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Collected Plays #3
Plays 3: Glengarry Glen Ross / Prairie du Chien / The Shawl / Speed-the-Plow
"The finest American playwright of his generation" (Sunday Times) Glen Garry Glen Ross (also made in to a film starring Jack Lemmon and Al Pacino) "his superb play about real estate salesmen in a cut-throat sales competition" (New Society); in Prairie du Chien a railway carriage speeding through the Wisconsin night is the setting for a violent story of obsessive jealousy, murder and suicide, told within shooting distance of a card-hustler and his victim. "A short poignant study in violence and the twin drives of love and money, told with hypnotic power thorugh a travelling raconteur" (City Limits); The Shawl shows a clairvoyant wondering whether to cheat a bereaved woman of her inheritance and "confirms Mamet's place as about the best living writer of vivid American dialogue" (Daily Telegraph). Set in the cut-throat world of Hollywood, Speed-the-Plow sees two old-time movie collaborators manipulate the aspirations of a young woman who will do anything to attain her dream of success "a brilliant black comedy, a dazzling dissection of Hollywood cupidity." (Newsweek)
- GenresPlays
184 pages, Paperback
First published September 23, 1996
3 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
David Mamet
229 books741 followersDavid 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 13, 2025
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet – winner of The Pulitzer Prize in 1984 http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/04/g...
10 out of 10
Glengarry Glen ross is one of the greatest plays one can choose, albeit we can wonder about the reception it would get in this age, when you have extremists on both sides of the political spectrum, Republicans might regret the fact that there are no guns in the narrative, the characters are not macho enough, lacking testosterone and who knows what else – one of the monsters responsible for the rise of Trump, the invasion of the Capitol, a sycophant for the likes of Putin (which gives us an idea of how atrocious the creature is) has just been fired from Fox (which has the news in its name, albeit it is just a machine for making money and promoting conspiracy theories, vile theories, abjection) and Jimmy Kimmel was showing on his comedy show some of the lamentable scenes from the Mother Tucker show, and it was disgusting – while on the other extreme, there would be other criticism…
As it is, David Mamet expressed his support for…Trump on the Bill Maher program (and surely elsewhere, it is just that I only saw the HBO program) unless I have just imagined that, it does seem so absurd that a gifted, clever, creative author could make such an awful, dumb choice…and he is the one that gave audiences some fantastic gems, like The Untouchables http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/08/t... directed by Brian De Palma.
They have had on Cinemax a documentary on the director, called De Palma, and it is more than worth watching, it is a delight, for the artist tells many wonderful stories, a passage is dedicated to The Untouchables, for which Kevin Costner was recommended by Martin Scorsese (if I am not mistaken) Sean Connery wanted to make a break with the James Bond roles, Connery gets shot with a machine gun – Sydney Lumet talks about so many aspects of filming in his brilliant Making Movies http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/08/t... one of them is about the carnage of putting the very tall Sean Connery and someone like Al Pacino in the same frame…
We are moving away from the subject (hence there is a need for an alert here, not spoiler, since I am talking not about the ‘end’ of Glengarry, but apparently moving further away from it) and I am still on the De Palma documentary, in which he regales the public with an interesting irony, where Sydney Lumet has ‘stolen’ the Prince of the City project from the former, who had spent a long time working, developing the idea, while later, Sydney Lumet would adapt Scarface, with a Miami setting http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/n... where there have been so many problems that Brian De Palma would eventually have to move the filming to California, where he took the production
