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"The finest American playwright of his generation" (Sunday Times) A junk shop. Three small-time crooks plot to carry out the midnight robbery of a coin collection. In the hours leading up to the heist, friendship becomes the victim in a conflict between loyalty and business."This play is a parable about the US - not in the journalistic way...but quietly, stealthily, with all the rich interior organisation of a true work of art" (Observer) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Characters not plot
I have always enjoyed this play. I saw it in NYC in its first run on Broadway, then saw a production at the Berkeley Rep some years later. I watched the filmed version recently. This is (as are many of DM's works) a character study. The plot is just a vehicle to give the characters something to talk about. There are no great truths revealed but there are tremendous depths to the characters. This is an actor's play, full of great dialog exchanges. For the non-theatrical person it plays better than it reads.

Mamet Hits a Single
Years ago I saw this play on the Great White Way. The set was fantastic with the busiest, most cluttered junk shop imaginable, packed to the gills with all sorts of stuff. The play itself was and is a very slight effort, and I cannot understand why it's being revived for the 2008-2009 Broadway season. There's very little to it. Three men are talking and talking and pausing. As in McDonagh's and Pinter's plays, we are not dealing with rocket scientists here. Mamet is the poor man's Pinter. Both come out of the absurdist tradition, but Mamet often seems to me to be hitting first base hits that never go anywhere and certainly don't score.
Donny runs the junk shop; Bobby is his helper; and Teach is a very small time crook. The title refers to a valuable American buffalo nickel. Donny doesn't really know the real value of the nickel that has been bought from him. A crime is hatched to steal a coin collector's trove. Should another man, Fletcher, be included? Should they go in with a gun? These are real small time crooks who don't have a clue.
The absurdist dialogue involves inanity, non-sequiturs, and nonsense. Mamet is good at sussing out conversational rhythms and the way language is often only symbolic among friend, more evocative than communicative.
In one exchange Teach says, "According to me, yes, I am the person it's usually according to when I'm talking. Have you noticed this?" The play is as much about language as it is about the action of the play. The audience finds great comedy in the circumlocution of the absurdist dialogue. Listening to dumbbells arguing about nonsense can be very funny. It's sort of pointless, a lesson in futility.
As usual in plays things go awry toward the end. Much goes unspoken in this play, and the audience can draw inferences as to what happened offstage.
There are subtexts in the play. What did Bobby do while he was gone? Is there a relationship between Don and Bobby? Things slip out as these characters talk about seemingly straightforward matters. The shop set is unbelievably cluttered, yet the dialogue is simple and uncluttered.
When I first saw and heard the play performed, I thought it was riddled with profanity; now it seems quite tame. But worthy of a revival? It's a play that has little to convey and essentially goes nowhere. Count me out of the revival.

stark, harsh, broken American dreamers..
Mamet is one of America's finest playwrights while "American Buffalo" might not stand up to universal appeal as much as "Glengarry" or "Speed the Plow" I consider it one of his best works. The language and characters are not idealistic but harsh and real as the Chicago neighborhood it takes place in. Mamet writes of broken characters and the broken American dream, read the play then rent and watch the production starring Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Franz or go watch a local theatrical production when it's done right and done by good actors it is truly an American classic.

Too obscure.
"American Buffalo" was recommended to me by a fellow thespian because he thought this was raw and fantastic.It is indeed raw, but not at all fantastic.The dialogue is very choppy and I felt out of the loop with it - as if I missed some great detail.Perhaps this is a play that needs to be enjoyed when seen performed, rather than just read. I do not recommend.

Not for the Weak
It's unfortunate that the first Amazon review of Mamet's brilliant work is by Mr. C.B.Liddell, a pompous, pontificating Brit who doesn't understand the play. I'm not sticking up for Mamet: his works are very hit and miss, and even the hits are an acquired taste (like Monty Python), I'm just standing up for a damn good play.

One of the problems with American Buffalo is that its language and setting (low-income Chicago in the 70's) are unfamiliar and difficult to appreciate for many people, but it's loved by many actors and writers in the same way that musicians appreciate "musician's music." Also, like Glengary Glen Ross, it can be emotionally violent and offensive for some people.

Still, a great work of art, in my humble opinion. Don't pass up the chance to see it performed by talented actors who know and love the play! ... Read more

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When the Internet-and the collective memory of the twenty-first century-crashes, the past is reassembled from the downloaded memories of Ginger, wife of ex-President Wilson. The transcripts take the reader on an intellectually breathtaking tour through David Mamet's baroque, fragmented world, where nothing is certain except the certainty bestowed by the academy.

After the Cola riots, the fire at the Stop 'n' Shop, and the death of my kitten, what remains? Does the Joke Code still operate? Has anyone seen my copy of Bongazine? Can Jane of Trent unlock this paranoia? What were Chet and Donna doing in the boathouse? And just who does Ginger think she is? In playing with the ideas of perception, accuracy, and truth, Wilson dares to doubt them all. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

HATS OFF GENTLEMEN!* DAVID MAMET IS A GENIUS!
The case can be made for this amazing(1) book with three little words: Huzzah for WILSON! Imagine you have been commissioned by the Misanthropological Society of Mars in the year 2006(2) to dissertate about life on the bugbog(3) planet, but find that all life and vestige of civilization have been wiped out by something or another, and that all that remains are some pages of an annoying book called "Misanthropology" (op. cit.). Get the idea? WILSON is not about that at all, but it is an amazingly amusing book; witty, philosophical, likened unto Nabokov's "Pale Fire" (q.v.) because of the footnotes, or unto Mendoza's "Sin Noticias de Gurb" (q.v.) which has no footnotes, but is in Spanish.(4)

(1) Or amusing, as the case may be.(a)
(2) A Martian day is 40 minutes longer than an earth day,and we can presume(b) that earth and Mars have a common 1 A.D. origin. With this info, can you calculate the length of a Martian year?(c)
(3) The planet earth is so described in "Misanthropology: A Florilegium of Bahumbuggery" (q.v.), wherein is posed an unnerving riddle-me-ree, to wit: What do you get if you cross a buzzbug with adiet colt?(d)
(4) Ja ja

(a) Or maybe not
(b) An unwarranted presumption? Who cares? (Dr. Livingstone, I presume)
(c) Based on the information given: no way, Jose[1]
(d) Answer: Buzz Liteyear, or a bugling. (Don't get it? Derive the middle term)[2]

[1] Ha ha. To research Martian years, try Google.
[2] Don't read further unless you give up on the middle term, which follows: A diet colt is a lite yearling. (N'est-ce pas? Now go back and get it.)

