David Mamet | The New York Observer

Oleanna's Kept Her Looks, but Not Her Attitude

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:52:31 -0400

I was a college freshman when the movie of Oleanna opened in late 1994, and already it seemed, to undergraduate eyes, a bit dated.

Oleanna, David Mamet’s tense two-hander about student-professor gender politics and power dynamics, was arriving in theaters only three years after Anita Hill testified against Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court. And it was just two years after Oleanna’s successful stage-play debut Off Broadway. But in those heady early-Clinton years, as...

What a Character: The Many Roles of Rod Blagojevich

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:25:32 -0500

"[W]hen you see those transcripts, it's like out of an Oliver Stone movie. It's like somebody wrote this guy into the plot of a movie..."—Dan Barrett, quoted by Bob Seidenberg, The Evanston Review.

"I have never even seen or heard anything like this. I don’t even know if a Hollywood movie producer could come up with this script."—Tom Cross, quoted by Ben Calhoun, City Room, Chicago Public Radio, December 10, 2008.

"Putting...

American Buffalo's Poor Reviews Possibly Foreshadowed

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:06:30 -0500

The reviews of the opening of David Mamet's American Buffalo at the Belasco have been unenthusiastic. The critics almost unanimously describe poorly cast stars—John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer, and Haley Joel Osment—going through the motions with wooden dialogue. ("Ssssssssst. That whooshing noise coming from the Belasco Theater is the sound of the air being let out of David Mamet's dialogue," wrote Ben Brantlee in The New York Times.)

But signs that the play...

Hot Tickets: Bon Iver, Dad Rock's Best, Mamet (Again)

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:36:38 -0500

Bon Iver can’t seem to get enough of New York... though you could probably say that about him and any major U.S. city these days. Justin Vernon—the Wisconsin-based singer-songwriter who goes by Bon Iver (pronounced "bohn eevair")—has been touring nearly non-stop this year since the realease of his haunting debut, For Emma, Forever Ago, in February. He's spent a good portion of that time right here in our fair city, where Vernon seems stuck...

The Week in DVR: A Good Woody and Best Bond Since Goldfinger

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 12:33:38 -0500

Monday: Saturday Night Live: Presidential Bash 2008
With the exception of Rachel Maddow, no one on television has benefited from the election cycle more than the folks at Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately, the expiration date on their cultural relevancy reads November 5th. As a going away party, Lorne Michaels and NBC are offering this compilation of the best political skits from the past year, with some original ones sprinkled in as well. If...

When Did David Mamet Wake Up as Joe Six-Pack?

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:23:04 -0400

The 20th anniversary production on Broadway of David Mamet’s famous dissection of Hollywood, Speed-the-Plow, raises a burning question: In publicizing the play, has Mr. Mamet finally gone off his rocker?

His quite recent public conversion from a self-described “brain dead liberal” into some kind of neo-conservative pedagogue isn’t at issue here—except for his espousal of free market self-interest and greed. Profit (at any cost) is the theme of...

Haley Joel Osment Sees Mamet People

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:31:55 -0400

You guys, Haley Joel Osment is 20 years old! 20! We'll always see him as the creepy kid who saw dead people in The Sixth Sense. God, we're old. Anyway, Mr. Osment is all grown up and making his Broadway debut in the revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo, according to BroadwayWorld. At least he still has those rosey baby-faced cheeks! He joins John Lequizamo and Cedric the Entertainer was junk shop workers who...

Mamet's American Buffalo Roams to New Home

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:28:40 -0400

We told you about the revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo co-starring John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer, and now we can report about its new home: the Belasco Theatre. American Buffalo takes over the stage from another Mamet play, Speed-the-Plow. That Jeremy Piven-starring production will move to the Barrymore Theater where Godspell was supposed to be performed. The Godspell production was postponed because of a financial fallout from an investor.

Directed by...

John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer Revive Mamet on Oct. 31

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:15:50 -0400

This Halloween, Mamet is returning to Broadway (again) with a revival of American Buffalo. Directed by Robert Falls, previews will begin Oct. 31 with a premiere set for Nov. 17. Latin "Sexaholic" John Leguizamo and "Original King of Comedy" Cedric the Entertainer will lead the cast about "the bungled heist of an old nickel by three lowlifes based in a Chicago pawnshop." According to press notes, the play suggests how the language and practice...

Mamet's Speed-The-Plow Starts on Oct. 3

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:00:59 -0400

It's the 20th anniversary David Mamet’s Speed-The-Plow and the Belasco Theatre will start the birthday celebrations on Oct. 3. with director Neil Pepe (who recently helmed Ethan Coen’s Almost an Evening) and stars Jeremy Piven as greedy producer Charlie Fox hugging it out with The Homecoming's Raul Esparza as Bobby Gould, according to BroadwayWorld.com.

