No Mystery is Too Mundane, and the Mundane has Never Been More Entertaining
Aaron Kopf, Associate Toronto Critic
I had the opportunity to experience something unique and entertaining this week when I received a call from The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries. This project was part of Summerworks, and due to its popularity, The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries got an extension.
Over the six days (Monday through Saturday) only 42 cases could be handled by the Ministry. This doesn't sound like a lot but given that each case was created specifically for the participant, this ended up being more cases than I thought would be completed in a weeks time.
About one week before I was contacted by phone by the Ministry, I was sent an email with a form to fill out with the mystery I would like them to solve. My case was The Case of the Missing Paint Sealer. The information used in that survey was put to creative use, to develop a unique experience built just for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve really had genuine interaction with other people, so it was nice to have a group of strangers make an experience that was suited to my life and situation.
Each morning at 11:00 am I received a phone call related to my case. Sometimes it was from my dedicated inspector, others were from people directly involved in my case (someone claiming to have a similar case to myself, another was the head of a theatre company, and finally a man claiming to be a part of a think tank dealing with early childhood experiences particularly those in the realm of fantasy).
It wasn’t long after my 11:00 am phone calls started that I was beginning to look forward to my daily call. I understand for logistical reasons these calls were done at the same time every day, but for interest and to give a little more reality to the case it would have been nice to only get the call from the investigator assigned to my case at this time and at other times throughout the day from the other characters. I really appreciated how they took the information, gathered from the first phone call and the survey, about my personal life (because they use a holistic approach to solving mysteries), and incorporated that into the case. Of the various theatrical experiences that I have been able to participate in, since theatres closed their doors in March, this one worked the best. Too often the medium has been limiting in the other performances, however, The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries use of daily phone calls worked perfectly.
If the opportunity ever arises for you to submit a mundane mystery to The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries, jump at the chance. I would love to mention performers that were directly involved in my Mystery but we were just given the list of all the Inspectors involved throughout the week, but no mention of the characters they played, again I can only assume that this is due to the number of people each might have played throughout the week.
That aside everything was done so well, I would love to have them look into another case...maybe The Case of the Missing Tennis Ball?