*In some versions, AND GENTLELADIES! (too wordy). Trout suggests GENTLEPEOPLE! (doesn't resonate). I say, let it STET.

Twisted meta-history
If you locked Vladimir Nabokov's "Pale Fire" and Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves" in a dark room together, the resulting love child might resemble David Mamet's "Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources." This quirky, twisted "novel" takes a look at literature, pop culture, and... oh, come on, no one can tell.

Imagine a future where the literary history of the world has been put on the computer, and then the entire Internet has crashed. Culture and history as we know it have vanished. So now only a few fragments remain, and must be pieced back together with painstaking (and sometimes insane) skill. Not to mention a lot of (pitiful) academic bickering.

The result is an intricate study of the Bootsie Club, the haunted stories of Binky Beaumont, the mysterious death of Woodrow Wilson's wife, Lola Montez, soap, the Cola Riots, analyzation of the peculiar diary entries ("Dear Diary, I am surprised that I am surprised anymore"), fragments of novels, and interestingly weird poetry.

It's almost impossible to fully describe "Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources," especially since it is only a novel in the sense that everything in it is fictional. Don't expect a linear storyline, or a story in one chunk. That's too normal, too ordinary, and too little fun. So Pulitzer-winning playwright/screenwriter/novelist Mamet takes a different route.

It has no beginning. It has no real end. It can be read backwards, forwards, or from the middle outward. It's constantly self-referencing. It's a giant mass of snippets, anecdotes, and analyses. And while at first it seems like a dense, nonsensical mass of fictional bits, eventually the brain adjusts to it.

Mamet spoofs the pompous tone that academics use -- there are studies of nursery rhymes in here! The smallest and most ridiculous bits of literature and history are studied, such as the Joke Code, a philosophical look at humor. In a possible homage to Nabokov, he also peppers the whole thing with footnotes.

Every time the text seems to be getting too serious, Mamet throws in a footnote that proclaims "Why? Because it makes a pretty picture" or proclaiming, "Yah yah yah yah. I'm rubber and you're glue." And don't forget his poetry: "The ponderous burdens of the few/to license, nay, inaugurate the new/peregrinations of the Wandering Jew..."

Postmodernist comedy is at the heart of Mamet's twisted meta-history. "Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources" is hard to get into, but becomes weirdly funny when you "get it."

Is This A Book or Is It A Con?
The writing of David Mamet can be simple, much like a open jaw- steel bear trap lying exposed, at your feet. Or this open jaw- steel bear trap can really be a ravenous black hole in the center of your literary universe, a hungry black hole waiting to devour you, if you are dumb enough to go spelunking into it's center, the vortex.While reading "Wilson" ask yourself the following questions:
1)Is this a book or is it a con?
2)Is "Wilson" a series of unpublished chapters from previous works by the author?
3)Or, is "Wilson" really a surrealistic landscape onto itself much like "The Interzone" of William S.Burroughs?
Do not read "Wilson" in chronological order!
Very rarely does an author such as David Mamet compose a snub- nose revolver like "Wilson" in which the printed words within begin to tell us everything about the author's style, but always end by telling us almost nothing about the writer's style. Good!
David Mamet has informed and confounded us again.

A real fan of Glengarry Glen Ross
Marvelous. Very twisted, slowly captures you in a world that reminds you of those insidious thoughts that you had trapped in a bad history class...and the plot only comes into view in the corner of your eye, but when you try to focus on it... ... Read more

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A collection of outstanding plays from one of America's greatest playwrights Cryptogram: "Mamet's play suggests that deception is an endless spiralling process that eventually corrodes the soul. But it also harps on a theme that runs right throughout Mamet's work: the notion that we use words as a destructive social camouflage to lie to others and ourselves...And here through all the repetitions, half sentences and echoing encounter of one question with another, you feel the characters devalue experience through their use of language. As Del cries in desperation at the end, 'If we could speak the truth for one instant, then we would be free.' Mamet's point is that we are held spiritually captive by our bluster and evasions." (Michael Billington, Guardian)Oleanna: "An exploration of male-femal conflicts which cogently demonstrates that whe free thought and dialogue are imperilled, nobody wins" (Independent) The Old Neighborhood: "Mamet, ranked with Miller, Albee and Shepard as America's finest living playwrights, distills the raw, rank flavour of people wading down streams of consciousness...A play of riveting disquiet" (Evening Standard) ... Read more

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Full Length, Dramatic Comedy / 2m, 1f / 2 ints.

Revived on Broadway in 2008, the original production starred Joe Mantegna, Ron Silver and Madonna in this hilarious satire of Hollywood, a culture as corrupt as the society it claims to reflect. Charlie Fox has a terrific vehicle for a currently hot client. Bringing the script to his friend Bobby Gould, the newly appointed Head of Production at a major studio, both see the work as their ticket to the Big Time. The star wants to do it; as they prepare their pitch to the studio boss, Bobby wagers Charlie that he can seduce the temp/secretary, Karen. As a ruse, he gives her a novel by "some Eastern sissy" writer that needs a courtesy read before being dismissed out of hand. Karen slyly determines the novel, not the movie-star script, should be the company's next film. She sleeps with Bobby who is so smitten with Karen and her ideals that he pleads with Charlie to drop the star project and and pitch the "Eastern sissy" writer's book.

