4/6/2023 0 Comments The minutes tracy letts![]() As the members enter the chamber he inquires about what took place the week that he missed, but no one will answer his questions.Īfter all are assembled and just prior to the meeting, we begin to learn a bit about each of them, from the elder of the group, Mr. Peel (a marvelous performance by Cliff Chamberlain) has just returned home after missing the previous meeting for his mother’s funeral. One of the council members, in fact, the newest of members, Mr. People around noted that it had the feeling of the Oval Office, but having served on a chamber board that used the Village Council Chambers for their Board meeting, I felt that this was small town, USA at its finest. The set ( (David Zinn has created a masterpiece) will make you think and feel political. The man is a genius and has what I call a “very sick mind”, but he sees things as they are and is able to bring them to the stage (as well as film) where we, the audience, are forced to think! His new play, “The Minutes”, now in its World Premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre ( of course) is a roughly 90 minutes play about small town politics that takes place in the town hall where the city council meets (with no intermission) on a rainy night. The play forces you to think but at least Letts permits us to laugh as well.★ ★ ★ ★ ★ When I hear that I will be seeing a Tracy Letts play, I anticipate having an evening where my brain will work harder than normal. The council is made up of characters that we might even recognize. “The Minutes” contain everything -hypocrisy, greed, conformity - that constitute small town life and democracy. Few playwrights can mine laughter from the mispronunciation of a name. It may be quiet and peaceful or it might explode! No humdrum theater. You never know what to expect with Letts. This play is anything but boring! There’s a stellar cast and a tightly written script, well-directed by Shapiro. Peel react to the revelations?Īlthough the town is Big Cherry, it’s almost impossible not to think of how divisive US politics have grown as one watches “The Minutes,” especially when we wonder how seemingly intelligent people take sides because of politics rather than doing the ‘right’ thing. Those that wish to know must see the play themselves because I don’t want to ruin the story, but we do find out what happened to Mr. It’s a delightfully comic interlude and lightens the mood, leaving the audience totally unprepared for later disclosures. Rather than tell him, the council members assume parts and act the story out as if they had been rehearsing for weeks in the parking lot. Since Peel is a relative newcomer, he is unaware of the ‘illustrious’ history of the town, the history everyone else grew up with. The main topic of discussion is the Heritage Fair, marking the beginnings of the town of Big Cherry. In other words-what is PC? As usual, cost takes precedence over what is right. There is some discussion over the appropriate language to use and then a brief debate about the difference between semantics and nomenclature. He is particularly conscious since he has a disabled family member. Hanratty (Danny McCarthy) has his own agenda and has done extensive investigation into redesigning the local park with full access. He seems a bit doddering and sometimes loses track of what’s going on but the group tolerates him (and the audience loves him.) Oldfield, the member with the most seniority (Pendelton) discusses parking spaces. From the onset, it goes a little off course when Mr. The more Peel asks, the more resistant the Mayor and the others are.Īfter the first few moments of pleasantries and condolences, the meeting begins routinely with the pledge and announcements. If this were sci-fi, we might even think he’d been abducted by aliens. There are no minutes and even more mysterious is what happened to Mr. Yet he can’t seem to learn what happened. Peel (Reid,) the newest board member missed the last meeting because of his mother’s death and is anxious to catch up. Sounds boring! Wouldn’t you rather watch paint dry?Īnd yes, they do discuss the upcoming festival and civic improvements, but along the way, some interesting events occur. Their agenda includes new business, park improvements and the yearly Heritage Festival. “The Minutes,” at Studio 54 features Letts himself as Mayor Superba and an impressive cast including Jessie Mueller, Blair Brown, Noah Reid (from “Schitt’s Creek” making his Broadway debut) and Austin Pendleton among others, as the council members about to meet in a closed session. Shapiro, his director for “August: Osage County,” Letts takes a banal subject, a city council meeting, and turns into something quite entertaining and unexpected. Playwright Tracy Letts possesses the extraordinary ability to lull an audience into expecting something dry and ordinary but then making it explosive.
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