How Good is David Mamet, Anyway?: Writings on Theater--and Why It Matters

by Heilpern,John

• ISBN13: 9780415925471
• ISBN10: 0415925479
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-05
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

What makes an actor great? Why is English theatre better than American -- or is it? How good is David Mamet, anyway?

John Heilpern, theatre critic for The New York Observer, has spent a career watching the plays and the players, the geniuses and the also-rans, the great and the not so great on both sides of the Atlantic, and writes about them with lightness and passion.

How Good is David Mamet, Anyway? is the best of John Heilpern's theatre writings. The players are many: Vanessa Redgrave and Ralph Fiennes, Helen Mirren and George C. Wolfe, Fiona Shaw and Savion Glover, Karen Finley and David Mamet, and dozens of others. There's also an important essay on the differences between the British and American theatre scenes, profiles of such legends as Noel Coward, Alec Guinness, and Michael Bennett, engaging pieces on such figures as Peter Brook and Robert Brustein, review-essays on dozens of great, good, and awful plays, as well as contrary opinions on some of our most widely admired playwrights. There are comic turns, too: "The Year of the Penis" and "The Art

Author Biography

John Heilpern is drama critic for The New York Observer

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	xi
Empire of the Stage	1	(24)
Lunch with Gielgud and Richardson	25	(9)
Noel Coward at Seventy	34	(6)
Tranquil in Connecticut with Arthur Miller	40	(4)
England's Great Clown	44	(4)
His Name Escapes Him	48	(5)
In Memoriam Michael Bennett	53	(5)
Peter, Brook, Barbra Streisand, and Me	58	(5)
Angels in America Parts 1 and 2	63	(6)
Janet McTeer-Up-the-Stage	69	(3)
Hurry Up Please It's Time	72	(3)
The Great Gambon	75	(5)
Mr. Brantley's Torsos	80	(3)
The Ralph Fiennes Hamlet	83	(4)
We Like It a Lot	87	(4)
The Mayfair Medea	91	(3)
Who was the Jew Shakespeare Knew?	94	(4)
Anything Goes with the Professor	98	(3)
Art is Good for You	101	(4)
A Helluva Musical	105	(4)
It's Big! It's Safe! It's Full of Generic Symbolism!	109	(3)
Whatever Happened to Class?	112	(3)
Farewell, Carousel	115	(3)
My Blood Brother and Me	118	(4)
Sleeping at the Theater	122	(3)
The Killing of Wonderful Tennessee	125	(3)
How to Murder Your Mother	128	(3)
Brave New World	131	(3)
Safe Pedophilia	134	(3)
The Sad Tale of Jack the Cat	137	(4)
Brilliant Blues	141	(4)
Holocaust Denial	145	(4)
The Amazing Vanessa Redgrave	149	(3)
The Still Subversive Joe Orton	152	(4)
Theater Thingie of the Year	156	(4)
Slumming with Sam Shepard	160	(4)
No Tony for Julie	164	(3)
What is the Second of One Hand Acting?	167	(4)
Country Matters	171	(4)
Oscar Wilde's Brilliant Lunatics	175	(3)
A-Plotz for David Ives	178	(3)
No. 1 Dance Hall Chicken Inna New York City	181	(3)
Lost in Suburbia	184	(3)
Voltaire-Shmoltaire	187	(3)
The Asterisk Problem: Sho**ing and Fucking	190	(4)
ET in Arcadia Ego	194	(4)
The America Play	198	(3)
How America was Lost	201	(3)
These Gentle Artists	204	(3)
The Jerry Stiller Three Sisters	207	(4)
Needles and Opium	211	(3)
The Three Ages of Woman	214	(3)
The God of Lies	217	(3)
Mametspeak	220	(5)
How Good is David Mamet, Anyway?	225	(4)
Beckettscape	229	(4)
Robert Brustein's Unfortunate Dance Lesson	233	(4)
Everything is Beautiful	237	(4)
Pimp Fop Flop	241	(2)
Hakuna Matata!	243	(4)
Don't Shoot the Composer	247	(4)
A Great Electra	251	(3)
Nicole Kidman, Live Naked Movie Star	254	(6)
Judi! Judi! Judi!	260	(4)
Harv the Marv	264	(4)
Amazing Grace	268	(3)
The Anglophile New York Times	271	(4)
Iceman Cometh	275	(4)
Act of Love	279	(3)
Arthur Miller Comes Home	282	(5)
Index	287