"Hilarious and chilling ."- The New York Times

"Mamet's clearest, wittiest play." - The New York Daily News ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Speed The Plow
The style of writing is difficult to follow; e.g. characters constantly interrupting characters in mid-sentence.Timing would be critical for actors or the audience could easily get lost.

Mamet at his best
In regards to the plot, a movie producer named Gould is debating with his friend and colleague the importance of money versus art. Though the two agree that it is "art" that is most important, it is clear that money is what rules both of their lives. The rising action occurs when Gould bets his friend that he won't be able to have sex with his new secretary. In order to bed her, Gould gives her a book that was given to him as a "courtesy read". The woman falls in love with the book and its message and convinces Gould to throw away his cynical view on art and Hollywood and produce the film.

As is typical with Mamet, the script is filled with swears and at times confusing conversations in which the characters talk extremely fast and cut each other off. The power of the entire play is centered on three characters. Though the plot sounds tragic, it is also comedic. As is typical with Mamet, he pushes all of his characters to the extreme while still allowing them to possess an excellent sense of humor. Unlike other plays, the comic relief is built into the script and does not take place in its on separate scene or plot line. Instead, the characters are both tragic and comedic and have to embody other aspects.

Call Bull By Name, Bobby!
This play debuted just after David Mamet directed his first movie, House of Games; it's easy to think the experience left him embittered.The barrages of testosterone-soaked male posturing that dominate plays like Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo are translated to the big-studio film industry.And here we see a device that would become a Mamet standard in the 1990's: a woman enters the men's space and calls them on their baloney sauce.

This play is nuanced and subtexty.What the characters say is less important than what they imply.In this way it's a little like Harold Pinter, and it's especially difficult to get the import just by reading the script.That difficulty is multiplied by the distinctive jagged Mamet-speak of characters who seldom finish a sentence in their rapid, electric dialogue.If you want to study this play as literature, get friends together to read lines.This play absolutely demands actors.

Yet it's intensely rewarding and yields potential for endless discussions.Which character is most venal?Is it better to be honest about venality than to mask it in artistry?What kind of industry reduces humans to interchangeable commodities?All of these conundrums and more are made visible in this play, but it doesn't offer up pat answers.It leaves you hungry to think.

The one fault I find is that it wraps the characters up a little too neatly at the end.We know who we're supposed to like, who we're supposed to loathe, and which characters bet on bad ponies in their choice of loyalties.Considering the thematic ambiguity with which we're left, putting a bow on the package right at the end is just a little to neat for my money.

"Speed-the-Plow" is both damning and hugely funny.It was this blend of condemnation and comedy that build Mamet's reputation, and he uses it here to full effect on movies and the men who make them.Powerful and punchy without being merely slick, this is a play for people who love theatre for its power to recognize bull and call it by name.

took toooo long to receive - returned to sender
play "speed the plow" - ordered 10/30/08 - received 11/28/08 - received a copy - could have been from amazon - within 3 days after inquiring - returned first order "return to sender". hope I don't get billed for two.
Hope don't have order go through amazon again.

Mamet Headed for Another Revival
This play on Broadway originally starred Madonna, Joe Mantegna, and Ron Silver. To me David Mamet is an overrated playwright and an underrated screenwriter. The play is going to be revived in the 2008-2009 season along with Mamet's "American Buffalo." They are both slight efforts which pale in comparison to Pinter, Stoppard, Albee etcetera. He puts three characters on the stage and lets them blabber on, but he adds some comedy. Supposedly there's a deep and portentous subtext related to the American psyche.
In this play two movie makers have to decide upon presenting socially significant films or the usual commercial drivel. Karen (Madonna) tries to convince Gould to choose art over commerce by bedding him. Fox tries to persuade Gould that the only reason she acquiesced was to get the art film greenlighted.
Mamet in a New York Times 2008 article says this play belongs to "that particularly American subgenre, the Workplace Drama." In the occupational drama he sets up circumstances in which characters have to choose between two evils. Of Americans he says, "We live to work." This play he says deals with "the difference between Work and Art, and how is one to draw the line."
Of his play Mamet says, it's "a ripping yarn, with a bunch of sex, some nifty plot twists, and a lot of snappy dialogue." For this play I think he's wrong on all four counts. True, in the play business drives out idealism; it's the ruthless versus the toothless, but it's not ripping, nifty, snapping, or sexy.
The title phrase is like a good luck wish for swift and profitable plowing. It's a behest that you speedily plow under and start over. There's dirty work to be done, and somebody has to do it, and if you don't do it, you'll be plowed under and someone else will do it. Why is the movie business garbage? "Why? Why should nickels be bigger than dimes? That's the way it is."
The play does not read well, and it cries out for the voices and gestures of flesh and blood actors.
... Read more

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Compared to some of its New England neighbors, Vermont has seemed to long-time resident David Mamet a place of intrinsic energy and progressiveness, love and commonality. It has lived up to the old story that settlers came up the Connecticut River and turned right to get to New Hampshire and left to get to Vermont. Is Vermont’s tradition of live and let live an accident of geography, the happy by-product of 200 years of national neglect, an emanation of its Scots-Irish regional character? In exploring the ways in which his decades in Vermont have shaped his character and his work, Mamet examines the intermingling of these strands and how the state’s free-thinking tradition can survive in an age of increasing conglomeration. The result is a highly personal and compelling portrait of a truly unique place.

Enhanced by Mamet’s beautiful photographic record of Vermont, South of the Northeast Kingdom is a profound and richly textured work written with all the wit, clarity, authority of expression, and passion for truth for which Mamet is known. It is sure to move and gratify every reader, left or right, from Vermont and far beyond.

