NEW YORK — When I first saw Tracy Letts’ “The Minutes” in 2017 in Chicago, director Anna D. Shapiro’s sizzling Steppenwolf Theatre production felt like a takedown of Donald Trump’s triumphalist America, too engaged in self-promotion to confront the unsavory aspects of its own origin story.
Thanks to COVID-19, the show’s move to Broadway took years, not minutes. Trump is gone, maybe. But this intense play now feels aimed not so much at Trumpism but at how small-town councils and school-board meetings are turning into war zones, their traditional reliance on Robert’s Rules of Order supplanted not just by screaming matches but by quietly devastating executions of majority power. One community at a time.
As we all know, whatever side we’re on, small-town democracy is fast turning into a zero-sum American game. Each side is out for blood. That’s what “The Minutes” is about.
