Who's Afraid of David Mamet?

(Response to A Life in the Theatre by David Mamet, performed by Theatre in the Square, Marietta GA. Drama )

I've never seen a play by David Mamet before tonight, though I've read about him for thirty years. His scripts are "disturbing," "intense," "fierce," and "savage," I've heard. I was a bit intimidated, really. So his 1980 play A Life in the Theatre may be the perfect appetizer, getting me ready to see Glengarry Glen Ross in April.

The promotional material gave away the whole plot and design of the show: "Two actors, one on his way up, one on his way down." So they'll meet in the dressing room, rehearse some lines, and we'll see one lose his confidence and memory. They'll become friends.

One expects costume changes and some hilarious snippets of bad plays -- and Mamet delivers with scenes from plays so bad, it's hard to believe that he had real models in mind. Was there ever such a stupid detective melodrama (even without the unzipped fly), or a World War I scene so fruity, or a play on a life raft? I especially enjoyed a backstage moment when both actors realize that they don't know what line follows their next entrance in a Civil War melodrama.

Later, the young actor rehearsing Shakespeare alone on stage carries on an extensive scene in which we hear but do not see the older actor, who has been watching him surreptitiously. There's a gag here, and it's repeated. It only grows funnier as it's repeated more than we expect.

Critics often say that Mamet's dialogue is distinctive. I noticed mostly his fearless recourse to repetition -- "fearless," because he lays an awful lot of trust in his actors to do something with lines that appear to be brainless -- as for instance the older actor's scene that begins, "Oh God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. (pause) Is that a new sweater?" Of course, when he gives the actors so many ways to show off, there's that element of virtuosity that we expect from chamber music.

What makes this so much better than what one might expect is Mamet's pulling of sentimental punches -- taking us right to the sentimental moment and deflecting from it with humor or else with an example of that virtuosity, when the actors achieve something through silence, repetition, indirection, or a well-timed punch line that puts the edge back in just when we thought it was going to get soppy. For example, a scene that teeters on the edge of cheesiness instead leaves us marveling at how "thank you," repeated numerous times, expresses everything from incidental politeness to love.