David Mamet was born and raised in Chicago. "We have some strange local mythology. No Chicagoan makes gangster jokes or thinks of the City as particularly violent (which it isn't). (Al Capone did say, 'You get a lot farther with a kind word and a gun tha...
"In this country of incessant obbligatos accompanying all activity--music in offices, and elevators, tapes in cars, radios in restaurants--Mamet has heard the ultimate Muzak, the dissonant din of people yammering at one another and not connecting. He is...
Playwright and screenwriter David Mamet is highly praised for his accurate rendering of American vernacular, through which he explores the relationship between language and behavior. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 30, 1947, he studied at Goddard...
Speed-the-Plow (1988) is an acclaimed play by David Mamet which is a satirical dissection of the American movie business, a theme Mamet would revisit in his later films Wag the Dog (1997) and State and Main (2000). Hollywood producers Bobby Gould and...
David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow" is a veritable hornet's nest of a play about the struggle for power in a cesspool called Hollywood. But it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that sting. And the most you get at the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater...
(NEW AMBASSADORS THEATER; 410 SEATS; 27.50 [pounds sterling] ($44) TOP) LONDON An ACT Prods., Criterion Prods. and Karl Sydow presentation, in association with the Ambassadors Theater Group, of a play in two acts by David Mamet. Directed by Peter Gill. Sets and costumes,...
Most people associate celebrity with SUVs, Manolo Blahniks, and Malibu beach homes. But not Alicia Silverstone. The actress, 30, has chosen to parlay her fame into a life of activism. She has aligned herself with organizations such as PETA—which named her the sexiest vegetarian alive—and...
In the following essay, Pearce examines two female characters—one in House of Games and another in Speed-the-Plow—analyzing their identities as artists and how other characters and audience members relate to them.
In the following review, Sauvage contends that Speed-the-Plow displays good acting and directorship, but is a stagnant commentary on the Hollywood film industry.
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