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Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama
The purpose of theater, like magic, like religion . . . is to inspire cleansing awe. What makes good drama? And why does drama matter in an age that is awash in information and entertainment? David Mamet, one of our greatest living playwrights, tackles these questions with bracing directness and aphoristic authority. He believes that the tendency to dramatize is essential to human nature, that we create drama out of everything from today’s weather to next year’s elections. But the highest expression of this drive remains the theater. With a cultural range that encompasses Shakespeare, Bretcht, and Ibsen, Death of a Salesman and Bad Day at Black Rock, Mamet shows us how to distinguish true drama from its false variants. He considers the impossibly difficult progression between one act and the next and the mysterious function of the soliloquy. The result, in Three Uses of the Knife, is an electrifying treatise on the playwright’s art that is also a strikingly original work of moral and aesthetic philosophy.
69 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1998
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2116 people want to read
About the author
David Mamet
228 books739 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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December 28, 2025Reading Three Uses of the Knife feels a bit like being cornered by David Mamet in a dim rehearsal room while he explains the nature of drama with the intensity of a man sharpening a blade he fully intends to demonstrate. I admire the clarity — truly — but every few pages I find myself wanting to interrupt with a gentle, “Alright, David, breathe, the rest of us are still in the room.” He’d ignore me, of course, and continue carving his thesis into the table with absolute conviction. And yet, despite the overreach — or perhaps because of the theatrical pleasure of watching him overreach — the whole thing becomes strangely exhilarating.
Mamet’s central claim is that drama is not an intellectual exercise but a ritual — a structure we impose on chaos to make it bearable. The three-act shape, he insists, isn’t a convention but an instinct, a rhythm we apply to experience the way we impose meter on noise. For him, drama’s purpose is transformation: the movement from confusion to clarity, from disorder to meaning, from the mess of life to the clean line of a story.
He is at his sharpest when arguing that drama must be stripped of sentimentality. Anything decorative, explanatory, or indulgent is, in his view, a betrayal of the form. The knife, in this metaphor, is the tool that cuts away everything unnecessary — the excuses, the adornments, the emotional padding. What remains is the essential action, the thing the story must do.
At this point, I can almost hear Mamet leaning forward, lowering his voice as if revealing a secret he’s been guarding for decades. “This is simply how drama works,” he’d say. I’d let him finish — he enjoys the sound of certainty — and then return to the pleasure of the argument itself.
It’s a seductive clarity — the kind that makes you nod along even as you sense he’s tightening the frame a little too neatly. Mamet presents his ideas as inevitabilities, not arguments, and that confidence is both the charm and the trouble. It’s here, in the space between what he claims and what he conveniently ignores, that I find myself wanting to tap him on the shoulder and say, “David, honey, we need to talk.”
For someone so devoted to necessity, he has a remarkable talent for turning his personal preferences into universal laws. He writes as if drama must follow his rules or risk collapsing into chaos — a confidence that’s equal parts admirable and absurd. At one point I can’t help imagining myself interrupting him: “David, darling, are you describing drama or just describing yourself?”
He’d wave me off, naturally — he has a thesis to finish carving. But this is exactly where the book becomes most enjoyable: in the gap between Mamet’s declarations and the unruly, contradictory reality of theatre. His certainty is a performance, and watching him commit to it with such gusto is half the pleasure.
For all the table-carving conviction, Three Uses of the Knife remains a remarkably useful book. Mamet’s insistence on stripping drama to its essentials forces you to confront what a story is actually doing, not what you wish it were doing. His clarity can feel severe, but it’s also liberating: he cuts through the fog of intention, symbolism, and emotional embroidery and asks the simplest, hardest question — What is the action?
In the end, Three Uses of the Knife isn’t valuable because Mamet has uncovered the secret laws of drama; it’s valuable because he argues his version with such ferocity that you can’t help sharpening your own. His certainty may be theatrical, his rules occasionally impossible, and his knife a touch too eager — but the provocation works. He forces you to think, to question, to cut closer to the bone.
If Mamet were here, he’d probably insist that drama must end with a clean, decisive stroke. So I’ll give him one, though naturally with a raised eyebrow.
Thank you, David. I’ll take the knife, but I’ll decide where to cut.
Mamet’s central claim is that drama is not an intellectual exercise but a ritual — a structure we impose on chaos to make it bearable. The three-act shape, he insists, isn’t a convention but an instinct, a rhythm we apply to experience the way we impose meter on noise. For him, drama’s purpose is transformation: the movement from confusion to clarity, from disorder to meaning, from the mess of life to the clean line of a story.
