Review: "The Minutes"

Fourteen years ago, in the first year of this blog, I reviewed August: Osage County, a brilliant epic Broadway play about a dysfunctional family in Oklahoma. It was a coup for its playwright, Tracy Letts, whose career subsequently exploded as a writer and actor -- he popped up on shows like Homeland and in other Broadway plays like Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? There was even a big movie version of August with Meryl Streep and Julian Roberts (and produced, darkly, by Harvey Weinstein). 

Now Letts is back on Broadway, as a playwright and actor, with The Minutes which I just saw this past weekend. 

Like August, The Minutes is an intense experience but it's not a family melodrama -- it's more in the vein of 12 Angry Men or God of Carnage where a bunch of people get together to resolve a simple problem and, before you know it, all hell breaks loose, derailing into insanity. The Minutes is about an otherwise routine council meeting in a mid-size town called Big Cherry (its location in the United States is left purposely unclear). The meeting goes sideways when a young, impressionable councilman asks about the disappearance of one of their colleagues who, we soon learn, dug into the history of Big Cherry and discovered, well, something unpalatable.  

I'll leave the plot at that -- you have to see it to experience its shocking revelations. But the play is a brilliant example of pure talent at work. The writing, acting, and stagecraft are perfect, making for an enthralling if quite disturbing experience.

Letts plays the frightening mayor of this town and his polar opposite is played by Noah Reid, recently seen in the show Schitt's Creek. Reid is excellent in what is arguably the toughest role in the show, and he makes for a great emotional entry point and center in a play that is about the savagery of human corruption. Also in the cast are Jessie Mueller (who mostly does musicals), the legendary Austin Pendleton, my personal favorite Blair Brown, and others. Everyone in the cast is giving a chance to shine but it's ultimately Letts and Reid's show -- they are the duality of humanity, the darkness and the light, and represent the competing forces that have shaped the country and society we live in today. 

I really want to read the text of The Minutes since its writing is quite intricate and brutal -- but, as a theatrical experience, you won't soon forget it.

PS. I was originally going to see this play when it was scheduled to open in April, 2020. Obviously events intervened so I was glad to finally see it two years and three months later.

PPS. The character played by Noah Reid was originally to be played, in April 2020, by Armie Hammer but he got into some personal trouble and was subsequently "cancelled" -- and obviously his role was recast.

PPPS. I saw this play at the Studio 54. Interestingly, I saw the revival of Cabaret  at Studio 54 in 1999 and that show also featured Blair Brown -- so, for me,  Studio 54 is now the Blair Brown Theater.