Customer Reviews (5)

ummmm...david is pretty off here...
This book reads likea very bad harry potter fantasy via my state...as if Mamet portrayed in words some bad postcard with all the stereotypes folks have...while I like a few of his early plays, this is just crap....it's a wonder Mamet has lived here for so long and gleamed so little as to the nature of this place...at one point he says that not only does he live in an 18th century farmhouse with an original stone cellar and pontificate upon it and the history sealed into it's very foundation, he then tells us that he does not know anyone here amongst his circle who does not live in a such a similar house...David, go out and deal with some real Vermont folks would you? Might do you some good...have fun with that expensive desk and rare wood stove...keep going back and forth as well as to how you feel about it.

I give folks who have visited here a few days this book and tell them to have a good laugh...and not listen to a damn word of it.

Great Book, Fast Read, and Even Better to Share in Bed
A friend who lives near Cabot just sent me a copy of this and it is divine! I couldn't resist reading it to my husband in bed since we're both from Central Vermont although now transplanted to Massachusetts where there are a few more jobs. We finished it in one weekend night and were disappointed it was over so soon (not my husband's typical reaction to a book I like, trust me).

I've read some of Mamet's other books (of course, I've seen more than a couple of his movies, too) and this is my favorite, by far. He writes well as you would expect.

Good Part of a Very Good Series
I spent several years in Vermont and still go back as often as I can.Mamet captures much of the simple magic about the state and its people.The chapters are disconnected fragments, but that is fine.The impressions combine to give a good picture of life in this curiously unspoiled place.
I have read 3 volumes in this National Geographic Discoveries series and have just ordered 3 more.They are short, insightful and written by some of the best writers out there.The whole series is worth a careful look. If they sold them on subscription, I would sign up.Someone good is doing the commisioning here.

Poetic meditations on a region and a way of life...
I live just north of Mamet's hometown of Cabot, Vermont, and know many of the places and some of the people in the book (I've never met Mamet himself).For most of us who live in or close to the Northeast Kingdom, it is a beautiful, but gritty place to make a go of it.There is much to exult about and much to damn.Mamet's take is mostly dead on.While some of the book romanticizes life here, other passages criticize both himself (directly) and others (obliquely).I found myself agreeing with much of his analysis and many of his honest portrayals.Those inhabiting the right fringe of the political spectrum might find some of Mamet's opinions distasteful, but they have it coming.
Although the word "vide" was used too often, I like a book that stretches one's vocabulary.Keep a dictionary close by if you buy this book.I also like a book whose whole is greater than the sum of the parts and that reads, at times, like poetry.The evocative black and white photos help capture this unique vision of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.I look forward to rereading this book.

Another vanity heard from
"Aren't those Vermonters cute ?" "Aren't I profound ?" This collections of anecdotes, snippets, and name dropping sure doesn't sound like the people of Cabot, Vt., that I know. In Tom Wolfe's 'Bonfire of the Vanities', Wolfe left out writers. Keep watch on Mamet. If this book really expresses his thoughts, he should self-ignite soon. ... Read more

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"I suspect that in time, The Cryptogram will take its place among Mamet's major works" John Lahr "Mamet's play suggests that deception is an endless spiralling process that eventually corrodes the soul. But it also harps on a theme that runs right throughout Mamet's work: the notion that we use words as a destructive social camouflage to lie to others and ourselves...And here through all the repetitions, half sentences and echoing encounter of one question with another, you feel the characters devalue experience through their use of language. As Del cries in desperation at the end, 'If we could speak the truth for one instant, then we would be free.' Mamet's point is that we are held spiritually captive by our bluster and evasions." (Michael Billington, The Guardian)"Dense with thought, feeling and hard psychological insight...There is no spare flesh on this text: words, objects, images interlock in mutual dependence which is both natural and superbly contrived." (John Peter Sunday Times) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A Cryptic but Searing Experience
The Cryptogram is outstanding. There are only three characters (that's good for Readers' Theater): a mother, a young boy who is waiting for his father to return and take him on a camping trip, and the mother's and father's gay friend who lives in a motel nearby. The father isn't going to return. For the past week, he's been banging someone in the friend's motel room while the friend hung out elsewhere. When the mother finds out that the friend has deceived her, she flips, but the news about her husband isn't really that surprising.

At the center of the play is the boy and his reaction to his world crumbling around him. With oblique nudges, Mamet lays bare the young child's feelings --inchoate fears and anxieties-- as he waits for a father who will never return.It's prime Mamet --clipped dialogue, emotions hinted as often as laid out on the table.The play would be fun to do: there's not much action. But where would you get a kid who could make so intense but oblique a role believable?It's a difficult role.

A Cryptogram of a Play
This is a strange, elliptical play. I did not enjoy it as much as some of the other Mamet maniacs here, but I will admit that, in the months since I've read it, I just can't get it out of my head.

A lot of this play exists in the subtext of the language and in Mamet's clever "uses of the knife." Since it is very hard to imagine it off the page, much of the time it seems like nothing is happening. I would like to see the play performed, but I think it is unlikely. Finding a ten-year-old who can pull off such a complicated role is probably too much of a headache for most theater producers.

This play is, yes, different than a Glen Garry or American Buffalo. But it is still full of Mamet. If the maestro floats your boat, go for it.

Mamet does it again!
A fan of Mamet, I've read all but two of his plays. I've enjoyed every single one and this ranks among my favorite. I recommend it to all play-readers and theater lovers around the globe! Especially Mamet fans! Read it and I promise you won't be able to put it down!

Mamet does it again!
A fan of Mamet, I've read all but two of his plays. I've enjoyed every single one and this ranks among my favorite. I recommend it to all play-readers and theater lovers around the globe! Especially Mamet fans! Read it and I promise you won't be able to put it down!

Maybe my favorite Mamet
It's too bad this doesn't get the same recognition that Mamet's other works, esp. Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, and American Buffalo get.I can only agree with the critic cited on the back who believes that "in time it will take its place among Mamet's major works."

Whereas so many of Mamet's other plays seem to be about the same thing but just given different titles (again, StP, GGR, AB) -- and don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the "F***ing Master," as David Ives refers to him, but think about it, I'm right! -- The Crypotogram is completely uncharacteristic Mamet.It isn't necessarily doing what Mamet does best i.e. capitalism, but nonetheless, I think it's breathtaking.