The play is a scathing portrait of the film industry and the people who are willing to sell their souls...

Morning Memo: Leonardo DiCaprio, Bicycle Babe; Jenna Bush's Big Fat Presidential Wedding

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:12:56 -0400

O.K., so we knew that Leonardo DiCaprio was like the first person to buy a Toyota Prius, but last week he even rode up to the opening of Bonhams Flagship Showroom with his mom on bikes, and parked right out front on 57th and Madison. [P6]

David Mamet interviews himself about his new film. [New Yorker]

Sarah Jessica Parker will not be going on the Home Shopping Network to promote her perfume for obvious...

Lineup for April 30, 2008

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:49:07 -0400

If you remember this year's White House Correspondent's Dinner, you weren't there. Felix Gillette, John Koblin, and Choire Sicha flood the zone in D.C..

Janet Silver is moving from Houghton Mifflin to Nan Talese's imprint at Doubleday. Leon Neyfakh checks in with with Ms. Talese who says, "I called Janet and she sent us a list of the authors she had worked with and the ones who’d said they wanted to come with...

F**k You, I'm Mamet: Tough-Guy Writer Travels With Antic Entourage

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:06:52 -0400

On Friday, April 25, Redbelt, a riveting David Mamet cops-and-con-men drama set in the world of professional jujitsu, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The cool table at the after-party, held at the Honey nightclub on West 14th Street, included Mr. Mamet and his wife, actress and chanteuse Rebecca Pidgeon; author Salman Rushdie; the actors Joe Mantegna and Ricky Jay, who are in the movie; and comic genius, novelist and playwright Steve Martin,...

Today at the Tribeca Film Festival: 90's Nostalgia (And We Don't Mean Just Mamet!), And the Festival's Big Deal

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:34:25 -0400

JUVENILE DELINQUENTS!

Boy A., Pace University, 5 p.m.

Boy A. is about Jack Burridge, recently released from a British prison after serving a 14-year sentence for a crime he committed as a child. From director John Crowley, also known in the theater world (he was nominated for a Tony for directing Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman). Oooh, and oh also! According to the notes on the film provided by the festival, “this story also sheds light on...

Mamet's [em]Buffalo[/em], Lerner's [em]Brigadoon[/em] To Rumble On Broadway

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:27:38 -0400

It's the battle of the Broadway revivals! David Mamet's American Buffalo and the Lerner and Loewe musical Brigadoon will both open during 2009. Buffalo producers are courting Sexoholic and Summer of Sam star John Leguizamo, according to the New York Times. No casting is set for Brigadoon, the hit Broadway show about two Americans wandering into a Scottish village that comes alive every 100 years, according to Playbill. But the play, written by the...

Cue the Custard Pie: Mamet Goes Manic

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:40:11 -0500

What makes people laugh? Or, as David Mamet’s hapless President Smith asks in November, “Well, who’s to say what’s perjury?”

In a moment of mock seriousness during Mr. Mamet’s broad—very broad—political farce, the president’s speechwriter, who’s an activist lesbian known as Bernstein, muses sentimentally on this great nation of ours and on the mysterious nature of comedy itself:

“It seems we are ‘a nation divided,’” she points out nonsensically to the...

Baker Joins Mamet's November on Broadway

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:22:47 -0400

Dylan Baker, who you might recognize as the nerdy doctor in Spider-Man 2 or the creepy, perverted dad in Happiness, will join David Mamet's November, which will begin previews on Dec. 20 starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf.

Playbill reports:

"Set just days before a major presidential election," press notes state, "November involves civil marriages, gambling casinos, lesbians, American Indians, presidential libraries, questionable pardons and campaign contributions."

In the world premiere, Metcalf will play...

Mamet Plays Moses Again, Laying Down Hollywood Law

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:00:00 -0500

Let’s be blunt, as befits our author. David Mamet has directed more than a dozen movies, none of which suggest he has much of an affinity for the job. Things Change (1988), Homicide (1991), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), State and Main (2000) and the rest are all pleasant or even mildly diverting, but how many of them would you want to see twice? So Bambi vs. Godzilla, Mr. Mamet’s take on the world of...

Mamet Embraces Ritual, Spews Venom at Lapsed Jews

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 20:00:00 -0400

A book about Jewishness by the playwright David Mamet, you might expect it to be personal, even confessional. Here’s a statement from page 134: “To me, real life consists in belonging.” That is direct and sincere. It’s the only time. The rest of the book, the author is behind a curtain. He does not speak about his personal religious observance, or his path to it, at age 58. He’s a Reform Jew, he...