Glengarry Glen ross has some glorious lines, fabulous characters and adapted for the big screen with Jack Lemmon as Shelley ‘The Machine’ Levine, al Pacino as Richard Roma, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, the now disgraced Kevin Spacey and the outstanding Alec Baldwin as Blake…the latter has some lines, an appearance that has entered the history of cinema (just like the rest of the film for that matter) that summarize the ruthlessness of capitalism, maybe – mind you, I have lived under communism for about twenty five years (not counting up to the present, a period which has seen a transformation, but an advanced economy is still some decades away) and I have taken part in the Revolution that took down Ceausescu http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r... as this link to a page from an article in Newsweek, the copy covering the 1989 rebellion demonstrates, my pride and joy
Salesmen try hard to sell real estate, but the leads they have are really bad, however, Blake comes from downtown and has a cruel presentation, something to the effects of ‘you see this watch, it costs more than your car, ABC, always be selling, the one who is in third place is fired, so either you close, or you walk’- under this pressure, Dave Moss has this plan to steal the new leads, the Glengarry Glen Ross list, which he will sell to a competitor, and he enlists the poor George Aaronow, the latter has to commit the actual felony, and all for a smaller fee, and because he would be blackmailed if he does not…
Meanwhile, Shelley The Machine has problems with his finances (as most normal folks have) and is trying to get their boss to give him the new leads (some of them) because he used to be a great sales representative (hence the Machine nickname) but not recently, and he offers to pay Williamson (basically, this is a bribe) only the latter wants much more, fifty for each name and ten percent or more from the future sale, and the money upfront…the one that rides high is Richard Roma, who sells to James Lingk
Kevin Spacey is Williamson, the evil, stupid boss, who refuses The Machine and then ruins everything for Roma – the most successful employee is all over the reckless manager, telling him that the ‘first rule in this business is to never open your mouth, if you do not know what the game is’ and there is tirade, with expletives and fury, for Roma had worked really hard, he was going to get the first prize, the Cadillac, but Williamson says the wrong thing, and instead of having the deal sealed, it is all off now…
The real estate office is robbed, and we do not know who it is, albeit we suspect that it must be George aka Alan Arkin, it needs to be emphasized again that this is crème de la crème, nec plus ultra, you cannot get a better team of actors no matter how hard you find, and what is more, they are at their zenith, in top form (if you take Pacino and maybe some of the others and look at more recent work, well, then there is not much to enjoy there) who was blackmailed by Dave Moss and maybe pushed to commit the crime…
There could obviously be a surprise there – Aristotle explains in his analyses of drama, tragedy that two ingredients are needed, one is reversal and the other revelation, and they could be mixed together, as in Oedipus Rex http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/o... wherein the king finds from a messenger that he has killed his father and married his mother, all at the same time…other possibly interesting links would be http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... and maybe
http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/a...
10 out of 10
Glengarry Glen ross is one of the greatest plays one can choose, albeit we can wonder about the reception it would get in this age, when you have extremists on both sides of the political spectrum, Republicans might regret the fact that there are no guns in the narrative, the characters are not macho enough, lacking testosterone and who knows what else – one of the monsters responsible for the rise of Trump, the invasion of the Capitol, a sycophant for the likes of Putin (which gives us an idea of how atrocious the creature is) has just been fired from Fox (which has the news in its name, albeit it is just a machine for making money and promoting conspiracy theories, vile theories, abjection) and Jimmy Kimmel was showing on his comedy show some of the lamentable scenes from the Mother Tucker show, and it was disgusting – while on the other extreme, there would be other criticism…
As it is, David Mamet expressed his support for…Trump on the Bill Maher program (and surely elsewhere, it is just that I only saw the HBO program) unless I have just imagined that, it does seem so absurd that a gifted, clever, creative author could make such an awful, dumb choice…and he is the one that gave audiences some fantastic gems, like The Untouchables http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/08/t... directed by Brian De Palma.
