(Those moments also indicate why Armie Hammer, the original Mr Peel, accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct, was subbed out in favor of Reid, who radiates aw shucks integrity.) The American experiment, Letts suggests, is a devil’s bargain, which the final moments nudge toward the literal. His earlier play, August Osage County, explored American life through the microcosm of one dysfunctional family, The Minutes goes macro, exploring America’s foundational myths via one pretty functional local government. That’s because Letts positions The Minutes as allegory – shades of The Crucible or The Lottery or Enemy of the People. And the title itself holds the solution.) But even this revelation is largely beside the point. Why? What happened at the last council meeting will of course be revealed later on. The high school football team? They’re called the Savages. Yet even in the bland first half, hints of something darker persist. And in truth, the show is never all that dull, in part because Anna D Shapiro, the outgoing artistic director of Steppenwolf Theatre, has a true-blue acumen for pinpointing the talents of her cast, most of them Steppenwolf veterans, who wring the blood and plasma from each motion and vote. Here’s one: that character is named Mr Oldfield. Many are at the expense of the council’s most senior member, a dodderer played by the beloved Austin Pendleton. There are jokes, sure, though few of them seem especially effortful. On the hyperlocal level, it involves a lot of speechifying, box-ticking, procedure for procedure’s sake. Because wheels of democracy – as anyone who has stuck with C-Span for more than a few minutes can attest – tend to roll slowly, when they don’t get stuck in the mud. Not Letts’s Mayor Superba, not Jessie Mueller’s clerk, not any other member.įor long stretches, The Minutes, is dull, which Letts seems to intend as a feature, not a bug. Where is his friend Mr Carp? And why have the previous minutes not been distributed? But no one is talking. Peel had to miss the last council meeting – he left town to attend his mother’s funeral – and he enters this one slightly confused.
He is also, significantly, an incomer, brought to this particular small town, Big Cherry, by his wife. Lane, Bonnie Comley, Leah Lane, Emily Dobbs, and Jacob Soroken Porter.Our guide for the evening is Mr Peel (Noah Reid of Schitt’s Creek), a pediatric dentist and a new electee. The producing team is led by Jeffrey Richards, Rebecca Gold, Carl Moellenberg, Spencer Ross with Jayne Baron Sherman, Elizabeth Armstrong, Blakeman Entertainment, Ricardo Hornos, Across the River Productions, Stewart F. The Minutes arrives on Broadway following a world premiere at Chicago's Steppenwolf. Todd Freeman ( Airline Highway, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Tony nominee Austin Pendleton ( Choir Boy, The Diary of Anne Frank), Ian Barford (recently seen in Letts' play Linda Vista on Broadway), Cliff Chamberlain ( Superior Donuts, Homeland), Danny McCarthy ( To Kill a Mockingbird, The Iceman Cometh), Sally Murphy ( Linda Vista, August: Osage County), and Jeff Still ( To Kill a Mockingbird, Oslo). In addition to starring playwright Letts, the cast of the Broadway production will also feature Tony Award winner Jessie Mueller ( Waitress, Beautiful), Golden Globe nominee Armie Hammer ( Call Me By Your Name, Straight White Men), Tony winner Blair Brown ( The Parisian Woman, Copenhagen), Tony nominee K.
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