Word: mamet
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...David Mamet's Oleanna is about many things, but above all else, it's about interpretation. Language, at least in this play, always has more than one meaning. Nothing like a "pure statement" ever exists. Oleanna is a linguistic battleground, a three-act power struggle between two characters whose points of view, sensitivities to nuance and emphases of thought are constantly...
That's a lot to pack into a brisk hour and a half, and Mamet himself cannot quite pull it off. Oleanna plays a little too fast and loose with its characters to be quite as compelling as one would like. The production of Oleanna mounted last weekend at the Loeb Ex, however, further compromised an already flawed script. In adapting a play about the complexities of meaning, director Leah Altman '99 and her cast took a fatally broad, superficial approach to their tricky material...
David Ives's All in the Timing is a fast-paced comic slap in the face. Ives's collection of highly original skits--on topics as assorted as the death of Leon Trotsky and the plays of David Mamet--makes one realize just how predictable and sappy most modern comedy is. Even when writing about a commonplace subject like a couple's first meeting in a cafe, Ives maintains a hilarious, cleverly crafted style, free of cliches. Happily, first-time directors Jeremy McCarter '98, who is a Crimson editor, and Adam Stein '99 brought Ives's hilarity to life last...
Steering the night's entertainment into the realm of parody, "Speed-the-Play" skewers the theater of David Mamet. This skit contains miniature versions of four Mamet plays: "American Buffalo," "Speed-the-Plow," "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" and "Glengarry Glen Ross...
...jovial team of actors runs through the plays at a frantic pace, boiling Mamet's scenes down to a few strategic lines. The actors' own smiles were evident even when they were supposed to be portraying Mamet's rage and angst. As a result, at least one joke--the excessive use of expletives in Mamet's plays--lost its bite. Nonetheless, "Speed-the-Play," as written, works as a mordantly funny critique of over-the-top postmodern theater...