4/29/2023 0 Comments Play the minutes![]() Slusher presents a matronly character who seems rather like an old school teacher. Guinan milks the “old man” angle for all it’s worth, but he can be spry enough when he needs to be. In contrast with young Peel’s idealism, we meet the jaded longest-serving (by far, as he keeps reminding us), Mr. The members of the Council are a varied bunch. Here, Shapiro mines Letts’ small town council meeting for all of the interpersonal and political comedy and landmines one might imagine there can be in such a setting. And it always has been.” Letts has always been good at finding the Big Picture within the small ones, as he did in last year’s Steppenwolf comedy “Linda Vista” and in the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning “August: Osage County,” the latter of which is similarly-themed to some of what goes on in this one. She notes in the program that when she looks at what our world is becoming and tries “to understand the motives of people whose words and actions seem so obviously cruel,” she worries about the great divide among us: “this wrenching breach can’t be the whole story.” And she argues that Letts is telling us that it is not, that “the real story is bigger than each of us and bigger than all of us. Shapiro chose to direct this one herself. To say much more would be to give away far too much of this play, which depends a lot on the twists and turns in its narrative for humor, character development, and, well, just about everything.Īrtistic Director Anne D. No one, however, will provide any details, and the minutes from the previous week are not ready yet. Carp, the one member of the Council he had already befriended, is no longer on the Council after a contentious meeting the week before. As he makes small talk, he tries to get to the bottom of something he heard as he came in: that Mr. Peel enters, attending his first official meeting after missing the previous week, which should have been his first, due to the death of his mother. Letts’ play begins with a council meeting as the town is gearing up for its annual heritage festival, an important civic event. There is no such thing as “holier than thou.” And with great power comes great temptation. As we read the papers each day, we need to decide for ourselves how to respond to each instance, but there can be no doubt of the universality of the theme: humans are frail creatures. Great comedians and important lawmakers are still human and, being human, are capable of doing ugly things as well as the good they do. Certainly, if this month’s headlines have taught us anything, they have taught us that. Perhaps Letts is arguing in this sharp, biting, at times caustic, at times hilarious political satire that this is also the way we need to take ourselves: people are rarely only a single thing. Peel (Cliff Chamberlain), the idealistic neophyte on the board, a dentist who has only recently moved to town and is, in the words of another character, “a joiner,” goes on an on about how important rain is, for the same rain that possesses the destructive power they are currently witnessing also causes crops and flowers to grow its positive characteristics must be taken with its negatives. That might not be too notable except for the fact that it has already been made abundantly clear that Big Cherry has had more than enough rain lately, as it has been pouring for two straight weeks and they are currently in a dire thunderstorm that threatens the town’s already weak electrical grid. At first a bit taken aback-separation of church and state, anyone?-he obliges, muddling through a lengthy epistle to the Lord in praise of the rain. Early in Steppenwolf Theatre’s latest play, The Minutes by Tracy Letts, the newest member of the town council of Big Cherry is called upon to start the week’s meeting with an invocation.
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