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, ...
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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,...
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"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 peop...
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In the following review of A Whore's Profession, McCue summarizes several key points of the collection and then pans The Cryptogram for what he judges to be wandering, fragmentary dialogue.
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In the following essay, Schaub examines the setting, the autobiographical elements, and the structure of The Cryptogram.
My premise is that things do mean things; that there is a way things are irr...
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[Lahr is a prizewinning American critic, nonfiction writer, playwright, novelist, biographer, and editor. In the review below, he offers a highly favorable assessment of The Cryptogram, lauding the wo...
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[In the following review, King provides a negative assessment of The Cryptogram.]
In London's West End, David Mamet's Cryptogram had its world premiere. Set in Chicago in 1959, the pi...
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[Canby is a novelist, playwright, and film critic. Here, he offers a highly favorable assessment of The Cryptogram.]
The Cryptogram, David Mamet's spooky, very good new play, is elliptical b...
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[In the excerpt below, Taylor offers a mixed assessment of The Cryptogram. Taylor praises Mamet's directing and writing abilities, but argues that the play seems incomplete and borders on the b...
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[An American educator and critic who frequently writes on drama, Kalb has served as managing editor of Theater and is the author of the 1989 Beckett in Performance. In the following, he offers a negat...
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[In the essay below, the critic relates Mamet's thoughts on his childhood and family life, language, and unhappiness, particularly as revealed in The Cryptogram.]
At the far end of the pine ...
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[An English-born editor and critic, Barnes is the author and editor of several books about the performing arts. In the following excerpt, he praises Mamet's emphasis on childhood and the pain a...
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[In the review below, Canby offers a laudatory assessment of The Cryptogram, extolling Mamet's use of language and disturbing dramatization of family life and "emotional games."]
...
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[In the following, Gerard positively reviews The Cryptogram, discussing, in particular, the horror generated by the play's final scene.]
It's impossible to imagine anyone being prepar...
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[An American essayist and critic, Simon has served as a drama critic for New York Magazine as well as a film critic for Esquire and the New Leader. In the excerpt below, he faults The Cryptogram for i...
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[Feingold is an American critic and educator. In the following, he offers a favorable review of The Cryptogram.]
"Auch kleine Dinge können teuer sein," runs Wolf's bestl...
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David Alan Mamet
David Mamet
David (Alan) Mamet
Critical Review by Jim McCue
