The Minutes Skewers the Politics of Rewriting History
Keegan Theatre presents Tracy Letts’ blistering satire of officials rewriting history for their own advantage.
It’s rare for a play’s themes to resonate with quite the impact and immediacy that Tracy Letts’ incisive The Minutes did for me the other night. Keegan Theatre’s boldly-staged production, directed by Susan Marie Rhea, landed a direct hit to my conscience, although the play got a hefty assist from coincidence.
Just hours before seeing this comedy about town leaders who reckon with their town’s checkered past regarding Native Americans by rewriting history, I, by chance, visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Several exhibits there — including one that reduces the U.S. Indian Removal Act to a bold business decision that, “in creating wealth” for the nation and for Southern millionaires, “was a spectacular success” — left the alarming impression that history is being whitewashed before our eyes in real time, let alone in the fiction of Letts’ 2018 Pulitzer-finalist play.
The outrage I felt leaving that museum was utterly validated hours later by the show’s depiction of leaders who would erase or obfuscate facts from history to suit a narrative that shows their heritage in the best light, albeit a false one.
Addressing this timeless outrage through scathing satire, The Minutes paints a big picture in powerful strokes. Drawing down to the finer details, the play takes a humorously skeptical look at some of the personalities prevalent in American politics, at least on the municipal level.
To that end, Letts (who won a Pulitzer for August: Osage County) populates this contentious city council meeting in the town of Big Cherry with a sprawling cast of characters full of juicy quirks for a fine ensemble to chow down on hungrily. They’re not all feasting in this ensemble, and, collectively, the rat-a-tat pacing seems like a work-in-progress, but the audacity and commitment are there one hundred percent.
The actors are set up for success with scenic designer Josh Sticklin’s vast, wood-paneled council chamber, which signals instantly what we’re in for, suggesting the showdowns — and meltdowns — we’re likely to witness.
The Big Cherry city council, presided over by self-important Mayor Superba (Ray Ficca), has convened for this closed session to discuss the upcoming heritage festival and a few other matters. While it’s pouring rain outside, the meeting might have proceeded without a hint of disruption, were it not for one pesky member.
Mr. Peel (Stephen Russell Murray), a dentist new to town, and newly elected to the council, arrives eager to jump into his new role as civil servant. However, in short order, he gets sidetracked trying to uncover what happened at the previous meeting, which he missed, that led to the sudden absence or removal of one Councilman Carp.
The deeper Peel probes, the murkier the mystery grows, compounded by the suspicious fact that the minutes from the last meeting are missing. Delayed for some procedural reason, Peel is told, though the council’s clerk Ms. Johnson (Valerie Adams Rigsbee) appears too efficient to have let that happen. Something far more sinister might be afoot.
Perhaps the most likable among this motley bunch, Murray’s Mr. Peel projects a vital sense of decency, along with a zeal for fact-finding that drives the plot.
Revealing hints of the self-serving depth behind the dentist’s decency, Murray nimbly bounces his lowkey newbie off the bigger personalities in the room, like unremitting grouch Mr. Oldfield (Timothy H. Lynch), pompous politico Ms. Innes (Barbara Klein), and nonsequitur-spouting Mr. Blake (Dominique Gray).
Though a few other performances stay lodged on one note, those don’t throw off the collective sound. The banter might not be as funny as it could be, but that doesn’t impede the trajectory of this engrossing mystery.
Prodded along by deft directorial touches — including a well-executed transition to that previous council meeting with Mr. Carp (Michael McGovern) — Rhea’s production taps into the potency of the play, issuing a stark warning to stay vigilant about how the minutes of history are being recorded, and by whom.
The Minutes (★★★★☆) runs through May 3 at The Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church St. NW. Tickets are $44 to $55, with discounts available for students, seniors 62+, and patrons under 25. Rush tickets available at the door, starting an hour before showtime. Visit keegantheatre.com.
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