12 Hours with Tracy Letts (c) Arthur Knox
Animus Theatre Company gave theater fans a generous gift last Monday when they presented Twelve Hours with Tracy Letts, a marathon reading of five of the Pulitzer Prize-winner’s plays at Circle in the Square Theatre (currently housing the Broadway musical, “Just in Time”). The day-long presentation was advertised to start at 11 a.m. and end at 11 p.m. and I am shocked to say they surprisingly kept to that time frame, ending only a bit later at 11:15. The one-playwright concept is the dream of Animus Artistic Director Jonathan Judge-Russo, and the series is named in honor of the late, beloved Circle in the Square Theatre School teacher, Alan Langdon, with the proceeds of the evening going to the school, which is housed underneath the theater. Many of the students worked as ushers and some read the stage directions for the plays.
Alan Langdon (c) Arthur Knox
The Alan Langdon Memorial Reading Series focuses each of their annual evening presentations on a single playwright, with Beth Henley, John Patrick Shanley and Leslye Headland in earlier incarnations. I’m sorry I missed those readings, but I was so glad to catch Tracy Letts, which was originally set to be performed earlier this year on February 23, the day of a huge blizzard that closed most of New York City with about two feet of snow. Monday, June 22, also had a big storm, around two inches of rain, but that is nothing for us New Yorkers.
The five plays chosen were representative of the many eras of Mr. Letts, with the earliest play premiering in 1993 and the newest debuting on Broadway in 2020. The casts of each were star-studded, with some actors mainly known for TV and film work and the majority hailing from the New York theater community (including at least three Tony Award winners). Here are the plays in the order they were performed, and while I won’t officially review the evening (there was only a limited amount of rehearsal), I will pick some highlights.
The Minutes (c) Arthur Knox
The Minutes (2020)
The Minutes takes place during a city council meeting in Big Cherry (somewhere in the Midwest) in which the newest elected member, Mr. Peel (John Gallagher, Jr.), who missed last week’s meeting because of his mother’s funeral, suspects something shady happened, as one of the other members, Mr. Carp, is now missing, as are the minutes. Director Victor Malana Maog had the character names in front of each of the actors, which gives us a clue as to Letts’ take on these small-town politicians, including Mayor Superba (Jason Biggs), Mr. Assalone (Judge-Russo) who insists on the accent on the last syllable, and Mr. Oldfield (Tibor Feldman), who indeed is the oldest on the council. There is a lot to admire about The Minutes, mostly Letts’ hysterical use of polite conversation as weapons as well as his darker themes of white privilege. The ending was where I had the most problems on Broadway, but with staged direction read and not acted out, it’s less of burden this time around.
Linda Vista (c) Arthur Knox
Linda Vista (2019)
Named after the play’s seaside California community locale, Linda Vista focuses on Dick Wheeler (Thomas Sadoski), a former photographer working as a camera repair technician, who has recently moved into an apartment complex after breaking up with his wife, who has custody of their teenage son. Outwardly, Wheeler has said he has given up looking for a mate; three women circle his orbit: his co-worker Anita (Karen Sours Albisua), his neighbor Minnie (Libby Lee) and Jules (Beanie Feldstein), a life coach Wheeler’s friends have set him up with. While I liked Ian Barford in the Broadway production, Sadoski gives the best performance of the marathon as both the most respectful and hideous representative of white male privilege. His chemistry with the rest of the cast is palpable, especially with Feldstein, as the most open hearted of the women. My guess is that Dick Wheeler is the character most similar to Letts, at least in sense of humor. Linda Vista, as directed by Jeannie Slater, was the highlight of the day.
Killer Joe (c) Arthur Knox
Killer Joe (1993)
Letts’ first play, Killer Joe, is now probably known for introducing New York audiences to Michael Shannon as the titled character when the play was revived in 1988 (Matthew McConaughey played the role in the 2012 film adaptation). Killer Joe Cooper (Eric William Morris) is a police detective who moonlights as a hired killer. Chris (Adam Langdon) is a young drug dealer whose mother has consumed his latest inventory and is now in heavy debt to his supplier. His big idea is to hire Killer Joe to kill his mother in order to get her life insurance payout. As a first play, there is a lot of promise of things to come for Letts, who seems heavily influenced by Sam Shepard in atmosphere (the play takes place in a trailer park) and quirky characters. Directed by Mark Armstrong, Killer Joe has historical importance but feels more like a curiosity piece. Still, the title character is a unique creation, and Morris provides enough charm and ickiness as Joe to keep the play interesting.
Man from Nebraska (c) Arthur Knox
Man from Nebraska (2003)
Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 after its premiere at Steppenwolf, it wouldn’t be until 2017 that Man from Nebraska had its Off-Broadway premiere. Probably the most contemplative of Letts’ plays, the titled character is Ken Carpenter (Matthew Lillard), a devout Baptist (his last name not being accidental) who wakes up one evening, realizing he has lost his faith. His understanding wife Nancy (Samantha Sloyan) thinks he might be going through a midlife crisis, so agrees to let Ken have a late-in-life rumspringa, with Ken travelling to London, a place he was stationed when he was in the army. Man from Nebraska was the Letts play I knew almost nothing about, and through Benita de Wit’s direction, it becomes a thoughtful meditation on faith and the importance of art in one’s life as Ken discovers a new passion through British sculptor Harry (Sam Tutty, providing a breath of fresh air in both Ken’s life and the play’s reverential tone). I found the play more interesting as a companion piece to August: Osage County, as Ken shares a lot of DNA with Beverly Weston, who also abandons his family, without a thought of how his selfishness (or freedom) would affect them.
August: Osage County (c) Arthur Knox
August: Osage County (2007)
The marathon ended with Letts’ most famous work, the Pulitzer and Tony-winning August Osage County, an over three-hour-long play about how a family copes after the patriarch disappears. This is the only play of the five in which women are the focus, as bitter, cancer-ridden, pill-popping wife Violet (Constance Shulman) seems to be spiraling into destructive anger, bringing back home her three daughters: Ivy (Adrienne Warren), the middle child who lives nearby and gets the brunt of Violet’s vitriol; Karen (Rory Hammond), the youngest, living in Florida, and the eldest, Barbara (the wonderful Katrina Lenk, who was also impressive in Killer Joe), who seems the most balanced, but whose marriage is falling apart. Although mostly known for the 2013 film adaptation starring Meryl Streep as Violet and Julia Roberts as Barbara, the play was a big hit when it opened on Broadway with its soap opera twists and turns, being as Southern gothic as a play set in Oklahoma could be. Director Eric Tucker and his thirteen-member cast were having a raucous time with this reading, but since it was the play I was most familiar with, I didn’t discover any new themes or insight here. Just good fun.
Twelve Hours of Tracy Letts (c) Arthur Knox
Seeing all these plays back-to-back, I did get to see some similar themes as well as recurring imagery (turtles and loud TV get more than one mention). I would have loved to have seen a reading of my favorite Letts play, the underrated Mary Page Marlow, in the rotation, not just because it’s his only play with just women (most playing the titled character at various ages), but it also takes a lot of chances stylistically. But no one can complain about such a memorable evening in which the playwright’s reputation and talents are re-enforced most emphatically.
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