Word: mamet
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...these allusions, one of Mamet's favorite methods is basic eavesdropping; the cassette in his ear is continually recording the oddities of human speech. The most conspicuous piece of furniture in his new New York City apartment is a filing cabinet crammed with pages of dialogue overheard in pool halls, bars, elevators, Ping Pong parlors, gambling halls and every other stopping place in a brief, varied career...
...Mamet was raised in a Jewish enclave hi Chicago, and his parents were divorced when he was eleven. He learned early on that language can be both a joy and a weapon. "In my family," he recalls, "there was always a large premium on being able to express yourself-if only for purposes of chicanery...
...early teens, Mamet was earning his theatrical and financial capital, doing anything profitable, from washing windows to waiting on tables. "The first thing I learned," he says, "is that the exigent speak poetry. They do not speak the language of newspapers." He soon became backstage-struck and signed on as busboy at the Second City, Chicago's famous improvisational company. "It was a superb, superb training ground, and their rhythm-the rhythm of action, the rhythm of speech-influences the way I write...
...Mamet began writing and directing at Vermont's Goddard College; after graduation he became an actor. But, he confesses, "I was terrible, and it bothered me a lot." He was bothered enough to try the other side of the proscenium in 1971, when he started the St. Nicholas Theater Company. He and his co-founders transferred the project from New England to Chicago three years later. Mamet now divides his time between that city and New York...
...Nicholas has produced most of Mamet's 20 plays, including his recent off-Broadway hits, Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Duck Variations. It will also produce his new children's play, Revenge of the Space Pandas, as well as Woods, a celebration of heterosexual love-no longer, he laments, "a hot item on the shelf of American commerce." Mamet has joined in the celebration, though he remains a bachelor and currently lives alone. In his spare moments he is working on the film scenario of Sexual Perversity and a new adaptation of the old Alec Guinness film, Last...