Peel finds it suspiciously reminiscent of the John Wayne movie “The Searchers,” this tale is still taught in classrooms and purveyed in patriotic pageants it is enshrined in the imagery on a fountain Mr. It concerns the supposed rescue, in November 1872, of a local white girl from Native Americans, who in the town’s official history are portrayed as vicious “savages” bent on thievery, murder and rape. Pertinent because the story that Letts gradually unwinds - parts of which are surreally enacted before us - is about racial horror. As the newest and youngest member of the council - a dentist not from the area and therefore not familiar with its traditions - Reid combines the aw-shucks pluck he brought to the role of Patrick on “Schitt’s Creek” with a mounting apprehension that may remind you of other creeping-realization-of-evil tales like “The Lottery,” “The Crucible” and, more pertinently, “Get Out.” Peel ( Noah Reid), who will soon be stripped to his core while trying to unravel the mystery at theirs. Into this palace of complacent, petty bureaucrats enters the necessary outsider, Mr. Rising Stars : These actors turned playwrights all excavate memories and meaning from their lives in creating these four shows, which arrive in New York in the coming months.Musical Revivals: Why do the worst characters in musicals get the best tunes? In upcoming revivals, world leaders both real and mythical get an image makeover they may not deserve, our critic writes.Life in Photos: Larry Sultan’s photography, now starring in the play “Pictures From Home” and a gallery show, raise issues of who controls a family’s image.‘The Invisible Project’ : The new show by the choreographer Keely Garfield at NYU Skirball is a dance, but it is also informed by her work as an end-of-life and trauma chaplain.Under the handsome barrel vault of the council chamber, and in front of a mural of vague allegorical figures - the witty set is by David Zinn - we meet the mayor and the nine other members of the august body. “The Minutes” is at first content merely to assemble, in a series of deft introductions, a hilarious portrait of the burghers of Big Cherry, a “wet sock of a town” whose main industry seems to be self-satisfaction. Yet Letts, a master of the American Macabre, makes something quite different of these middling workplace comedy ingredients: not a “Parks and Recreation,” nor even a “ Miles for Mary,” but a deeply troubling play about history and horror. What could be more tedious, onstage or in life, than a City Council meeting with little on the agenda besides approving the official record of the last one? Or arguing the merits of a “Lincoln Smackdown” cage match attraction at the next annual heritage festival? If you set out to imagine the dullest possible setting for a play, you might come up with something much like the one Tracy Letts puts before you in “ The Minutes,” a Steppenwolf Theater production that opened on Sunday at Studio 54.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |