David Mamet in Conversation

by Kane, Leslie

• ISBN13: 9780472067640
• ISBN10: 0472067648
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-01
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

Contemporary playwright David Mamet's thought-provoking plays and screenplays such asWag the Dog,Glengarry Glen Ross(for which he won the Pulitzer Prize), andOleannahave enjoyed popular and critical success in the past two decades. Among the most prolific and provocative of writers, Mamet frequently draws emotional responses from both audiences and critics.Mamet in Conversationcollects interviews with the playwright that offer readers insight into his life in the theater, his artistic vision, and the evolution of his craft. The interviews help followers of his work better understand the sensibilities that have informed his work in drama, film, and prose over a twenty-five-year career. The conversations collected here--several of which appear in print for the first time--allow a glimpse inside Mamet's creative process, and to the recurring motifs that drive his work. The range of topics is impressive and includes the celebratory purpose of theater, the responsibility of the playwright, writing for Hollywood, the seduction of fame, the search for truth and the merchandising of it, and the decay of culture. The interviews shed light on the personal as well: Mamet's return to Judaism, his appreciation of Midwestern virtues, his love of rural Vermont, the problems of embattled virtue, and the challenge of aging. The book includes transcripts of Mamet's engagingly candid broadcast interviews with Jim Lehrer and Charlie Rose of PBS, published here for the first time. Leslie Kane is Professor of English, Westfield State College. She is the author of three previous books and is President of the David Mamet Society of the Modern Language Association.

Table of Contents

Chronology	ix
Introduction	1	(8)
David Mamet: Remember That Name	9	(7)
Ross Wetzsteon
Solace of a Playwright's Ideals	16	(6)
Mark Zweigler
Buffalo on Broadway	22	(5)
Henry Hewes
David Mamet
John Simon
Joe Beruh
A Man of Few Words Moves On to Sentences	27	(4)
Ernest Leogrande
I Just Kept Writing	31	(8)
Steven Dzielak
The Postman's Words	39	(7)
Dan Yakir
Something Out of Nothing	46	(8)
Matthew C. Roudane
A Matter of Perception	54	(6)
Hank Nuwer
Celebrating the Capacity for Self-Knowledge	60	(12)
Henry I. Schvey
Comics like Me Always Want to Be Tragedians	72	(10)
David Savran
Pulitzer-Power Playwright Takes on Screen Challenge	82	(4)
Ben Brantley
A Community of Moviegoers	86	(5)
Jim Lehrer
Things Change for Mamet	91	(5)
Jay Carr
A Mamet Metamorphosis?	96	(4)
Richard Stayton
Hard and Fast	100	(5)
Brian Case
Dream Sequence	105	(4)
Michael Billington
David Mamet: The Art of Theatre XI	109	(14)
John Lahr
Working the Con	123	(20)
Geoffrey Norman
John Rezek
``The South Bank Show''	143	(14)
Melvyn Bragg
Someone Named Jack	157	(6)
Terry Gross
On Theater, Politics, and Tragedy	163	(19)
Charlie Rose
A Great Longing to Belong	182	(10)
Charlie Rose
Mountebanks and Misfits	192	(19)
Barbara Shulgasser
``Face to Face''	211	(15)
Jeremy Isaacs
Games Mamet Plays	226	(4)
Robert Denerstein
Mamet with Manners	230	(5)
Renee Graham
Works by Mamet	235	(4)
Index	239