Word: plowing
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Speed the Plow...
David Mamet's plays celebrate the wide-open spaces in the American brain. True to form, Speed the Plow wallows in motor-mouths eager to demonstrate their witlessness. If you mosey on up to the Loeb Ex this weekend to see the play, you're bound to get your fill of unspeakable people indulging their character flaws. But this entertaining production is mared by the actors themselves indulging some of the classic character flaws of their profession...
Speed the Plow depicts a day in the life of a Hollywood studio. The recently promoted and gut-wringingly smug Bobby Gould selects the scripts which the studio makes into movies. Ambitious and unthinking, he is on the verge of green-lighting yet another crass but lucrative crowd-puller. But he is thrown into a quandary by his insinuating temp's efforts to promote a pretentious novel about radioactivity. Much soul-searching ensues as Charlie Fox, a subordinate, and Karen, the secretary, wrestle for control of Gould's mind and agenda...
Like all Mamet plays, Speed the Plow is all talk and no action. Pompous airheads loaf around the stage, vomiting a constant stream of meaningless platitudes, feigned emotions and boasting bombast. With sinister skill, Mamet makes good intentions look laughable, self-analysis futile and reform impossible...
Although frequently entertaining, Speed the Plow falters under the cast's excessive introspection. How ironic that a play which pans Hollywood should suffer from self-indulgent actors lingering over their lines...