Some stories creep up in disguise, hiding a ghastly scowl. 'The Minutes' is an astonishing feat from playwright and star Tracy Letts, not least for its brilliant finesse in orchestrating audience expectations and surprise. To go in knowing little or nothing about the play may be the purest way to experience its dramatic cunning. (Reader, be warned.) It is thrilling and essential theater that interrogates the present by laying bare how history is written. And it's among the best new plays on Broadway in years.