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The Plays of David Mamet: Games of Manipulation and Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Henry I. Schvey
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Abstract

David Mamet, born in Chicago in 1947, is one of the most talented and eagerly watched young playwrights in America today, whose work has also found a ready response among British audiences. After such plays as Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974). American Buffalo (1975) and Edmond (1982), his Glengarry Glen Ross (1982), dedicated to Harold Pinter, had its world premiere in London at the National's Cottesloe Theatre, and subsequently won the Pulitzer prize for the best American play in 1984. In the same year, American Buffalo (seen briefly on Broadway in 1977) won an award for best revival, while the London production of Edmond, which opened at the Royal Court in December 1985, was favourably received by English critics in contrast to its mixed reception in New York. In addition to Mamet's work for the stage, he has written the screenplays for the films The Verdict and The Postman Always Rings Twice. Noteworthy for their sensitivity to the nuances and rhythms of American speech, including its unmistakable penchant for banalities and obscenities. Mamet's best plays, as the accompanying essay demonstrates, carry with them an implicit attack on American business values, usually through a confrontation between two individuals, one of whom tries to exploit or dominate the other. The interview which follows was conducted in New York City on 2 January 1986 following a performance of Mamet's latest work, a double bill of one–act plays entitled The Shawl and Prairie du Chien, selected by Mamet's friend and close associate at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Gregory Mosher, to reopen the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 4 , Issue 13 , February 1988 , pp. 77 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

Notes and References

1. Mamet, David, The Shawl and Prairie du Chien (New York: Grove Press, 1986), p. 25Google Scholar. Further references are in parentheses following quotations.

2. Quoted in Leahey, Mimi, ‘David Mamet: the American Dream Gone Bad’, Other Stages, 4 11. 1982, p. 3Google Scholar.

3. Mamet, David, ‘First Principles’, Theater, Summer–Fall 1981, p. 51Google Scholar.

4. Ibid., p. 52.

5. Ibid., p. 51.

6. Leahey, p. 3.

7. ‘Talking about Writing for the Theater’, International Herald Tribune, 21 Feb. 1986, p. 7.

8. Leahey, p. 3.

9. Mamet, interview with author, New York City, 1986; hereafter cited as Mamet interview.

10. , Mamet, Sexual Perversity in Chicago and The Duck Variations (New York: Grove Press, 1978), p. 122–3.Google Scholar Subsequent references are in parentheses following quotations.

11. Eder, Richard, ‘David Mamet's New Realism’, New York Times Magazine, 12 03 1978, p. 41Google Scholar.

12. , Mamet, Reunion and Dark Pony (New York: Grove Press, 1979), p. 40Google Scholar. Subsequent references are in parentheses following quotations.

13. , Mamet, A Life in the Theatre (New York: Grove Press, 1977), p. 95Google ScholarPubMed.

14. Quoted in Patricia Lewis and Terry Browne, ‘David Mamet’, p. 69.

15. Lewis and Browne, p. 66.

16. , Mamet, American Buffalo (New York: Grove Press, 1976), p. 7Google ScholarPubMed. Subsequent references are in parentheses following quotations.

17. Gottlieb, Richard, ‘The Engine that Drives Playwright David Mamet’, New York Times, 15 01 1978, Sec. 2, p. 4Google Scholar.

18. Mamet interview.

19. Gussow, Mel, ‘Mamet Explores the Fall of Edmond’, New York Times, 17 06 1982, Sec. C, p. 17Google Scholar.

20. See, for example, Rich, Frank, ‘Mamet's Edmond at the Provincetown’, New York Times, 28 10 1982Google Scholar; or Barnes, Clive, ‘Stark Telling of Mamet's Edmond’, New York Post, 28 10 1982Google Scholar.

21. Quoted in Leahey, p. 3.

22. , Mamet, Edmond (New York: Grove Press, 1983), p. 16Google ScholarPubMed Subsequent references are in parentheses following quotations.

23. Albee, Edward, The Zoo Story (New York: Signet, 1959), p. 37Google Scholar.

24. Hurley, Joseph, ‘Mamet's Tour of Urban Depravity’, Other Stages, 4 11 1982, p. 3Google Scholar.

25. Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Penguin Books, 1969), p. 194Google Scholar.

26. Burke, p. 373.

27. Quoted in Leahey, p. 3.

28. Quoted in Kissel, Howard, ‘Miller and Mamet’, Playbill, II, No. 9 (1984), p. 10Google Scholar.

29. Miller, Arthur, Death of a Salesman (New York: Viking, 1962), p. 11Google Scholar. Subsequent references are in parentheses following quotations.

30. , Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross (New York: Grove Press, 1984), p. 105Google Scholar. Subsequent references are in parentheses following quotations.

31. Martin, Robert A., ed., The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), p. 6Google Scholar.

32. Ibid., p. 135–6.

33. Mamet interview.

34. Wilson, Edwin, ‘Theater: Lives of Salesmen’, Wall Street Journal, 4 04 1984Google Scholar.

35. Watt, Douglas, ‘A “Death” of Honest Salesmen’, New York Daily News, 26 03 1984Google Scholar.

36. Quoted in Richard Eder, ‘David Mamet's New Realism’, p. 41.

37. Mamet interview.