American Buffalo by David Mamet Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of American Buffalo
Book Review: Mamet Hits a Single
Summary: 3 Stars
Years ago I saw this play on the Great White Way. The set was fantastic with the busiest, most cluttered junk shop imaginable, packed to the gills with all sorts of stuff. The play itself was and is a very slight effort, and I cannot understand why it's being revived for the 2008-2009 Broadway season. There's very little to it. Three men are talking and talking and pausing. As in McDonagh's and Pinter's plays, we are not dealing with rocket scientists here. Mamet is the poor man's Pinter. Both come out of the absurdist tradition, but Mamet often seems to me to be hitting first base hits that never go anywhere and certainly don't score.
Donny runs the junk shop; Bobby is his helper; and Teach is a very small time crook. The title refers to a valuable American buffalo nickel. Donny doesn't really know the real value of the nickel that has been bought from him. A crime is hatched to steal a coin collector's trove. Should another man, Fletcher, be included? Should they go in with a gun? These are real small time crooks who don't have a clue.
The absurdist dialogue involves inanity, non-sequiturs, and nonsense. Mamet is good at sussing out conversational rhythms and the way language is often only symbolic among friend, more evocative than communicative.
In one exchange Teach says, "According to me, yes, I am the person it's usually according to when I'm talking. Have you noticed this?" The play is as much about language as it is about the action of the play. The audience finds great comedy in the circumlocution of the absurdist dialogue. Listening to dumbbells arguing about nonsense can be very funny. It's sort of pointless, a lesson in futility.
As usual in plays things go awry toward the end. Much goes unspoken in this play, and the audience can draw inferences as to what happened offstage.
There are subtexts in the play. What did Bobby do while he was gone? Is there a relationship between Don and Bobby? Things slip out as these characters talk about seemingly straightforward matters. The shop set is unbelievably cluttered, yet the dialogue is simple and uncluttered.
When I first saw and heard the play performed, I thought it was riddled with profanity; now it seems quite tame. But worthy of a revival? It's a play that has little to convey and essentially goes nowhere. Count me out of the revival.
Book Review: Not for the Weak
Summary: 5 Stars
It's unfortunate that the first Amazon review of Mamet's brilliant work is by Mr. C.B.Liddell, a pompous, pontificating Brit who doesn't understand the play. I'm not sticking up for Mamet: his works are very hit and miss, and even the hits are an acquired taste (like Monty Python), I'm just standing up for a damn good play.
One of the problems with American Buffalo is that its language and setting (low-income Chicago in the 70's) are unfamiliar and difficult to appreciate for many people, but it's loved by many actors and writers in the same way that musicians appreciate "musician's music." Also, like Glengary Glen Ross, it can be emotionally violent and offensive for some people.
Still, a great work of art, in my humble opinion. Don't pass up the chance to see it performed by talented actors who know and love the play!
Book Review: Painted into a Corner
Summary: 2 Stars
In this play about three low life thugs, Mamet was trying to take a shot at America and its business ethics. The Indian associations of the title was a loose attempt to suggest the fundamental chicanery of a society whose founding act was the dispossession of the former owners of the land. But the problem with this play is that BOB, DON, and TEACH are so 'dumbed down' and their dialogue so impoverished that all Mamet can do is create a moral fog. America may well be founded on the crime of dispossession and the genocide of the Indians, but a buffalo's head on a coin in a play hardly suggests any of this and is certainly incapable of presenting the rights and wrongs of the case. The logical extension of capitalist drives may indeed be a criminal society, but a few petty criminals mouthing off phrases of capitalist jargon, obviously detached from the comprehensive arguments of capitalist ideology, hardly proves this inherent criminality or reveals the complex processes by which capitalism encourages crime.
In the play TEACH defines 'free enterprise' as: "The freedom of the individual to embark on any course that he sees fit." In dialogue like this Mamet is apparently hoping to link the amoral self-interest of his characters to the principles of the American Revolution.
But the characters' relevance is limited by a number of factors. First, their ignorance and inability to express themselves severely limits any exposition and critique of society. Also, because Mamet is attempting a particularly bleak and stark form of realist drama. There is no opportunity, as with, say, the early plays of Eugene O'Neill, to present us with archetypal characters embodying whole race or class positions. Who does TEACH stand for besides himself?
Because of the 'literalness' of his form, if we want to find a critique of society, we must look for it more directly in the evident relations of the characters to the broader society. Such an avenue, however, remains firmly blocked as the characters are isolated from society. Indeed, they seem to belong to an almost self-contained little universe, centering around "Don's Resale Shop."
If Mamet is attempting in this play to present us with a 'reductio ad absurdum' showing the inherent criminality of American business ethics, then, he has painted himself into a corner. His characters lack consciousness, social relevance, and symbolism, all factors that allow a playwright to tackle social and moral problems. "American Buffalo" is extremely limited in the extent to which it can refer outwards to the greater society. All he can give us, in effect, is the 'absurdum' without the 'reductio', the criminality detached from the social forces that create it.
This play is a failure, but Mamet was able to return more successfully to these themes in "Glengarry Glen Ross." where the greater eloquence of his characters, dishonest land salesmen, allowed him to express more coherently the amorality of American business imperatives.
Book Review: Too obscure.
Summary: 1 Stars
"American Buffalo" was recommended to me by a fellow thespian because he thought this was raw and fantastic. It is indeed raw, but not at all fantastic. The dialogue is very choppy and I felt out of the loop with it - as if I missed some great detail. Perhaps this is a play that needs to be enjoyed when seen performed, rather than just read. I do not recommend.Book Review: Very good--a realistic view of American society
Summary: 5 Stars
The play was a very smooth and quick read, containing a unique language, but it was much more than what was on the surface. The text drew me into the play and provided a very realistic view of American society and the of the ideal American business in a very raw sense. Great!
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