Mr. Mamet and Mr. Macy Make Misery in Edmond

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Stuart Gordon’s Edmond, from a screenplay by David Mamet, based on his play, had been reportedly turned down by many mainstream studios before Gary Rubin’s First Independent Pictures took the plunge with this decidedly downbeat project. I can certainly understand the mainstream hesitations. I never saw Edmond in its original early-80’s theatrical version, and I therefore don’t know if the N-word and other racially derogatory terms were spoken onstage back then as often as...

Mr. Mamet and Mr. Macy Make Misery in Edmond

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Stuart Gordon’s Edmond, from a screenplay by David Mamet, based on his play, had been reportedly turned down by many mainstream studios before Gary Rubin’s First Independent Pictures took the plunge with this decidedly downbeat project. I can certainly understand the mainstream hesitations. I never saw Edmond in its original early-80’s theatrical version, and I therefore don’t know if the N-word and other racially derogatory terms were spoken onstage back then as often as...

Parker’s Doze-y in Oh in Ohio

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

“Why, oh why, oh why, oh—why did I ever leave Ohio?” Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote those lyrics way back in 1953 for Rosalind Russell to wail in Wonderful Town. Had they known then what would happen 53 years later, they might have filed an early injunction against a sophomoric, confused and frankly filthy little movie called The Oh in Ohio. Is it too late now? This is a mindless comedy about sex...

Art of Closing Scummy Deals-Mamet's All-American Hustlers

Sun, 29 May 2005 20:00:00 -0400

A few afterthoughts on the perfect revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, directed by Joe Mantello, at the newly named Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on 45th Street:

If there were a Tony Award for best ensemble acting, Glengarry's all-male troupe would surely win it hands down. Mr. Mamet's toxic 1984 play is famously about a group of rats-or shabby Chicago real-estate brokers-who fleece the gullible with phony land sales in Edenesque Florida. The juiciest...

Can a Shlemiel Play The Prince of Providence?

Sun, 01 May 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Even while on trial, Buddy Cianci, the now-incarcerated former mayor of Providence, R.I., was proud of his Tony Soprano–like charisma. "Be careful of the toe that you step on today, because it may be connected to an ass that you have to kiss tomorrow," a witness recalled Mr. Cianci threatening, during testimony at his 2002 trial. Then sitting at the defense table, Mr. Cianci leaned back in his chair, lowered his reading glasses, looked...

Judas Found Guilty as Sin Mamet Reverts to Childhood

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 19:00:00 -0500

When big Broadway productions are fixed on the road before coming into town, it seems to me a good idea that everyone connected with the show is at least listening to audiences.

If something is blatantly wrong-a gag that doesn't work, a speech that goes off the boil-the audience response will let them know what's wrong. On the other hand, if a show panders to every bottom-line whim of the audience, it's sure to be...

Big Broadway Revivals Pack the Stage With Stars

Sun, 06 Mar 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Prestige revivals mark this spring's theater season, with several potentially bankable classics opening on Broadway in the next month. Among the most anticipated are Tennessee Williams' Southern dramas The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. Both productions, with star-studded and surprising casts, will attempt to reinvigorate these period plays.

The Glass Menagerie, which premiered at New York's Playhouse Theatre in 1945, was Williams' first Broadway hit. It's a great primer in the dramatist's early...

Doubt: Nun Cries Sex Abuse, But This Sister's a Disgrace

Sun, 12 Dec 2004 19:00:00 -0500

My difficulty with John Patrick Shanley's highly regarded moral parable Doubt at Manhattan Theatre Club has all to do with the dubious credibility of its central character, the righteous, nagging nun.

Rarely has any woman-least of all a nun-enraged me so much. Yet if anything, I'm sentimental about nuns, as Mr. Shanley is in his dedication to his play: "The play is dedicated to the many orders of Catholic nuns who devoted their lives to serving...

First Daughter Shenanigans

Sun, 14 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Whatever David Mamet has been smoking, I'll have a puff. It must alter reality to the point where nothing makes sense. In a thing called Spartan , his ninth film as an overrated writer-director, Val Kilmer, Derek Luke ( Antwone Fisher ) and Mamet stock-company regular William H. Macy head a cast of unknowns in a story of violence and military espionage so preposterous that it seems to be the work of aliens. Whatever...

Mamet's Latest Grand Scam: Sayeth It Ain't Soeth!

Sun, 01 Dec 2002 19:00:00 -0500

There came a point about midway through the second act of David Mamet's peculiar misfire, Boston Marriage , when I thought, with relief and surprise, "Oh, it's over!" An abrupt blackout had suddenly descended with the jolly curtain line: "Well, ain't you wicked!" Frankly, it seemed as good a place to end as any.

