The 300 Word Commentary: Finding the meaning of Tracy Letts (in 12 hours)
It’s rare to binge the work of a great American playwright as if it were a Netflix series. That’s the experience offered by “12 Hours With Tracy Letts,” which presented five plays as staged readings by top-flight casts, performed from a row of folding chairs on the stage of the Circle in the Square Theater.
By binging, you can discover a playwright’s grooves. How often Letts has characters correct each others’ use of words – a very writerly motif – both for comedy and to signal
characters’ willingness to be tough on each other. How often he has world-weary middle-aged men score with life-affirming younger women -– usually inflicting equal damage on each party. How he repeatedly, enthusiastically skewers white privilege – and every other entitled view. How his troubled characters try so hard to fool themselves, or others, or both – on the way to seeking a redemption that often isn’t there.
These stylistic echoes seem to help Letts delve insightfully into very different kinds of stories. In “The Minutes,” town council members desperately shield their history; in “Linda Vista” and “Man From Nebraska,” two middle-aged men attempt to break from their pasts in sharply diverging ways. In Letts’ most famous play, the Pulitzer and Tony-winning “August: Osage County,” a patriarch’s suicide digs up family secrets. (I missed “Killer Joe,” in which a shocking murder plot spurs brutal power plays.)
Standout acting, even from folding chairs, ensured the vital undertones rose from the scripts’ pages. (Among the faithfully nuanced performances were those from John Gallagher Jr., Thomas Sadoski, Beanie Feldstein, Samantha Sloyan, Constance Shulman and Katrina Lenk.)
Letts’ plays vary in how funny they begin and how dark they turn, but a hallmark emerges: The comedy and tragedy don’t just co-exist -- each reveals and deepens the other. In a word, they’re binge-worthy. – Adam Z. Horvath (Photo by Arthur Knox)
Published: June 27, 2026