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What: “The Great(er) American Past Time”

When:7:30 p.m., tonight;

8 p.m., tomorrow and Saturday;

2 p.m., Sunday

Where: Rarig Center

Cost: Free, reservations required. Email thex@umn.edu.

Put on your thinking helmets and start your analysis engines. This weekend’s production of “The Great(er) American Past Time” will leave you with a set of plotlines and symbolic characters to scratch your head over. Employing character names like the Joneses and Ignora Ramuse, the student-run production’s playwright has pointed to American greed and excess.

Nico Swenson first wrote “Past Time” for a class last year. Now, the theater sophomore is watching the characters come to life, and he’s watching the themes — excess, greed, capitalism, consumerism — stand up on their own feet in a cultural, political and economic landscape marked by conflict between the “haves” and the “have-nots.”

“I feel like theater is a wonderful means to create social change and awareness,” Swenson said. He’s trying to get audience members to think and then to talk about what they’re thinking.

To sink audience members into the deepest possible thought space, Swenson has used a unique style of language, which energetically wavers somewhere between Dr. Seuss and Shakespeare. It’s dense, rhythmic and often nonsensical.

“I intentionally play with a very symbolic language so that it can be swung in multiple ways and so that the actor has to work to make sure they understand what they’re saying,” Swenson said.

Swenson has given his cast the freedom to grapple with the play’s text. He wants them to understand and interpret the lines to fit their own lives, rather than simply follow the script like an instruction manual.

“I have spent more time outside of rehearsal on this show than I have on any other show,” said Dan Flohr, a third-year theater major.

With bounding energy, the appropriately puppy-like Flohr plays the character of Sam. Audience members may quickly make the connection between the character and America — Uncle Sam, anyone? Sam becomes addicted to what he calls “Supplementary.”

In a moment of textual simplicity, Sam’s ma warns him, “Slow down. You’ve grown too fast, if you can call this growing.”

But overall, the play follows the style of this line, which Flohr delivers as he springs up from sleep: “God bless me with morning juice. God bless me all over my fortunately fortunate fortunes because I need Supplementary — what!”

In spite of the somewhat moonshine script, the characters journey through a definite story line.

“There’s a lot of conceptual narrative that flows over the plot,” Swenson said.

Swenson’s been working with a largely inexperienced cast and crew. Many of them are embarking on their theatrical maiden voyage with this production.

“I didn’t know what I was doing. And a lot of our designers didn’t know what they were doing,” said stage manager Cate Glidden. Along with the costume designer, the lighting designer and much of the cast, Glidden is a first-timer.

Will Sullivan, a theater freshman who plays the character of Pa, has seen the show as a learning experience for him and his fellow newbies.

 “We’ve been able to hang onto the more experienced people and build off each other. I think I’ve grown a lot because of that.” Sullivan said.