In Large Cherry, a fictional mid-American city that was as soon as Sioux Indian territory, the weekly city council assembly begins routinely sufficient. Members nosh across the snack desk, tick by way of an agenda of day-to-day points — stolen bikes, parking areas, public monuments — and provide congratulations to the highschool soccer crew, the Savages.
The Keegan Theatre’s excellent manufacturing of Tracy Letts’ 2017 Pulitzer Prize–nominated play, The Minutes, ushers us into the closed-door assembly of this group of native burghers. Over 90 minutes, we transfer from their breezy, back-slapping opening banter down a rabbit gap the place an more and more cantankerous council fights to guard Large Cherry’s origin story: a narrative so jarring that it’s greatest to keep away from point out of it in a assessment. The experience is each fiercely humorous and completely horrifying. By the breathtaking finish of this one-act play, Letts neatly reveals truths not solely about Large Cherry but additionally in regards to the myths which have fueled America’s growth over 250 years, and the lengths folks will go to keep away from going through previous truths.
Letts sketches the councilmen and girls with comedian precision, and beneath Keegan Creative Director Susan Marie Rhea’s crisp route, the forged inhabit their roles with glinting humor and glee. All through The Minutes, we’re handled to a grasp class in ensemble appearing. Even their names land as jokes. Confident Mayor Superba (Ray Ficca) swaggers across the chamber with straightforward authority. Mr. Breeding (Theo Hadjimichael) snorts about “woke” language, whereas the self-absorbed Ms. Innes (Barbara Klein) insists on studying her long-winded civic sermon aloud. An unctuous Mr. Assalone, performed by Zach Brewster-Geisz, repeatedly reminds the others that the ultimate letter of his identify is its personal syllable. Timothy H. Lynch’s befuddled octogenarian, Mr. Oldfield, and Katie McManus’s extremely medicated Ms. Matz can barely observe the proceedings. One chair, nonetheless, sits conspicuously empty: Mr. Carp’s.
Earnest newcomer Mr. Peel (Stephen Russell Murray) inquires about Carp. He’s informed matter-of-factly that Carp is not on the council. On the lookout for solutions in final week’s minutes, Peel realizes that they haven’t been distributed. The clerk, Ms. Johnson (Valerie Adams Rigsbee), affords no solutions, and the room closes ranks. Peel presses, his unease mounting. Nobody budges.
As a substitute, the Council pivots to gadgets of civic satisfaction, together with a proposed statue of U.S. Military hero Sergeant Otto Pym, who supposedly saved an area white youngster from marauding Native Individuals in 1872. As if in a trance, the complete council places apart its petty variations to enact an unforgettable historical past lesson, one all of them discovered way back in Large Cherry’s public faculties.
All of this performs out in a wood-paneled, tall-windowed, chandelier-topped chamber that appears to replicate Large Cherry’s inflated sense of its personal significance. On the wall behind Mayor Superba’s ample armchair, scenic designer Josh Sticklin has mounted an enormous, garish replica of Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s well-known mid-Nineteenth-century portray “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Means,” an ideal visible expression of Manifest Future. It might really feel dated till we understand {that a} gigantic model of Leutze’s work nonetheless hangs outdoors the Home of Representatives at the moment. What higher metaphor for the way in which nationwide origin tales make their manner down into native storytelling, burying truths in a haze of patriotism?
Letts seeds the primary half of the play with hints of rot beneath the humor, aided by Dominic DeSalvio’s lighting design, which incorporates a number of eerie flickerings and blackouts. In fact, we’ll ultimately be taught what’s recorded within the minutes, however nothing fairly prepares us for the play’s last flip. Large Cherry’s satisfaction depends on a willful racism that’s actually breathtaking.
With that revelation (which I received’t reveal right here; it’s worthwhile to see it for your self), we’re invited to think about how inconvenient truths are erased from official histories and the way “various information” take their place. Many people despair; fewer, maybe, are keen to relinquish the privileges ensuing from centuries of pillage. Letts’ good play doesn’t provide solutions — however he does pose a pointed query: how a lot effort would many people make to set the document straight? That was an essential question again in 2017 when the play was written. It’s much more pressing at the moment.
Working Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
The Minutes performs by way of Might 3, 2026, at The Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church St NW, Washington, DC, with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8:00 pm, Sundays at 3:00 pm, and choose Mondays and Wednesdays at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $55 ($44 for seniors 62+ and college students/beneath 25) and obtainable on-line.
SEE ALSO:
Keegan Theatre proclaims forged and creatives for ‘The Minutes’ (information story, March 12, 2026)