The construction of the Cryptogram seems so fragile.As only Mamet can do with language, such a compelling spell is created, and it's undeniably intriguing -- the different worlds of adult language vs. children's language.Who has even given such thought to the idea?The idea that "grownups are speaking in code, and that that code may never be breakable" is established so subtly that at first I thought I missed it,I kept waiting for some more concrete dividing line -- but therein is Mamet's gift.To actually hear the language that Del and Donny speak as an adult, while simultaneously imagining hearing it as John might reveals this "code," and it is somewhat unsettling -- just the idea that such a difference exists.Certainly a clever illustration not only of how language can be interpreted differently, but of language's power in general -- to empower, persuade, dissuade, enlighten, shield, to keep in the dark, to be used as a weapon, or as defense, to conceal, and to reveal.

Perhaps one of Mamet's darkest plays, but well-written (so often a rarity) and full of ideas.

Incidentally, I'm a college student and would love to direct this play for my senior project, except it requires a 9 yr old of extraordinary talent, which seem to be in short supply on college campuses. ... Read more

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"The finest American playwright of his generation" (Sunday Times) When Bobby returns to the old neighborhood, the people and places of his past cast shadows over the present. In a trio of interleaved scenes, The Old Neighborhood provides a rare personal insight into the world of one of America's greatest contemporary dramatists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

It's actually a masterpiece...
but nobody's read it.

As far as I can tell, Mamet's biggest problem in holding onto the audience his Pulitzer Prize won him comes from an increasingly underappreciated quality in writers today: his admirable level of restraint.

He may have won the people over with his dirty poetry but he's hung onto the faithful with nimbler, subtler writing.It's not that his recent work isn't at the level of his earlier work; I think it just takes a different tack.

"The Old Neighborhood" is three good plays put together to comprise great theater.Each of these plays hits a different part of the human psyche and together they're so good they hurt.It's elegiac, wistful, bitter, furious, tragic; it's as bursting with adjectives as "Glengarry Glen Ross" was with expletives.It takes more work to appreciate this older, wiser Mamet; but the rewards are even greater. ... Read more

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House of Games is a psychological thriller in which a young woman psychiatrist falls prey to an elaborate and ingenious con game by one of her patients who entraps her in a series of criminal escapades. Ties in with movie to be released in September. 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.Amazon.com Review
This is the screenplay of the first film written and directedby David Mamet, the story of a well known psychiatrist seduced by anunderworld of petty intrigue.Mamet is commonly--andwrongly--considered a writer who consistently litters his characters'speech with obscenities. There are a good number of tongue lashings inHouse of Games, but what this script really proves is thatMamet has an extraordinarily poetic grasp of human language and humanpsychology. Every word, every exchange counts in this twisty,suspenseful screenplay, one of those rare dramas where it isimpossible to predict what will happen next. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Tough, tense, gritty and terse. Pure Mamet.
As far as screenplays go, House of Games is a work of great cutting quality; written in Mamet's recognized concise style, House of Games permeates with a foreboding, volatile aura. When a too structured and career-driven yet refined and scholarly Dr. Margaret Ford, psychiatrist and author of the best-selling self-help book, Driven, is duped into helping Billy Hahn, a young man with a gambling addiction, she gets more than what is bargained for. She is led into the seedy underworld of the con man and all the baggage associated with him: drinking, unabashed gambling, lasciviousness, intricately woven lies, extremity upon extremity. But it is all cleaverly camouflaged by the many defrauders whom she encounters as exciting danger, rebellion against the smothering laws that only "good" citizens adhere to and being on the outer fringes of decency, good breeding and highbrowism. Ford, who gravely lacks any form of enjoyment in her life, is immediately drawn to the pulsating raw truth and "think quick" lifestyle of the brazen swindlers, for they gradually convince her-through a series of cons-that all humanity are imbued-one way or the other-with absolute cold indifference, for if you get bamboozled, it's your own fault and you probably deserved it. Dr. Margaret Ford exemplifies that for everybody. But she does not merely epitomize as a victim, she typifies it, through her own unsettling metamorphosis, as a kleptomaniac, murderess, and ultimately, a con woman. She evolves from good, introverted intellectual and respectable doctor to a cunning, manipulative, vindictive killer with a proclivity for thievery. So then the question is posed: Was Dr. Ford inherently a repressed criminal or was she the product of the sleezy environment and those in it? As Ford penetrates to what she genuinely believes is the psychological core of the sharpie personality, she is led by the leader, Mike, into a smoothly orchestrated plot that eventually bilks her out of $80,000; soon after, the scheme goes terribly awry when Mike holds a mirror to Dr. Ford's face, a mirror that she long avoided looking into.

Mike: I "used" you. I did. I'm sorry. And you learned some things about yourself that you'd rather not know. I'm sorry for that, too. You say I acted atrociously. Yes. I did. I do it for a living. (He gives her a salute and starts for the door.)

Ford: You sit down.

Mike: I'd love to, but I've got some things to do.

She cocks the gun.

(Of gun:) You can't bluff someone who's not paying attention.

Ford shoots him. He falls.

Mike: Are you nuts? What are you...nuts...?

Ford: I want you to beg me.

A radical turnabout occurs whereby the aloof victimizer becomes the casuality of his own folly, only to be replaced by Ford, who progresses onward to hone and define his criminal teachings, meticulously making them more her own. Ford's criminality is even more severe, for she turns into one of the criminally addicted patients that she (by her medical practice) is designated to help; her overall presence is refined, classy, learned, delicate, vulnerable, unsuspecting. Those are the worst kinds of lawbreakers: A friendy face on the outside, and something entirely different on the inside.

The script.....
There came a moment in House of Games, in the movie, where I knew I'd heard something. I rewound, played, heard it, rewound played, heard it, and found that about the fourth time around, I was patting my thigh, in tune with something or other; the Mamet-speak. It's rhythm.

