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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
Never in a million year would I have picked this up if it wasn’t for school. And let me tell you I expected this to be pretty boring, but I am so pleasantly surprised you how much I liked it.
challenging
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Easily one of my favourite plays and it reads like butter.
Mamet peals off the veneer of business suits to reveal the primate within who is trying to outcompete and survive in this play which is a pretty brutal caricature of capitalism. There is also an undercurrent of pessimism about human nature itself. The play has great timing and effective plot twists which don't feel forced or ostentatious and the dialogue would come across as being quite organic on stage. I did think it was a bit short and simplistic however. While I enjoyed how Mamet covered the broad range of conniving, psychopathic social strategies utilized by the characters I wasn't sold on his criticism that capitalism (perhaps "the patriarchy" as well) is responsible for making them behave this way. Even in the 80's the criticism that America is a place where people needlessly and cruelly lie, cheat, and steal all in the name of acquiring more things that nobody actually needs anyway and are probably scams as it is wasn't exactly an original or fresh idea. While there's certainly truth to this I do get tired of American playwrights and authors castigating their country's economic system (which clearly has its faults) while seemingly failing to acknowledge that they are able to make a living creating stories because of the systems they condemn. It's ironically such a classically American trait to focus on America's issues in such a negative light. Anyway it is a very good play about the nastiness of business, of greed, and about how people act when they cease treating each other as human beings.
2016 review: I feel like I just read a scene from the wolf of wallstreet.
I can see why some people love it, but this is a rare case where the movie was better.
This is the first Mamet play I've read, and he's got a very unique style.
What I liked about the book was the speech patterns. Plays are so dialogue-centric, and I felt like Mamet took extra attention to make the dialogue seem... conversational. A bunch of acerbic salesmen are not going to deliver their lines and wait for another person to speak before responding. There was stuttering and repeating of words and cutting others off, talking over them -- all perfectly scripted. It's weird that that's what I liked most about the play, but it really was the mastery of conversational dialogue and writing it in a way that really reflected that.
It was also fun at times to imagine the characters as malfunctioning robots stuttering and repeating themselves. They were like profane Daleks... but I digress.
I also liked that the beginning relationship between Levene and Williamson came full circle towards the end of the last scene. And the later scene with Levene, Lingk and Roma had me squirming with how manipulative the salesmen were.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It wasn't amazing, but it was good, and I really think that it would be even better to see it performed live. I've also heard that the Mamet-written screenplay has more depth -- if only because of the scene with the character of Blake acted by Alec Baldwin.
What I liked about the book was the speech patterns. Plays are so dialogue-centric, and I felt like Mamet took extra attention to make the dialogue seem... conversational. A bunch of acerbic salesmen are not going to deliver their lines and wait for another person to speak before responding. There was stuttering and repeating of words and cutting others off, talking over them -- all perfectly scripted. It's weird that that's what I liked most about the play, but it really was the mastery of conversational dialogue and writing it in a way that really reflected that.
It was also fun at times to imagine the characters as malfunctioning robots stuttering and repeating themselves. They were like profane Daleks... but I digress.
I also liked that the beginning relationship between Levene and Williamson came full circle towards the end of the last scene. And the later scene with Levene, Lingk and Roma had me squirming with how manipulative the salesmen were.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It wasn't amazing, but it was good, and I really think that it would be even better to see it performed live. I've also heard that the Mamet-written screenplay has more depth -- if only because of the scene with the character of Blake acted by Alec Baldwin.