Speed-the-Plow
by David Mamet
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Book Summary Information
Author: David MametEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-01-12
ISBN: 0802130461
Number of pages: 82
Publisher: Grove Press
Book Reviews of Speed-the-Plow
Book Review: Call Bull By Name, Bobby!
Summary: 4 Stars
This play debuted just after David Mamet directed his first movie, House of Games; it's easy to think the experience left him embittered. The barrages of testosterone-soaked male posturing that dominate plays like Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo are translated to the big-studio film industry. And here we see a device that would become a Mamet standard in the 1990's: a woman enters the men's space and calls them on their baloney sauce.
This play is nuanced and subtexty. What the characters say is less important than what they imply. In this way it's a little like Harold Pinter, and it's especially difficult to get the import just by reading the script. That difficulty is multiplied by the distinctive jagged Mamet-speak of characters who seldom finish a sentence in their rapid, electric dialogue. If you want to study this play as literature, get friends together to read lines. This play absolutely demands actors.
Yet it's intensely rewarding and yields potential for endless discussions. Which character is most venal? Is it better to be honest about venality than to mask it in artistry? What kind of industry reduces humans to interchangeable commodities? All of these conundrums and more are made visible in this play, but it doesn't offer up pat answers. It leaves you hungry to think.
The one fault I find is that it wraps the characters up a little too neatly at the end. We know who we're supposed to like, who we're supposed to loathe, and which characters bet on bad ponies in their choice of loyalties. Considering the thematic ambiguity with which we're left, putting a bow on the package right at the end is just a little to neat for my money.
"Speed-the-Plow" is both damning and hugely funny. It was this blend of condemnation and comedy that build Mamet's reputation, and he uses it here to full effect on movies and the men who make them. Powerful and punchy without being merely slick, this is a play for people who love theatre for its power to recognize bull and call it by name.
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