THE MINUTES
by Tracy Letts
Directed by Anna D. Shapiro
Studio 54
Official Website
Reviewed by David Spencer
Because I’ve spent so much of my career adapting, writing and writing about genre stories, I’m over-sensitive about spoilers, and to my way of thinking, it is literally impossible to review Tracy Letts’ new play, The Minutes, without spoilers. I’d even go as far as to say that identifying it as a genre piece is a spoiler in itself. Because it starts out being a “only” a comedy about local township government. And then you slowly realize it’s something else.
So for those of you who don’t wish to know any more than if you should see it…well, I think anything by Mr. Letts is worth checking out, but simply taking the play on its own terms:
…yesssssss, sort of.
Yes. Qualified yes.
Come back to this review once you’ve seen it, and my reasons are below.
As to the rest of you…I’ll try not to spoil actual plot points…but I will be spilling more than I would have wanted to know, first time through. (I’m reviewing based on my second time through. My first was literally the night before COVID shutdown stopped every show in its tracks.)
I won’t be saying much, in any event.
Scroll down below the unconnected dots…
……
……
……
……
……
……
……
……
……
……
The minutes in The Minutes are what’s missing. An idealistic young dentist (Noah Reid), new to the Town Counsel of the Midwest town Big Cherry, has missed a meeting owing to the death of his mother. Upon his return, he’d like to be filled in. What did he miss?
But the answer, which would be contained in the minutes of the last meeting, which would normally have been typed up, duplicated and distributed for reference…is not immediately forthcoming. Why haven’t those minutes been prepared? Why is everyone who had been present skirting the issue? Why is the Mayor actively trying to shut the topic down?
The play seeks to disarm its audience at first, and succeeds. The characters are idiosyncratic and funny and—two years after the play halted in previews, five years after its Steppenwolf premiere—their representation of the pettiness and slow-insinuation corruption of conservative management in a charged political climate is sharper than ever. Maybe even sharper than originally intended. The audience laughter is emphatic and frequent through the first two-thirds of the play, even as plot machinations lay the groundwork for something…well…less funny.
The reveal is what may separate those who ultimately dig the play from those who ultimately don’t. Not because it doesn’t fulfill the premise in terms of impeccably delivered page-turner storytelling…
…but because genre-wise, we’ve been here before. And Tracy Letts is such an incredibly freaking hip dramatist that I cannot believe he doesn’t know it.
Which means that not only is The Minutes an increasingly dark political satire…it’s an homage to stories like The Tenant, The Wicker Man, Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, The Lottery…stories about entire communities that are not what they seem. And how satisfied it leaves you may have a great deal to do with how happy you are with a variation on a theme so oft-played in the realm of psychological horror-suspense that it’s a trope.
Or you may find it to be the perfect metaphor for Republicanism. Which, come to think of it, any of these stories might be. But The Minutes is the one that’s actually, specifically political too.
Me? I wasn’t so taken with its familiarity the first time. The second time, I thought its increased relevance made it sharp as a tack and altogether necessary.
Under the likewise sharp direction of Anna D. Shapiro, the cast is uniformly terrific, each actor having his or her highly memorable turn…but of course that doesn’t happen en masse without brilliantly written roles to provide them. I’d tell you more about said roles and the excellently realized performances…but those would be spoilers too. For the record, though, the cast includes, aside from Mr. Reid, the playwright himself as the sinister mayor named Superba (of course) plus Ian Barford, Blair Brown, Cliff Chamberlain, K. Todd Freeman, Danny McCarthy, Jessie Mueller, Sally Murphy, Austin Pendleton, and Jeff Still.
There. Now you know.
Come to think of it…
Maybe you know too much.
The question is…
What exactly do you think you’re going to do about it…?