REVIEW: The Minutes (Keegan Theatre)

Nothing gets me going like some civic action. But even I, in all of my urban fanaticism, understand the limit of mundanity that comes with governance of it. City council meetings can be boring to tears. But, what if things got interesting? Tracy Letts asks this question in his 2017 thriller The Minutes, happening down on Church Street at the Keegan.

Book

Tracy Letts and his conspiracy-charged political subjects: a perfect pair? Well, certainly a pair. Welcome to Big Cherry, New York, sleepy hamlet where the history is proud and the people friendly. Unless you’re new in town, or if you’re on the city council. A lesson learned quickly by Mr. Peel (like the other characters, sans first name), who has arrived for his first city council meeting as an elected member (his first one was the week prior, but he had a funeral to attend). But on this dreary, rainy night there’s something fishy afoot: Mr. Carp, another council-member, is absent and everyone is coy as to the reason. Additionally, nobody will divulge The Minutes — roll credits! — from the prior meeting. It’s obvious the two are connected, but the show takes a bit of a time to get to the belly of it. In the meantime, we are treated to municipal bickering about firetrucks, bike locks, and the upcoming Heritage Festival. What if we expanded it? What if we added a Lincoln-themed wrestling cage (?)? That kind of thing. But surely in the midst of all this back-and-forth, the minutes eventually come out and reveal a more sinister turn of events happened before the show began. I won’t spoil it, but it does seem to come out of left field in its intensity, though not its subject matter. But it does lead to an ambiguous ending that surely poses more questions than it answers, creating a commentary on the underbelly of Americana that might have you thinking long after you leave the theatre. Or, it may not: to me, it felt like an easy way out of the play without a proper message to stand on. Something something “we live in a society”. But what I will give Letts credit for, is that this dropped in 2017 but has the 2020 political climate written all over it. 5/10

Acting

The council is an effective bunch, with stern performances etching themselves in the granite text. However, this limits the dynamism of each character, with this stoicness serving exclusively to uplift a good central performance from Stephen Russell Murray as Mr. Peel (and a solid supporting peek from Michael McGovern as Mr. Carp). 6/10

Production

The detailed council chamber set is inviting and rustic, with its Lady Columbia motifs and cozy, after-hours ambience. The lighting by Dominic Desalvio does a swell job of making it feel like we’re operating in the witching hour, and combined with an active trickle of water along the window to simulate rain, feels very noir. The placement of each character makes them feel distant, however, even in their direct dialogues, and the blocking throughout the show doesn’t mitigate that. This metaphor of disconnect is contextually appropriate but deprives the audience of character-oriented plot momentum at the times it could really have helped. 6/10

Viz

Walking into the old barn on Church Street for this piece reminds me a lot of old-town Americana, like the sorts of villages you’d find in exurban Frederick County or around the Finger Lakes in New York. That’s a pretty solid testament to the ambience that they create in their intimate space. This is reflected in a lot of their promotional materials, which features sternly protective city officials actively covering up documentation. Their poses read more comedic than serious to me, but that’s not entirely inaccurate. I just found the piece leaning more heavily on the “dark” more than the “comedy”. 8/10

Verdict

The Minutes is a taut mini-political thriller with some highlights that make its acerbic twists and turns worth the squeeze, for the most part. 25/40