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Staccato rhythms and male competition, or: David Mamet phones it in
"Two Unrelated Plays By Mamet' in New York
Toby Zinman
A generic title covers School and Keep Your Pantheon, a pair of one-acts that are launching this season's Mamet-fest in New York. After last season's Broadway double header of Speed-the-Plow and American Buffalo, the new New York season offers four David Mamet plays: a revival of Oleanna, starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, opens on Broadway on October 11, and Mamet's new play, Race, opens at the Atlantic (Mamet is a founding member of the company) in December, starring James Spader, David Alan Grier, Richard Tomas and Kerry Washington.
If you need still more Mamet, the Steppenwolf production of American Buffalo, starring Tracy Letts (author of August: Osage County, Bug, Killer Joe, and the new Superior Donuts), moves to the McCarter Theatre in Princeton in the spring.
That, as he himself would say, is a fuckin' lot of Mamet.
Using paper to save paper
School, new and unpublished, is a 15-minute skit full of Mametspeak and Mametude, which is to say staccato rhythms and male competition. It opens a world of absurdity and illogic that's sociopolitically pointed and mildly entertaining— although not in the least surprising and hardly original.
Two men— presumably teachers— converse in an office about a display of students' posters ("hundreds of them") hanging in a school. The assigned topic, predictably, was, "I will protect my planet by recycling paper." This leads to a discussion of how much paper was used in the making of the posters; the assigned text was: "I will use recycled paper," and the obvious ironies pile up. When Man A (John Pankow) asks Man B (Rod McLachlan) if the poster paper can be recycled again, they and we are led to the question of whether paper— or anything— can be recycled indefinitely.
"It is a principle of physics," says Man A, "that matter may not be created or destroyed." When Man B expresses incomprehension ("Matter may not be destroyed?"), Man A replies, "It is not a prohibition. It is a description." Things proceed, to use the word loosely, by wandering through history, science and sexuality but always circling back to the topic of recycling.
A sitcom without much com
Our bouche having been amusée, we expect something more substantial to follow. But Keep Your Pantheon wouldn't nourish a gnat, despite its fine cast, led by the illustrious Brian Murray. Pantheon takes place in ancient Rome— shmata togas and all— in a dilapidated acting studio. The main characters are Ancient Roman Strabo ( Murray) and his henchman, Middle-aged Roman Pelargon (John Pankow), along with Young Roman: the handsome, naive Philius (Michael Cassidy), who is the object of Strabo's hopeless lust. They are occasionally interrupted by a Herald with commercial announcements. To call the wit of these sophomoric is to overspeak.
Pantheon contains many conniving schemes to make money and to win favor with powerful patrons, accompanied by lame jokes about acting and homosexuality. It's a sit-com without much com, and the effect is of a script cooked up by a high school theater club and then produced with the help of the arts and crafts club, coming in under their $17 budget.
Keep Your Pantheon may be proof positive that you can't recycle matter indefinitely. There ought to be a prohibition.
If you need still more Mamet, the Steppenwolf production of American Buffalo, starring Tracy Letts (author of August: Osage County, Bug, Killer Joe, and the new Superior Donuts), moves to the McCarter Theatre in Princeton in the spring.
That, as he himself would say, is a fuckin' lot of Mamet.
Using paper to save paper
School, new and unpublished, is a 15-minute skit full of Mametspeak and Mametude, which is to say staccato rhythms and male competition. It opens a world of absurdity and illogic that's sociopolitically pointed and mildly entertaining— although not in the least surprising and hardly original.
Two men— presumably teachers— converse in an office about a display of students' posters ("hundreds of them") hanging in a school. The assigned topic, predictably, was, "I will protect my planet by recycling paper." This leads to a discussion of how much paper was used in the making of the posters; the assigned text was: "I will use recycled paper," and the obvious ironies pile up. When Man A (John Pankow) asks Man B (Rod McLachlan) if the poster paper can be recycled again, they and we are led to the question of whether paper— or anything— can be recycled indefinitely.
"It is a principle of physics," says Man A, "that matter may not be created or destroyed." When Man B expresses incomprehension ("Matter may not be destroyed?"), Man A replies, "It is not a prohibition. It is a description." Things proceed, to use the word loosely, by wandering through history, science and sexuality but always circling back to the topic of recycling.
A sitcom without much com
Our bouche having been amusée, we expect something more substantial to follow. But Keep Your Pantheon wouldn't nourish a gnat, despite its fine cast, led by the illustrious Brian Murray. Pantheon takes place in ancient Rome— shmata togas and all— in a dilapidated acting studio. The main characters are Ancient Roman Strabo ( Murray) and his henchman, Middle-aged Roman Pelargon (John Pankow), along with Young Roman: the handsome, naive Philius (Michael Cassidy), who is the object of Strabo's hopeless lust. They are occasionally interrupted by a Herald with commercial announcements. To call the wit of these sophomoric is to overspeak.
Pantheon contains many conniving schemes to make money and to win favor with powerful patrons, accompanied by lame jokes about acting and homosexuality. It's a sit-com without much com, and the effect is of a script cooked up by a high school theater club and then produced with the help of the arts and crafts club, coming in under their $17 budget.
Keep Your Pantheon may be proof positive that you can't recycle matter indefinitely. There ought to be a prohibition.
What, When, Where
Two Unrelated Plays By David Mamet. Directed by Neil Pepe. Through November 1, 2009 at the Atlantic Theatre, 20th St. between Eighth and Ninth Ave., New York. (212) 279-4200 or www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/productiondetail.aspx?id=520.
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