American playwright,
essayist, screenwriter and film director David Alan Mamet was born on
November 30, 1947, in Flossmoor, Illinois. The son of attorney Bernard Mamet
and teacher Lenore June, he grew up in a South Shore neighborhood of Chicago
where he remembers stickball being played in the street. In 1958, his mother
and father divorced and young Mamet moved to the suburbs with his mother and
her new husband (a former colleague of his father's).Mamet’s childhood years
were not without turmoil. “Suffice it to say we are not the victims of a
happy childhood,” his sister, Lynn Mamet, would later say. “There was a lot
of violence, but the greatest violence was emotional. It was emotional
terrorism" (New York Times, 1997).
Some would say these early
life experiences have manifested themselves in Mamet's writing, particularly
in the second act of The Old
Neighborhoodwhich depicts recollections of childhood abuse and
resentments resulting from a divorce, and in The Cryptogram which tells the story of a young boy
whose parents have separated.Mamet first became
interested in the theatre through his Uncle Henry who produced radio and
television for the Chicago Board of Rabbis and who cast his nephew in a few
small roles, and one of David's first jobs was as a busboy at Second City, a
world-renowned improvisational comedy troupe based in the Old Town
neighborhood of Chicago.
Educated at Goddard College in Vermont and at the
Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York, Mamet would work
various odd jobs before finding a way to earn his living from the theatre.
During this period, he worked as a maintenance man, at a roadside diner, and
even, for a while, sold real estate "to unsuspecting elderly
people" in Chicago. Eventually, however, his theatrical inclinations
asserted themselves.A founding member of the
Atlantic Theater Company, Mamet began his career as an actor and director
before achieving acclaim as a playwright for a trio of off-Broadway plays in
1976: The Duck Variations,
Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo.The
Woods (1977) and Edmond (1982) were followed by two
enormously successful plays--the Pulitzer Prize-winning Glengarry Glen Ross (1984), a scathing representation of
American business practices inspired by Mamet's own experience as a real
estate broker, and Speed-the-Plow (1988), which savagely reveals the
amoral underside of the film industry.
The most easily recognizable
aspect of Mamet’s style is his sparse, clipped dialogue. Although reminiscent
of such playwrights as Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett, Mamet’s dialogue is
so unique that it has come to be known as “Mametspeak.” His language is not
so much “naturalistic,” as it is a poetic impression of streetwise jargon.
His stories, often involving the plight of small-time grifters, dubious real
estate salesmen and other marginal types, explore a desperate, obsessed
landscape that is deeply American.Also known for the
abundance of profanities in his writing, Mamet defends his colorful dialogue,
saying, "The people who speak that way tell the truth. They don't
institutionalize thought." Mamet critic Anne Dean agrees, suggesting
that his characters express "an honesty that is uncluttered by the bonds
of polite conversation" (David Mamet: Language as Dramatic Action).
She elaborates, "From the bluntest of materials, Mamet carves his
dialogue, establishes mood and character, and imbues his work with tension
and movement. With apparently so little, he achieves so much." Not all
critics, however, are quite so infatuated with Mamet's language, or at least
the evolution of it. According to Ben Brantley, "The ripe street
vernacular of early Mamet has been replaced by perfumed locutions of
improbable archness. Well, mostly anyway. Obscenities explode every so often,
rather like stink bombs at a garden party ... there is a distancing air of
contempt to the proceedings, a faint disdain for the emptiness of posturing
estheticism" (New York Times, June 16, 1999).
Another often discussed
(perhaps unfairly) aspect of Mamet's work centers around charges of mysogyny.
Some critics suggest that Mamet's female characters are nothing more than
shallow foils for his misogynistic males. Other suggest that Mamet is himself
an misogynist. In a 1997 interview, Mamet responded to this charge, saying,
""It's inaccurate and it's a lie, and not only is it that, but it's
cowardly. What happened, I believe, was, years ago, I wrote a play called Sexual Perversity in Chicago which was about misogyny; how a
nice, healthy relationship between two nice young people was ruined by the
incursion of a misogynist. And since then, people have said, 'It's been said
that you are a misogynist.' Well, nothing could be further from the truth,
either in my personal life, if it's anyone's business, or in my work. I think
if someone wants to make such an unpleasant and demonstrably false assertion,
let him or her make it, and I'll respond with whatever small courtesy it deserves"
(The Boston Globe, 1997).Indeed, Mamet's body of
work is much more complex than those who cry "misogynist" might
care to admit. He writes of a world in which alienation is a fundamental,
perhaps even universal, experience. A common theme in his plays is the
potentially destructive force of the American dream which he observes
"was basically about raping and pillage.... We are finally reaching a
point where there is nothing left to exploit.... The dream has nowhere to go
so it has to turn on itself" (In Their Own Words: Contemporary
American Playwrights).Mamet has also written
many critically acclaimed screenplays, including The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), The Untouchables (1987), House of Games (1987),Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Hoffa (1992), Wag the Dog (1997), The Spanish Prisoner(1997), The Winslow Boy (1999), State and Main (2000), Hannibal (2001), and Edmond(2005). His screenplay
for Barry Levinson’s political satire Wag
the Dog earned him both an
Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Screenplay.
Given the
opportunity, Mamet often chooses to direct his own screenplays, and while
some have criticized him for this, he doesn't see it as a handicap. “There
are two stages,” Mamet says, “First I write the best script I can and then I
put on my directors hat and say, ‘What am I going to do with this piece of
crap?’” He does, however, acknowledge that there are additional challenges
involved in writing movies as opposed to writing plays. "I like mass
entertainment," says Mamet. "I've written mass entertainment. But
it's the opposite of art because the job of mass entertainment is to cajole,
seduce and flatter consumers to let them know that what they thought was
right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are
of the utmost concern of the purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other
hand, is to say, wait a second, to the contrary, everything that we have
thought is wrong. Let's reexamine it." (Salon Magazine)Mamet has taught at New
York University, Goddard College, and the Yale Drama School. His awards
include the Joseph Jefferson Award, 1974; Obie Award, 1976, 1983; New York
Drama Critics Circle Award, 1977, 1984; Outer Circle Award, 1978; Society of
West End Theatre Award, 1983; Pulitzer Prize, 1984; Dramatists Guild
Hall-Warriner Award, 1984; American Academy Award, 1986; Tony Award, 1987.Mamet was married to
actress Lindsay Crouse from 1977 to 1990, and the couple had two children
together: Willa and Zosia (pronounced Zasha). In 1991, Mamet married actress
and singer-songwriter Rebecca Pidgeon, and they have two children as well:
Clara and Noah. Both of Mamet's wives have appeared in films he has directed
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