Hanratty mentions in his proposal the town’s historic hero, its founder, Sergeant Otto Pym, Mr. Oldfield (a priceless Austin Pendleton, who supplies many laughs), has been on the council for 39 years he seems long ago to have lost the ability to focus on anything, unless it involves his peculiar personal needs and interests. “There’s nothing so interesting about the bottom of it,” Mr. He wants the city to rip down the old fountain near City Hall and build an elaborate and expensive new one, with a grand statue of the town’s historic hero at its center, and make it accessible “so that my sister, or any other soul confined to the use of a wheelchair, can reach the fountain and see the bottom of it.” Hanratty (Danny McCarthy) doesn’t like Mr. We take a trained mixed martial arts fighter and dress him up as Abraham Lincoln.” Ms. Blake (K Todd Freeman) is focused on lobbying for his pet project, the Lincoln Smackdown, “an opportunity for anyone to fight Honest Abe in a steel cage. OldfieldĪ cheesy effort at democratic grandeur is also a good description of many of the 11 characters in “The Minutes.” The cast, a starry ensemble, deliciously captures the pettiness, pomposity, self-dealing and general surreal lunacy of local politicos when they meet, with only the slightest of comic underscoring - as anybody who has attended any such meetings in real life can attest. Assalone, TRACY LETTS as Mayor Superba and CLIFF CHAMBERLAIN as Mr. That last effect is part of scenic designer David Zinn’s spot-on re-creation of a typically drab legislative chamber, décor that tries but fails to suggest democratic grandeur – chintzy wood panel, worn red carpet, red-leather chairs, flags and maps, and city proclamations on the walls. Shapiro heightens the atmosphere of suspense with thunder and lightning (it’s raining outside), and the flickering and occasional shutdown of the fluorescent lights inside, which only Mr. Peel’s effort to uncover it, drives the main action of “The Minutes,” and leads to a stunning revelation, which I won’t spoil.
Carp, his ally on the council, has been kicked off of it indeed, he’s disappeared entirely. If his fellow council members seem genial enough, nobody will tell him what happened at the last meeting, and why Mr. A newcomer to the town, Peel (we never learn anybody’s first name) is affable and well-meaning. Peel has been away in California to attend his mother’s funeral, and so had missed the previous week’s meeting of the city council.
Playwright and performer Tracy Letts, as the mayor, and Noah Reid and Councilmember Peel.Īs the play begins, Mr.
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