And then the script. I read that same scene (it's the one: "you gotta tell. Your telling which hand the coin is in") and the same thing. Aha! yes. But I had heard the scene. I remebered the scene. What about the others? Back to page one. The same thing. And then it became not what they were saying, but how they were saying it, and then it became WHO was saying it. And sometimes I wished they hadn't said it. But then the thought occurs with starry eyes: "thank God they did".

You like the movie, read the script. There's soemthing to be said for just you and the pages. ... Read more

Product Description
Having put his personal stamp on the contemporary theater, David Mamet now performs the supremely audacious feat of reinventing the theater of the past. He does so by telling his own ingenious and eerily moving version of the tragedy of Dr. Faustus.

Mamet’s Faustus—like Marlowe’s and Goethe’s before him—is a philosopher whose life’s work has been the pursuit of “the secret engine of the world.” He is also the distracted father of a small, adoring son. Out of the clash between love and intellect and the fatal operation of Faustus’ pride, Mamet fashions a work that is at once caustic and heart-wrenching and whose resplendent language marries metaphysics to conman’s patter. A meditation on reason and folly, fathers and sons, and a breathtaking display of magic both literal and theatrical, Faustus is a triumph. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Disappointing
I read Faustus with highanticipation, but it disappointed -or rather, perplexed--me. My judgment is highly subjective -don't trust it alone--but in the first act, where, naturally, the playwright must catch the attention and support of the audience, I felt Mamet's prose didn't work.It was too elliptical. More `direct' would have worked better. The dialogue was too murky. It seemed to fight the plot, which is a condensation and radical reworking of the Faust story. In the second act, Faust's abandoned wife and son come back from the grave to accuse him: that act flowed better and it seemed to make more sense. All in all, I wouldn't inflict this play on an audience.

Lastus
This was downright disappointing. Faust usually leaves me cold, but at least Goethe's play, despite the tedious length and language, had some meat to it. By stripping it down, Mamet destroys both flesh and bones. The pretentious language telegraphs a con game that has no substance except guilt for ambition, ego, and neglect of wife and child. An actor of tremendous charm might make us care about these things, but since we seldom see the wife and never see the child, we mainly know about them from our imagination. They seem just one more trick of the protagonist's narcissistic mind. One imagines some magic in the theater that temporarily distracts the audience, but on the page the illusions are wispy indeed. The snap and crackle of Mamet's contemporary plays lose all pop in this timeless, placeless epic. It's too much of nothing. ... Read more

Product Description
Duck Variations: "A brilliant little play...about two old men sitting on a park bench discussing ducks" (Guardian); Sexual Perversity in Chicago, bar-room banter and sexual exploits in Mamet's home town "sweet sad understanding and utterly believable" (Chicago Daily News); Squirrels is a sequence of philosophising between a younger writer, an older writer and a cleaning lady which "memorably captures the agony of the creative process" (Daily Telegraph); American Buffalo, one of Mamet's most famous plays, is set in a junk shop where Three small-time crooks plot to carry out the midnight robbery of a coin collection - in the hours leading up to the heist, friendship becomes the victim in a conflict between loyalty and business. The Water Engine is "a propulsive, kaleidoscopic nightmare" and Mr Happiness is a short ironic monologue by a Radio DJ commenting on the letters from his listeners. ... Read more

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THE SPANISH PRISONER
"Elegant, entertaining. . . . Mamet's craftiest and most satisfying cinematic puzzle." --The New York Times

THE WINSLOW BOY
"One of the most subtly compelling love stories of the year." --The New York Observer

Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet ranks among the century's most influential writers for stage and screen. His dialogue--abrasive, rhythmic--illuminates a modern aesthetic evocative of Samuel Beckett. His plots--surprising, comic, topical--have evoked comparisons to masters from Alfred Hitchcock to Arthur Miller. Here are two screenplays demonstrating the astounding range of Mamet's talents.
        The Spanish Prisoner, a neo-noir thriller about a research-and-development cog hoodwinked out of his own brilliant discovery, demonstrates Mamet's incomparable use of character in a dizzying tale of twists and mistaken identity. The Winslow Boy, Mamet's revisitation of Terence Rattigan'sclassic 1946 play, tells of a thirteen-year-old boy accused of stealing a five-shilling postal order and the tug of war for truth that ensues between his middle-class family and the Royal Navy. Crackling with wit, intelligent and surprising, The Spanish Prisoner and The Winslow Boy celebrate Mamet's unique genius and our eternal fascination with the extraordinary predicaments of the common man.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Two fine scripts, too minimalist at times
For those who have not seen the films, or have not read Mamet's trademark dialogue before, these two scripts will be bewildering.Following the nuances of the shifting allegiances and the fate of the Macguffin "process" in THE SPANISH PRISONER is difficult, but that's also the fun.I'll admit, even after reading the script carefully I'm not sure who conned who in the end.

THE WINSLOW BOY is a different kind of difficult.A justly-praised, fine adaptation of the Terrence Rattigan play.Problem is, Mamet expects us all to be familiar with the play.He doesn't bother to give any information about the characters (including ages) or their surroundings, except what you come to gather through the dialogue.Without a map to keep the character realtionships straight, this is a tough read, not least in some of the deliciously archaic words and manners of Edwardian England (where the story takes place, you learn eventually).

Because both scripts were written to be self-directed, Mamet does not share many details, even by his own minimalist standards.This, plus his annoying habit of writing out lots of camera angles, make them less enjoyable reads compared to most contemporary screenplays.

There is a lot to be gleaned her in terms of structure, story and character, however.I recommend seeing the movies first, and then deciding whether you want the scripts, Mamet's minimalist recipes for cinematic suspense.

