SOURCE: Mason, M. S. “‘Boston Marriage’: Barbs beneath Victorian Propriety.” Christian Science Monitor (18 June 1999): 20.

In the following review, Mason comments favorably on the characters and dialogue in Boston Marriage.

Every new David Mamet play is a significant event. Boston Marriage is no different. Its world première last week at the American Repertory Theatre here was often amusing and certainly sharp. The play does for hard-edged female characters what many of his others have done for hard-edged males—expose the cruelty, venality, and predatory impulses in them.

But unlike the men of Mr. Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross or American Buffalo, who are thoroughly reprobate, there is a little more to these women—though that “more” glides under the surface of their banter, rising briefly at the end.

Set early in this century, the play concerns two longtime companions, Claire (Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet's real-life wife) and Anna (Felicity Huffman...