At Curious Theatre, a first-rate cast delivers with Tracy Letts’ funny, shocking play
Tracy Letts’ play The Minutes unfolds in two distinct chapters. One is a very funny situational comedy about the members of a city council wrangling over seemingly nonsensical items like creating a fundraiser by having a mixed-martial artist dressed as Abraham Lincoln taking on all comers. Or more serious things like whether to make a proposed fountain ADA accessible and why attendance at the town’s annual festival is declining.
Trying to make sense of it all is new councilmember Mr. Peel (Josh Robinson), who missed the last meeting and is trying to catch up. But where, he wants to know, are the minutes from the October 18th meeting?
It’s those missing minutes that lay the groundwork for the much darker, second part of the play. Gone, for the most part, are the laugh lines and instead we’re exposed to the surprisingly rotten core of the small city of Big Cherry. Secrets are revealed, hard choices must be made, and at one point the cast engages in the kind of wild rumpus you might find in a stage version of Where the Wild Things Are.
Things get weird.
In this regional premiere at Denver’s Curious Theatre, director Christy Montour-Larson is working with a great script and an embarrassment of riches, cast-wise. From there, she takes the audience on a journey where the city’s leaders face down one of the big questions of our more-enlightened time: Do we sweep the ugly history we know is there under the rug and simply enjoy our cushy lifestyles — or do we confront it, perhaps threatening some parts of the easy life we’ve created for ourselves?
For The Minutes, scenic designer Markas Henry transforms the stage into a perfect replica of a council meeting room in a musty old building prone to electrical shorts. Before the show opens, the 10 high-backed chairs (plus a less-fancy one for the clerk) with their associated nameplates are already at work defining the characters with evocative names like “Mr. Assalone,” “Mr. Carp,” “Mr. Breeding,” “Ms. Matz” and the more on-the-nose “Mayor Superba.” While some plays may take most of the first act to define so many characters, it only takes about 20 minutes into the show for the audience to have a pretty good idea of who these folks are — at least on the surface.
Comprised entirely of Curious company members, the cast sets to work on a story that seems tailor-made for the type of challenging, provocative theatre Curious likes to present. The target is often white privilege, but in The Minutes it’s that plus the obliviousness most Americans have about a society built on the ruins of another. The pre-show recording noting that the theatre sits on land once inhabited by Native Americans has never seemed more appropriate: Most of the Big Cherry City Council couldn’t give a shit, turns out.
It’s a rainy night as the play begins, and lighting designer Richard Devin’s cues throughout the play nicely texture the action with shades of gray and black. We first see the clerk, Ms. Johnson (Ilasiea Gray) as she preps the room in her clerk duties — a no-nonsense demeanor accented by a slim skirt and frilled white shirt. As the councilmembers file in, we first meet the new guy, Mr. Peel, a dentist played with earnest nerdiness by Robinson. Brian Landis Folkins is also in dork mode as Mr. Hanratty — a combative whiner who soon squares off with slightly drunk Mr. Blake (Cajardo Lindsey), who seems to be on council just for the hell of it.
Jim Hunt does a nice turn as the aptly named, longest-tenured councilmember Mr. Oldfield, a man prone to non-sequiturs and references to days long gone and fond memories of the old Rexall drug store. Beside him sits the next-oldest member, Ms. Innes (Kathryn Gray) and the nervous Ms. Matz (a delightfully batty Karen Slack).
The seats of white male power are up center, with Michael McNeill as the mayor deftly portraying the congenial father-figure while knowing full well he’s got dirt on all the rest of them he’ll deploy as needed. To his left is Mr. Breeding, played with toadyish aplomb by Michael Morgan, and William Hahn as Mr. Assalone who, as the name suggests, is an asshole — and a corrupt and pugnacious one at that.
The conspicuously absent Mr. Carp doesn’t arrive until about halfway into the 90-minute show, but when he does in a flashback scene, it’s an excellent and impactful Erik Sandvold in full beard and blazer taking the council on a most unwelcome trip down memory lane. He’s been digging into the area’s history — not an easy task as he says — and he’s got some disturbing revelations about the seminal story at the city’s heart.
Erik Sandvold as Mr. Carp | Photo: Michael Ensminger Photography
We’d actually just learned about this story in a bizarrely detailed reenactment presented for Mr. Peel’s benefit by the rest of the council. Every kid in Big Cherry learns the tale of the U.S. Army officer who single-handedly rescues white settlers from attacking “savages.” What Mr. Carp says is a complete mythology also forms the basis for the town’s annual festival — and that can’t be good he tells the council.
In the wake of Carp’s bombshell, Peel is then faced with a million questions and some big decisions once he learns the contents of the missing minutes. As Mayor Superba pointedly tells Peel, he can make a big stink about the revelations and undermine his very existence (just look at what happened to Carp) or play along, join the cult of the rug sweepers and go on his merry way.
It’s a stark allegory for our entire country, where reparations for descendents of slaves, restoration of tribal lands and other attempts to atone for our past are derided or ignored. In The Minutes, Letts draws a thick, heavy line between those who fret about climate change while driving around in gas-guzzling SUVs (looking at you, Peel). In the end, Superba says we’re all culpable. He’d also probably tell you a liberal jetting off on European vacations likely has a larger carbon footprint than the guy in the diesel F-350 towing a fifth wheel. Liberals just feel bad about it.
The closing scene of The Minutes is indeed a wild rumpus — a clownish ritual that nonetheless underscores the seriousness of what’s at stake for Peel and anyone else looking to buck the status quo. What he decides is what everyone is talking about as they exit this memorable and extremely well-done production.
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