When tedium wraps you in its unforgiving, sleepy embrace at the theater, all ends are timely. Several others in the bemused...

Call Me a Sucker, But I Love Ricky Jay

Sun, 19 May 2002 20:00:00 -0400

Here are two or three reasons why I love Ricky Jay and so should you:

It's always an unexpected pleasure to be fooled by him. His new one-man show, Ricky Jay: On the Stem , at the Second Stage Theatre, is partly a stirring tribute to New York's historic hustlers and mind-benders. But as con men go, nobody does it better than this master hoaxer, card sharp, scam artist, magic man, showman, memory man, carnival...

Strangers on a Layover Get Even With All Men

Sun, 02 Dec 2001 19:00:00 -0500

Patrick Stettner's The Business of Strangers , from his own screenplay, is unusual these days, even for an independent film, in that its protagonist is a middle-aged woman climbing the corporate ladder. On a tempestuous day and night in her career, she becomes accidentally involved as a mentor to a sassy younger woman employed by her firm. After a disastrous presentation of her product at an out-of-town board meeting, Julie Styron (Stockard Channing) gets...

Cast Away for Christmas! … Poetry from a Cuban Prison

Sun, 17 Dec 2000 19:00:00 -0500

Cast Away for Christmas!

Ready or not, here they come: The Christmas movies are upon us. This year, it is surprising how many good (and serious) ones there are, but there is only one that I plan to see twice. Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis, reuniting for the first time since they both won Academy Awards for the historic Forrest Gump , have now turned their considerable talents and attention to Cast Away, a visual stunner and an...

The Arrogance and the Insecurity: Pollock's Not-So-Sordid Story

Sun, 17 Dec 2000 19:00:00 -0500

Ed Harris' Pollock

is swarming with multiple credits, including a screenplay by Barbara Turner and Susan J. Emshwiller, based on the book, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga , by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. Nonetheless, Mr. Harris was reportedly the driving force behind getting the picture made-and yet, all in all, the end result cannot be attributed simply to an actor's ego trip. To put it bluntly, Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) was a great painter and an obnoxious human being, particularly...

How Good Is David Mamet, Anyway?

Sun, 02 Apr 2000 20:00:00 -0400

The revival of David Mamet's breakthrough 1975 play, American Buffalo (at the Atlantic Theater Company), confirms its still-invigorating, toxic power. In their monosyllabic savage incoherence, Mr. Mamet's lowlifes in the wilderness are his funniest demolition of big business and the American Dream. As the hustler Teach puts it with near-Elizabethan eloquence: "You know what is free enterprise? The freedom of the individual … To Embark on Any Fucking Course that he sees fit. In...

If Bash Is a Contact Sport, Where's the Blood?

Sun, 25 Jul 1999 20:00:00 -0400

Neil LaBute's inarticulate, sick characters couldn't be more fashionable, particularly when one of them–a white-trash child murderer–is played by America's sweetheart, Calista Flockhart (who's excellent, by the way).

The sicker, the better. After all, murder is no longer enough for Hannibal Lecter, and a little cannibalism never did a good psychopath any harm. So in Mr. LaBute's three monologues of haphazard evil, Bash: Latter-Day Plays , the relish for the kill is gloated over like...

A Whole Family on Trial in One Mamet Chamber

Sun, 02 May 1999 20:00:00 -0400

David Mamet's The Winslow Boy , from Mr. Mamet's screenplay, based on the play by Terence Rattigan, succeeds cinematically through Mr. Mamet's profound appreciation of his source material's essential theatricality. The emotional resonance generated by this latest version of The Winslow Boy reminds us that film and theater have shared an incestuous relationship ever since D.W. Griffith's earliest aspirations to become a respectable playwright rather than a disreputable moviemaker.

For a long time thereafter, "canned...

Mamet's Hero-Victim: A Prisoner of Words

Sun, 05 Apr 1998 20:00:00 -0400

David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner has been described by the writer-director himself as "a light thriller-almost a romantic thriller. And a little Hitchcockian." The operative words are "almost" and "little." Indeed, I don't think there's a romantic bone in Mr. Mamet's body, and he bears very, very little resemblance either thematically or stylistically to Master Alfred. Hitchcock always played with his cards face up, preferring suspense to surprise. By contrast, Mr. Mamet performs tricks...

David Mamet and Andy Warhol: Separated at Birth?

Sun, 07 Dec 1997 19:00:00 -0500

It will be sacrilege to many, but I'm beginning to see David Mamet as the Andy Warhol of theater. They are, of course, outwardly as different as a crew cut is from a lopsided wig, but they link in the shallow essentials. Both, for instance, claim that their art reflects us, or the culture, or America. And if you find nothing there, so much the better. Mr. Mamet explained to The New Yorker recently,...