Summary
David Mamet delivers a brilliant behind-the-scenes dissection of acting and artifice Fri Jan 9-Sat 31, 7.45pm, (Wed, Sat, 2.30pm), Royal Lyceum Theatre, Grindlay Street, Edinburgh, (pounds) 7- (pounds) 20, 0131 248 4848 David Mamet may be better known for making films such as State and Main and The Winslow Boy these days, but he's still pretty popular onstage too around these parts. While the likes of Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow are hardly staples of contemporary rep, Mamet's bullish way with words and perfect depictions of blue-collar machismo are something actors can really get their teeth into.
A Life in the Theatre, Mamet's second play, is not as well known as American Buffalo, which dates from the same seventies era and was later filmed with Dustin Hoffman. Yet, in its depiction of backstage exchanges between a veteran hack actor and a young buck on the make as they trawl the circuit of duff shows, it exposes an early fascination for the internal machinations of the acting craft, as much as character and plot. For, as well as playwright, screenwriter, and director, Chicago-born Mamet has become a great theoretician, polemicist, and essayist of theatre's own set of constructions, which he delivers with a constant leavening of pared down pith.See the full content of this document
Extract
Don't Miss a Life in the Theatre:
These twin concerns are melded together to masterful effect here, a...
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