Barbara Howell
Man and Superman
Some Freaks
By David Mamet
Faber& Faber 180pp £4.95
If you’re among those who think David Mamet is America’s most original living playwright, this short entertaining book of speeches and essays is one you must buy – if only to get a closer look into the mind of the author of such dark, fiercely intelligent plays as American Buffalo and Glengarry Glenn Ross.
It’s a pity this Chicago-born dramatist is not better known in Britain. Although the spare, aggressive language and sly dramatic impact of his plays and film scripts (The Untouchables and House of Games) have been widely praised, the average London theatregoer is barely aware of him. Not even the Pulitzer-prize-winning Glengarry Glenn Ross – a devastating portrayal of socially approved, exquisitely rationalised evil – which was performed at the National and later the Mermaid, has earned him the recognition that has been accorded his closest contemporary American rival, Sam Shepard.
But then, Mamet is neither handsome nor an actor and has little interest in sexual perversity. His speciality is the common man, common urban evil that infiltrates almost everyone’s life. Perhaps one reason Shepard is more popular is that his well-titillated audiences are able to maintain a safe, self-approving distance from the deranged, inarticulate, rural monsters that inhabit such works as Buried Child (also a Pulitzer Prize winner) and Paris, Texas. Whereas Mamet’s monsters are more apt to resemble people we know: the smiling colleague in the next office, a phone call away – or lurking somewhere inside of us– who inevitably counsels us to choose the greater of the two evils because that’s where the money is.
The language in Mamet’s essays is not as taut and profane as in his theatrical works, but just as succinct and assertive. He is not a fence-sitter. His opinions are extreme and never ambiguous. He doesn’t just dislike Disneyland; he abhors it, sees it as ‘a triumph in crowd control’
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
It is a triumph @arthistorynews and my review @Lit_Review is here!
In just thirteen years, George Villiers rose from plain squire to become the only duke in England and the most powerful politician in the land. Does a new biography finally unravel the secrets of his success?
John Adamson investigates.
John Adamson - Love Island with Ruffs
John Adamson: Love Island with Ruffs - The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
literaryreview.co.uk
During the 1930s, Winston Churchill retired to Chartwell, his Tudor-style country house in Kent, where he plotted a return to power.
Richard Vinen asks whether it’s time to rename the decade long regarded as Churchill’s ‘wilderness years’.
Richard Vinen - Croquet & Conspiracy
Richard Vinen: Croquet & Conspiracy - Churchill’s Citadel: Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm by Katherine Carter
literaryreview.co.uk