Some of the best writing cinema has to offer.
David Mamet both writes and directs his own films but the strength of Mamet's film comes from his writing."The Spanish Prisoner" and "The Winslow Boy" are both examples of Mamet's bestscreenwriting.The dialogue alone is legendary.One of the knocks againstMamet's work has been a disregard for the female characters in his work but"The Winslow Boy" has a vital and strong role that was brought tothe screen very well by Rebecca Pidegon.These screenplays exemplify whatis good with today's cinema and are essential reading for any oneinterested in viewing the art of the screenplay. ... Read more

Product Description
David Mamet is widely considered the voice of contemporary American Theatre. His use of what is taken to be realistic language together with minimalist staging creates a postmodern combination which simultaneously pushes an audience in conflicting directions. The result is that initial audiences for Oleanna were aroused to applaud and loudly react to the ending of the play when a male teacher beats a female student. The issues the play raises about political correctness are turned on their head. Oleanna is a particularly complex play in terms of both form and content and this guide offers a theoretically informed introductory analysis. - It provides students with a comprehensive critical introduction to the play and includes new interpretations of the play text in light of Mamet&s recent playwriting developments and the intervening shifts in the political landscape. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Two Fascinating Early Shorts
Before Mamet was Mamet, with the staccato dialogue and repetitive dialogue, and before he got knee-deep into genre writing and film-making, these two plays were written.

REUNION (1M 1F, 43 pgs and multiple scenes) is the story of a father re-establishing contact with his estranged daughter.It is written in a sort of blank verse which is possibly what caused Edith Olvier to praise it in The New Yorker as "a poem for two voices -- a distinguished and remarkable one."It is certainly distinguished from Mamet's later work, the plot as it is having very little forward momentum.But it is quite moving and excellent and a great soft introduction for actors who want to learn to 'speak Mamet.'

DARK PONY (1M 1childF, 10 pgs) is another father/daughter story and possibly the simplest play I've ever read.It seems to be informed by Bruno Bettleheim's ideas about the power of stories told to children set forth in THE USES OF ENCHANTMENT, a book that Mamet has acknowledged as having great influence on him.The story is this: as the father and daughter drive home (from where, we don't know), he passes the time by telling her a fairy-tale-like story about a handsome brave and the eponymous pony.The subtext of the tale is: everything will be okay.Like I said, it is a simple play, but I imagine it can be quite moving in performance.

Longtime fans of Mamet will want to read this to see a completely different side of the maestro; Mamet virgins will find this collection an easy way to get into Mamet.Those in between might prefer to work their way through the AMERICAN BUFFALOs and SPEED-THE-PLOWs before turning back to the start of it all. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (8)

Learn about Sex & Ducks
I must confess the only reason that I read "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" was because of the movie it inspired "About Last Night..."I must have watched this movie a million times having a love and hate for it, these feelings are explained in full detail in my review here on Amazon.

My interest was always peaked about the catalyst of the 1986 film, so I have wanted to read the play for quite sometime now.My brother bought me this book for my birthday and now I was finally able to satisfy my curiosity.This book features two plays "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" and "The Duck Variations", both written by David Mamet.

The play is totally different from the film. (From my understanding David Mamet loathed "About Last Night"...) The dialogue is much rawer, in your face, honest and not quite as jovial.There is a still an element of comedy, but I would suggest it is more focused human relations, where the movie is more of a "romantic-comedy".There are only four characters in this play; Danny, Debbie, Bernie and Joan.The events take place over a nine week period in a Chicago summer.

The scenes are short and many ways leave much open to interpretation, as does the entire play.Not only do I feel that this is a wonderful play, I feel it really depicts the struggle and camaraderie between men and women.As for this play being written in the early 1970s, the dialogue and situations are still relevant in modern times.

"The Duck Variations" is a very different type of play from "Sexual Perversity in Chicago"."The Duck Variations" is about two elder men named George and Emil who are sitting in a park and discussing many different aspects of life.The glue or foundations to their conversations are ducks.George and Emil are both obviously naïve about their knowledge of ducks.They both also appear a bit lacking in some of the assumptions they make.Subsequently, ducks (in this play) appear to be an allegory for meaning of life, experiences, emotions and endeavors.

This play has the same wit, humor and realism that "Sexual Perversity in Chicago", minus the crude language and harsh content.The play/story is overall a very heartwarming interaction that is very timeless tale.

I can see both of these plays being performed in a black box theater. As a matter of fact, both of these plays could be performed as a double billing, since both these plays are short.These plays really showcase character development rather than intricate storylines.They are also good reads.

Nobody does it like Mamet
Kazerinsky destroyed this play when he made the movie "About Last Night." Read the play, enjoy the language and the irony. Mamet is the best.

SO BAD I HAD TO WRITE A REVIEW
I wish i could give this no stars because I was very dissapointed. I got "Sexual Perversity" thinking it would be as good as the movie "About Last Night". Wow, was I wrong. The dialogue is disheveled and the only character worth any praise was Bernie. I read it and if I never saw the movie I would never know what it was about. There is no plot and the scenes are so short and abrupt you never know what you just read.

Take my advice and do not purchase this book. I am in acting and I would not even pay a dollar for this book. There is no material to work from.

Don't buy - you will be deeply dissapointed like me. Too bad because I really like David Mamet, but I don't even want to read "Duck Variations" or anything else he wrote. I read "Oleanna" and I thought it was original. NO MORE MAMET for me, until he can pull a 180 and twist my opinion of him around!

Whoroscope and the Fowl Permutations
Forget *Swingers*, forget *High Fidelity*, forget Tarantino's trash-talking hoods, David Mamet got there way before these belated young Turks.*Sexual Perversity in Chicago* is a brilliant, in-your-face series of vignettes sloshing through the muck of modern relationships.Two men and two women lock horns in a lewd scrimmage of blackly funny narcissistic power-plays, a despairing search for flitting, short-lived solace and pleasure, blasted by cruelty, impatience, tooth-and-claw feral soliloquy on why the opposite gender is one-part vampire, one-part Machiavel, can't live with them, can't sell them for parts (tee-hee).