They have had on Cinemax a documentary on the director, called De Palma, and it is more than worth watching, it is a delight, for the artist tells many wonderful stories, a passage is dedicated to The Untouchables, for which Kevin Costner was recommended by Martin Scorsese (if I am not mistaken) Sean Connery wanted to make a break with the James Bond roles, Connery gets shot with a machine gun – Sydney Lumet talks about so many aspects of filming in his brilliant Making Movies http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/08/t... one of them is about the carnage of putting the very tall Sean Connery and someone like Al Pacino in the same frame…
We are moving away from the subject (hence there is a need for an alert here, not spoiler, since I am talking not about the ‘end’ of Glengarry, but apparently moving further away from it) and I am still on the De Palma documentary, in which he regales the public with an interesting irony, where Sydney Lumet has ‘stolen’ the Prince of the City project from the former, who had spent a long time working, developing the idea, while later, Sydney Lumet would adapt Scarface, with a Miami setting http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/n... where there have been so many problems that Brian De Palma would eventually have to move the filming to California, where he took the production
Glengarry Glen ross has some glorious lines, fabulous characters and adapted for the big screen with Jack Lemmon as Shelley ‘The Machine’ Levine, al Pacino as Richard Roma, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, the now disgraced Kevin Spacey and the outstanding Alec Baldwin as Blake…the latter has some lines, an appearance that has entered the history of cinema (just like the rest of the film for that matter) that summarize the ruthlessness of capitalism, maybe – mind you, I have lived under communism for about twenty five years (not counting up to the present, a period which has seen a transformation, but an advanced economy is still some decades away) and I have taken part in the Revolution that took down Ceausescu http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r... as this link to a page from an article in Newsweek, the copy covering the 1989 rebellion demonstrates, my pride and joy
Salesmen try hard to sell real estate, but the leads they have are really bad, however, Blake comes from downtown and has a cruel presentation, something to the effects of ‘you see this watch, it costs more than your car, ABC, always be selling, the one who is in third place is fired, so either you close, or you walk’- under this pressure, Dave Moss has this plan to steal the new leads, the Glengarry Glen Ross list, which he will sell to a competitor, and he enlists the poor George Aaronow, the latter has to commit the actual felony, and all for a smaller fee, and because he would be blackmailed if he does not…
Meanwhile, Shelley The Machine has problems with his finances (as most normal folks have) and is trying to get their boss to give him the new leads (some of them) because he used to be a great sales representative (hence the Machine nickname) but not recently, and he offers to pay Williamson (basically, this is a bribe) only the latter wants much more, fifty for each name and ten percent or more from the future sale, and the money upfront…the one that rides high is Richard Roma, who sells to James Lingk
Kevin Spacey is Williamson, the evil, stupid boss, who refuses The Machine and then ruins everything for Roma – the most successful employee is all over the reckless manager, telling him that the ‘first rule in this business is to never open your mouth, if you do not know what the game is’ and there is tirade, with expletives and fury, for Roma had worked really hard, he was going to get the first prize, the Cadillac, but Williamson says the wrong thing, and instead of having the deal sealed, it is all off now…
The real estate office is robbed, and we do not know who it is, albeit we suspect that it must be George aka Alan Arkin, it needs to be emphasized again that this is crème de la crème, nec plus ultra, you cannot get a better team of actors no matter how hard you find, and what is more, they are at their zenith, in top form (if you take Pacino and maybe some of the others and look at more recent work, well, then there is not much to enjoy there) who was blackmailed by Dave Moss and maybe pushed to commit the crime…
There could obviously be a surprise there – Aristotle explains in his analyses of drama, tragedy that two ingredients are needed, one is reversal and the other revelation, and they could be mixed together, as in Oedipus Rex http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/o... wherein the king finds from a messenger that he has killed his father and married his mother, all at the same time…other possibly interesting links would be http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... and maybe
http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/a...
June 17, 2022
Glengarry Glen Ross *** -- This was actually much better than I thought it would be. From what I had heard and seen, I was expecting a gloomy story about the exploitation of poor salesmen. Actually, it’s about a corrupt company’s exploitation of unsavory salesmen who exploit poor customers. There’s not a positive, sympathetic character in 10 miles of this play, thankfully. It’s like watching a den of vipers tear each other apart.
(I believe the movie tries to make Levene a little more sympathetic.)
The play includes the required surfeit of profanity to shock and titillate the audience. While Pinter has his Theatre of Menace, I’d say Mamet has his Theatre of Abuse. I’ve never heard people rip into each other so consistently and unceasingly. Especially employees and their boss.
It’s hard to draw much meaning from such exceptionally loathsome characters. Roma’s long soliloquy in Act One, Scene Three, however, sets it up for the audience on a platter. “’If it happens, AS IT MAY for that is not within our powers, I will deal with it just as I do today with what draws my concerns today.’ I say this is how we must act. I do those things which seem correct to me today. I trust myself.”
