SOURCE: Schaub, Martin. “Magic Meanings in Mamet's Cryptogram.” Modern Drama 42, no. 3 (fall 1999): 326-37.

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 irrespective of the way we say things are, and if there isn't, we might as well act as if there were. “And that's how it is on this bitch of an earth.”¹

In one of his earlier essays, Mamet recalls what he thinks was a “magic moment” in theatre: “I thought: isn't it the truth: people are born, love, hate, are frightened and happy, grow old and die. We as audience and we as artists must work to bring about a theater, an American Theater, which will be a celebration of these things.”² Mamet's dramatic oeuvre, I maintain, is an attempt to live...