Boston Marriage

by David Mamet

Presents a comedy of errors set in a Victorian drawing room featuring the banter and scheming of Anna and Claire.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Fiction, Drama, LGBT, Queer, Historical

72 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2002

About the author

David Alan Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity.

As a playwright, he received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997).

Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, an acerbic commentary on the movie business.

Reviews

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: i used to work at the theater at which this play had its world premiere. I missed working on the premiere by one year, but the show itself was often spoken about among the company in a reminiscent sort of way. That said, I never read it until now.

Set in 1900 and somewhat reminiscent of Oscar Wilde's plays, if I had to elevator-pitch this, I'd say "witty drawing room repartee between proto-lesbians."

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of love and lust in a changing and pointless world.

[CheyAnne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A play about to high class ladies with two very interesting secrets. The whole play is basically these two friends bantering and arguing through the entire thing. But the way David Mamet captures this is shocking! These ladies say things to eachother that would make you question if they are truly "ladies" It's witty and fast paced. And I caught myself re-reading several lines just to make sure I really saw what I saw. On top of the two ridiculous friends there is a low class house maid. She never gets to talk very much because she annoys the two ladies so much. She is cut off before she even opens her mouth with such lines as,"Did I call you in here? No, so get off my tits." Dirty, innappropriate and intriguing. This book will make you cackle.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good and very funny drawing-room style play about two former lesbian lovers whose machinations draw them back together. mamet doesn't get enough credit for his humor, but when he's on, it's a spectacle to behold. I really enjoyed this one.

[Rho · Rating 3 out of 5]

now i understand why it is impossible to find the spanish translation!! oscar wilde meets stoppard with a hint of sister george ... impressively pointless :)

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some very funny lines, but I can't say I understand the point. Also David Mamet doesn't understand lesbianism.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this better than the previous contact I have had with Mamet's work. I think it might have been more palatable because all of the characters are women. Also, it is set in a more formal time period which makes the formality of the language less difficult to accept. Even more, this time I actually appreciated the specificity of the cues that Mamet gives the actors in his sentence construction, punctuation, and italicization. It has a lot of humor and I think it would be fun to work on and to watch.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to give in-between 3 and 4 stars. Mostly brilliant. I was in awe of the dialogue. The ending is weak and I often notice in plays in an effort to keep characters to a minimum that a couple of key characters that are dicussed never show up and would have been great additions. The main characters discuss having a seance with people who don't appear. I think it could have been hilarious if they had. The Irish maid is awesome. Love her comments and how rude the other characters are to her.

[Allyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My fav of Mamet....although it is apparent that Mamet is writing these lesbians with a masculine overtone because (let's be honest) he cannot write much else, I found some of the dialogue and complicated relationships interesting.

[Valerie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hated. It. Mamet's clever, skillful banter/dialogue as the vehicle for sexual assault-y story, made more "palatable" (?!) as being explored via FEMALE characters? Hated it. Love most of Mamet's work. Hated this.

[James Binz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected from Mamet. Humorous and we'll written but a very different vibe.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely clever dialogue. Very funny but with important things to say about love and the human condition. The play, set in the Victorian play, reminded me of the versatility of Manet’s great talent.

[Kay · Rating 3.25 out of 5]

i wish i could rate it higher because this play is incredibly funny, even just on the page. had me laughing out loud. but i did stop and start reading it so many times it just got laborious the longer it went on. and unfortunately racist but what can you do. i love plays that spotlight women and this had some delightful wit

[Jukka]

Boston Marriage - David Mamet
Snappy funny dialogue, good situation, and some interesting action, but for what purpose? Worth it if you are interested in the 'situation' and are otherwise unoccupied, otherwise i'm not sure. You may have picked up on the situation from the title, if not i won't spoil it. It was good to read something with this mix -- older in style more modern in outlook.
Here's a snip:
ANNA: For what is speech?
CLAIRE: I had often thought, it is the chirping of the birds, minus their laudable disinterestedness.

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard is much much better.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really more of a skit than a full-blooded play. Don't know how the rapid-fire, lit-ref laden dialogue comes across on stage, but it was fun to read. Ultimately unfulfulling and left me a little flat at the end.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spontaneously picked it up at the university library and got through it in a day as a respite from some of the other stuff I'm reading. I'm not overly familiar with David Mamet, but really loved this story.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mamet loves his sexual tension.

[Fishsanwitt]

stamped

[Ana Hurka-robles · Rating 5 out of 5]

The funniest work ever written about my people.

[Elliot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny and thrilling this is classic Mamet.

[Lex · Rating 2 out of 5]

conceptually, this is everything i could possibly want in a play. in practice, neither the jokes nor the characters did anything for me.

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It came down to Boston Marriage or Private Lives this week (because gad, we needed a comedy, what with having just read Macbeth and In the Blood, and what with...well, the state of the world and the state of the States). The people voted, Private Lives won by a hair, and someone said 'Great! Let's do it!'—and found a copy of Boston Marriage instead.

It turns out that a three-character play is not ideal when eight people turn up to read (but if 2020 has taught us anything, it's that nothing's ideal but you have to push on anyway—so basically I cut people, including myself, off every ten minutes so we could switch roles. Table reads, hackjob-style, or table reads, 2020-style? And is there a difference?)

Now...nothing actually happens in the play. A couple of women have some witty and innuendo-filled banter, a third woman is their not terribly willing foil, they snipe and jab at each other because neither can or will admit that she has Feelings (but they both know it; this is clearly not a new conversation for them). The Internet tells me that this was written partly as a response to critics noting that Mamet really didn't write female characters, and...I'm not sure what to make of that. I'm delighted to have lesbian characters, of course, but also a bit...well. This is all he could think of when he opted to write lesbian characters? One of them sleeping with a man, and the other lusting after a possibly underaged girl? (And—is it even a Boston marriage? As far as I could tell they don't live together, though the group was split on that measure.)

Had its moments and brought a much-needed lighter side to 2020's Wednesdays, but I'm not sorry that this was a one-evening play.

[Shawn Aebi · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are OK with missing at least half of the jokes and references this is a bizarre but easy read. I don't speak Mamet, so not able to divine much of the back and forth. Still the zingers that I got were sharp or hilarious. Probably better to stick with the plays that also offer deeper social commentary.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mamet's brilliance is too much for most audiences. With a good director and at least two strong actresses (if not three), this one is accessible. But be careful with risking this one; there's a lot of subliminal social messaging, a brilliant underscore. Why three stars? Because it was too much work imagining the most effective staging techniques to make it a comfortable read.

[The Literary Jedi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the rapid-fire way Mamet delivers dialog in other plays and the way the characters in this play go at each other is on another level; they display wit and scheming personalities that ultimately set this comedy of errors through its paces.

Read in college (05-06)

[Suzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I belong to a play reading group and I really looked forward to reading this. I guess it'll be better when read aloud. I kept hearing Our Miss Brooks going through the lines. Funny but I didn't get the plot.

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I seem to be cursed with reading lousy plays lately. This play simultaneously reminds me of Genet and Coward, but only superficially, and not in a good way. Very arch language, but with absolutely no point.

[AR · Rating 4 out of 5]

I desperately want to direct this play.

[Mar Barrallo · Rating 5 out of 5]

dos lesbianas burguesas k odian a los hombres en el siglo XIX: k puede salir mal? me ha encantadooo!!

[Kyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Mamet’s quick, funny, yet entirely natural conversational pacing. Combined with the topic of sharp 20th century lesbians, this play quickly shot to the top of my favorites list. If it ever gets produced near me, I’ll be first in line to buy tickets