Metropolitan swingers circling the drain of mean-streets cynicism and tough-talking bachelorhood, trawling the muddy waters of singles bars and yuppie night spots, searching for that ephemeral ounce of pleasure in a world of subterfuge and delay, mind-games and cruel deception, an odium of broken expectations and buried dreams....Funny as the play is, it's distressing to have our noses rubbed in this point-blank opprobrium of our own basest impulses, the Spirit of Revenge which contaminates many of our frantic attempts to love and be loved.

Refreshingly, the women in Mamet's play seem much more interesting than the men, if only because their cynicism is more richly varied, more intellectually pungent.As shellshocked veterans of the gender war, it remains difficult to decide whether Mamet's scenarios are A: exaggerated worst-case aberrations, or B: (gulp) true-to-life tableaux on how perversely we are prone to behave toward one another, a vicious circle of paranoid self-hatred razing the purlieus of conventional "happiness" (or post-coital afterglow, once the bar is dropped).

Mamet suggests that at the outer limits of cynical self-abasement, human beings will "experiment" with cruelty the same way an S&M enthusiast would assay with handcuffs and bullwhip, the minds and hearts of anonymous lovers beaten like a Teletubbie pinata with the broomstick of our own wounded narcissism.

*The Duck Variations* is a classic low-budget scenario about two post-Beckettian bumps on a log pontificating on life, death, and the migratory patterns of Midwestern fowl.In the mind's eye theater I was forced to cast Jack Lemmon and the late Walter Mathau as Emil and George, two grumpy old men shadow-boxing in the dusklands of existential twilight.Mamet seemed still unable (or unwilling) at this point to write a full-length, tightly plotted drama, but the fragmentary dialogue presented here is brilliantly caustic, evocative, piercing and droll.Emil's and George's sedentary anxiety over the park wildlife that play out and exemplify the human condition, their ability to sublimate the necrophobic terrors of old-fogeyhood with caustic wit and good-natured foreboding, is presented with dashing brilliance and aplomb, a wonderfully true friendship between two men skirting the edges of karmic inquiry.Written in Mamet's early twenties, *The Duck Variations* exemplifies the brash virtuoso cunning that would go on to contribute *Glengarry Glen Ross* and *Speed-the-Plow*, amongst other masterworks, and is still worth reading a quarter-century later.(Also recommended for young actors as an exercise in brevity, timing, precision, and economy of affect.)

All in all, this book represents Mamet-in-embryo, the birth of a playwright, another fine anthology of one-liners and intellectual jousts to make the reader's anxieties seem a little less peerless and unparalleled, a little less alone in the world.

Brilliant Wordsmith
David Mamet proves time and time again that he has mastered the language of men and women alike. Sexual Perversity is an abrasive but honest look at the state of sex in the minds of adults during the post-collegiate and early career building years. Mamet, as in all of his plays, shows honest humanity in tangible, easily-believed characters. The language is obscene & perverse but horrificly true-to-life and natural. Working with nothing more thant stereotypes, he chisels out characters so real and so vivid as to leave the audience thirsting for more. David Mamet has proven himself time and time again that he is a not only the definitive analysis of pop culture and modern trends, but also a brilliant wordsmith as well. ... Read more

Product Description
This collection of specially written essays offers both student and theatregoer a guide to one of the most celebrated American dramatists working today. Readers will find the general and accessible descriptions and analyses provide the perfect introduction to Mamet's work. The volume covers the full range of Mamet's writing, including now classic plays such as American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross, and his more recent work, Boston Marriage, among others, as well as his films, such as The Verdict and Wag the Dog. Additional chapters also explore Mamet and acting, Mamet as director, his fiction, and a survey of Mamet criticism. The Companion to David Mamet is an introduction which will prepare the reader for future work by this important and influential writer. ... Read more

Product Description
Comedy / 2m / Simple SetSchool is a brief comic discourse on recycling, poster design and the transmission of information.Premiered with Keep Your Pantheon as Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet at the Atlantic Theater Company, NYC in the fall of 2009."A textbook example of the style that made its author famous. Featuring characters identified only as A and B, as if they were points on a diagram, this merry little sketch moves with the show-off alacrity of a calculus prodigy whizzing through equations at the blackboard." - The New York Times ... Read more

Product Description
6 working actors describe their methods and philosophies of the theater. All have worked with playwright David Mamet at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

Cheap Guidebook for Beginners
I needed this as a textbook for my acting class. It's a good beginner book for the money, with basic information that I needed, but the teacher was still more important than the book.

A great starter for new aspiring actors
I can only review it as as an aspiring actor in his 30s who is just starting to explore acting techniques, this book is a good starter, offering brief, simple, easy to understand, practical step by step techniques to break down scenes and to perform.It is very well written, easy to read, and serves the purpose as a quick practical handbook.I enjoyed reading it, and will surely be using it as a small reference book again and again.I wish it could be more expanded, longer, or could include more tips and advice.But I guess aspiring actors will have to refer to many other books to gain more knowledge on various other techniques and styles to build our foundation, help us push further.I highly recommend this book.But I'm certainly getting a few other ones as well to broaden my scope.

Short but concise
Having read several books in recent years on Acting, "A Practical Handbook for the Actor" has more valuable, useful information in it than some books three times it's size and price. The subject matter is also current with todays standards and protocols in regards to auditions, monologues, being "on set"...etc. A quick, easy read for review from time to time. Sure to be my "last" purchase of any books on acting...thom b

A must read
In my opinion this is a great book for actors who already know at least the basics of acting.It is a very complete "guide" to help the actor understand better how to put together everything needed to accomplish a good performance.I think this book is great.If you need to go back every now and then and remember the technique because it is a very practical handbook for actors!

Very useful
I originally bought this item for a course but the more I used it and incorporated it into my lessons the more I realized how useful it really was. The concepts are pretty easy to understand and easily applicable to any beginner. ... Read more