I read the play amid watching the Jan. 6 Select Committee Hearings. The testimony strangely resonated with the play. A fixation on winning that moment – regardless what must be said or done. The unconcern about tomorrow. The obliviousness about consequences. About morality. About tradition. The insipid vulgarity. The lies. The grift. The play is a glimpse into the contemporary Republican project.
P.S. The title gets five stars. I love it!
Speed-the-Plow *** -- This play doesn’t have the edge (or the cursing) of Glengarry Glen Ross or American Buffalo. But it does explore an interesting question whether a person can follow their ideals and make a living in Hollywood. Or anywhere else, really.
Some people can, god bless’em. For most of us, our ideals are incompatible with our primary means of support. Some may say antagonistic. Thus, the many bankrupt Christian book stores. Sell Jesus and make a living. Alas. Industry produces wealth, God speed the plow.
(I believe the movie tries to make Levene a little more sympathetic.)
The play includes the required surfeit of profanity to shock and titillate the audience. While Pinter has his Theatre of Menace, I’d say Mamet has his Theatre of Abuse. I’ve never heard people rip into each other so consistently and unceasingly. Especially employees and their boss.
It’s hard to draw much meaning from such exceptionally loathsome characters. Roma’s long soliloquy in Act One, Scene Three, however, sets it up for the audience on a platter. “’If it happens, AS IT MAY for that is not within our powers, I will deal with it just as I do today with what draws my concerns today.’ I say this is how we must act. I do those things which seem correct to me today. I trust myself.”
I read the play amid watching the Jan. 6 Select Committee Hearings. The testimony strangely resonated with the play. A fixation on winning that moment – regardless what must be said or done. The unconcern about tomorrow. The obliviousness about consequences. About morality. About tradition. The insipid vulgarity. The lies. The grift. The play is a glimpse into the contemporary Republican project.
P.S. The title gets five stars. I love it!
Speed-the-Plow *** -- This play doesn’t have the edge (or the cursing) of Glengarry Glen Ross or American Buffalo. But it does explore an interesting question whether a person can follow their ideals and make a living in Hollywood. Or anywhere else, really.
Some people can, god bless’em. For most of us, our ideals are incompatible with our primary means of support. Some may say antagonistic. Thus, the many bankrupt Christian book stores. Sell Jesus and make a living. Alas. Industry produces wealth, God speed the plow.
December 19, 2017
For "Glengarry Glen Ross", if you do not own it already, this is a must have. The price is roughly the same as my trade paperback, and includes three other plays, the best of which being, "Speed-the-Plow". As for the other two, "The Shawl" is entertaining but light and "Prairie du Chien" reads like a radio play because I believe it was indeed originally one and it's short and has two stories that play off of each other, offering an interesting concept pulled off fairly successfully with an ambiguous ending. So, sure, if you find this collection for a decent price pick it up.
March 26, 2022
GGR & Speed-the-Plow (5/5 and 4.5/5, respectively) are rightly considered the Crown Jewels of this collection, but The Shawl (3.5/5) threatens to give them a run for their money; however, Mamet would go on to elucidate the themes from The Shawl more clearly and dramatically in House of Games. Prairie du Chien is the only clunker (2/5) and mostly gives the impression of dramatic wheels turning in place. It’s the only piece I wouldn’t revisit.
March 9, 2023
Speed-the-Plow and GGR are very good. Tense dialogue, the back and forth and wavering characters. Excellent. I also quite liked Prairie du Chien, though apparently that's not regarded as very good, but I thought the narrative style was unique and captivating and the ending was fantastic. The Shawl left me somewhat cold. Overall, very good. I'll be reading more of Mamet.
September 11, 2018
I don't understand theatre that only consists of annoying characters bickering with each other (which seems to be 90% of American theatre).
August 17, 2009
Glengarry Glen Ross ***** (5 stars)
Prairie Du Chien **ooo
The Shawl **ooo
Speed-The-Plow ***oo
Prairie Du Chien **ooo
The Shawl **ooo
Speed-The-Plow ***oo
May 10, 2016
So much repetition of dialogue and cutting each other off. I suspect thses more authentic speech patterns are probably better suited for the stage than the page.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews