hardly a biography of Ruberti, though. “These are archetypes,” Riaf says about his Gloucester-based characters, “individuals going up against a system, trying to accomplish something that gets thwarted. It’s asking, ‘Why does somebody persist, what keeps them going?’ ”
Baltin is joined onstage by Maureen Keiller, along with Joshua Wolf Coleman, Fernando Barbosa and Inés de la Cruz. Robert Walsh directs. The play grew out of a 2019 staged reading in GSC’s NeverDark series, an incubator for new work.
“Think of Me Tuesday” marks the return of GSC to their indoor home at the Gorton Theatre, after a summer of outdoor productions at Rockport’s Windhover Performing Arts Center. As with most indoor events, audiences are required to mask up and show proof of vaccination before entering the theater.
Evoking real-life characters onstage risks devolving into biography, or making inside references that few will understand. But Buddy Chum’s story is not Dan Ruberti’s story.
“This play is about somebody like him,” Riaf says of Ruberti. “I don’t want to use the word delusional, or quixotic—that’s too fancy. He’s on a quest to accomplish this goal, and he thinks he can do important things. He keeps getting closer, but never quite gets there.”
Other characters evoke well-known locals as well, like Mayor Selma Town. Some of the actors inhabit several roles, creating a larger sense that the play might be about everybody, not just one persistent politician.
“The town is a character,” Riaf says, “and the actors play additional parts. There’s subplots: Buddy has a son, and a wife. There’s a developer, of sorts.
“I was trying to create something that references the vicinity,” the longtime Gloucester resident says. “I’m taking it all in, and cobbling things together from watching the scene.
“This is about an individual who wants to be mayor in this little fishing town,” Riaf says. “He thinks he can do important things. This is his ongoing attempt to accomplish that.”
The Gloucester Stage Company presents the world premiere of Ken Riaf’s “Think of Me Tuesday” from Oct. 1 through 17 at the Gorton Theatre, 267 E. Main St., Gloucester. For tickets and information visit gloucesterstage.com or call 978 281-4433.
Keith Powers covers music and the arts for Gannett New England, Leonore Overture and Opera News. Follow @PowersKeith; email to keithmichaelpowers@gmail.com.