He is at his sharpest when arguing that drama must be stripped of sentimentality. Anything decorative, explanatory, or indulgent is, in his view, a betrayal of the form. The knife, in this metaphor, is the tool that cuts away everything unnecessary — the excuses, the adornments, the emotional padding. What remains is the essential action, the thing the story must do.
At this point, I can almost hear Mamet leaning forward, lowering his voice as if revealing a secret he’s been guarding for decades. “This is simply how drama works,” he’d say. I’d let him finish — he enjoys the sound of certainty — and then return to the pleasure of the argument itself.
It’s a seductive clarity — the kind that makes you nod along even as you sense he’s tightening the frame a little too neatly. Mamet presents his ideas as inevitabilities, not arguments, and that confidence is both the charm and the trouble. It’s here, in the space between what he claims and what he conveniently ignores, that I find myself wanting to tap him on the shoulder and say, “David, honey, we need to talk.”
For someone so devoted to necessity, he has a remarkable talent for turning his personal preferences into universal laws. He writes as if drama must follow his rules or risk collapsing into chaos — a confidence that’s equal parts admirable and absurd. At one point I can’t help imagining myself interrupting him: “David, darling, are you describing drama or just describing yourself?”
He’d wave me off, naturally — he has a thesis to finish carving. But this is exactly where the book becomes most enjoyable: in the gap between Mamet’s declarations and the unruly, contradictory reality of theatre. His certainty is a performance, and watching him commit to it with such gusto is half the pleasure.
For all the table-carving conviction, Three Uses of the Knife remains a remarkably useful book. Mamet’s insistence on stripping drama to its essentials forces you to confront what a story is actually doing, not what you wish it were doing. His clarity can feel severe, but it’s also liberating: he cuts through the fog of intention, symbolism, and emotional embroidery and asks the simplest, hardest question — What is the action?
In the end, Three Uses of the Knife isn’t valuable because Mamet has uncovered the secret laws of drama; it’s valuable because he argues his version with such ferocity that you can’t help sharpening your own. His certainty may be theatrical, his rules occasionally impossible, and his knife a touch too eager — but the provocation works. He forces you to think, to question, to cut closer to the bone.
If Mamet were here, he’d probably insist that drama must end with a clean, decisive stroke. So I’ll give him one, though naturally with a raised eyebrow.
Thank you, David. I’ll take the knife, but I’ll decide where to cut.
January 22, 2010
This book is a bit of a muddle--Mamet constantly moves back and forth between different ideas without any real cohesiveness--but there are a couple of great ideas in this book on the nature of drama. The best one I think is when he talks about the difficulty of writing 2nd Acts, that writing second acts is a bit like living 2nd acts; in order to write the mid-life crisis, you have live through the mid-life crisis, which many people are loathe to do. They want to write the script without having to go through the pain that the characters in the story experience—and yet that is exactly what they must do. This is pretty much the same idea that he talks about in his book on acting, “True & False.” And yet I think it’s even more important in the field of writing. A lot of actors become actors because they are already masochists—they want to be hurt, they want to relive prior hurts. Whereas I know a lot of writers who don’t realize that to be a writer of any dramatic narrative means being a sado-masochist. You must be sadistic to your characters, put them through hell—and then experience what those characters are feelings, i.e. be masochistic. I think Mamet as a writer is much more of a sadist than he is as a masochist and that’s why you get some terrific drama in his plays and films but not a lot of “feeling” from these characters.
Ah well. We can’t all be Shakespeare. In the meantime, we can write essays on writing, or write reviews on essays on writing. But I should go back to the real writing. Please excuse me, I have a few darlings to kill.
Ah well. We can’t all be Shakespeare. In the meantime, we can write essays on writing, or write reviews on essays on writing. But I should go back to the real writing. Please excuse me, I have a few darlings to kill.
July 12, 2020
قرار نبود این کتاب رو بخونم، در یک عصر گند زدۀ تابستانی و آغشته به کرونا، محبوبم از راه رسید و این کتاب کوچک نارنجی رو به دستم داد. خب از اونجایی که موش، زبون محبوبم رو خورده و من میدونستم که ایشون کار تیاتر و نمایشنامه انجام میدن، فکر کردم کتاب رو برای خودش گرفته و داده به من تا یه نگاهی بهش بندازم ولی بعد معلوم شد که بنده یکم دوزاریم کجه و کتاب برای من بوده. همون روز به شب نکشیده تمومش کردم.
و راستش خیلی بهم چسبید. از اونجایی که ممکنه به زودی شرایطی برام پیش بیاد که به کتابهام دسترسی نداشته باشم، برخلاف معمول دوست دارم اینجا بخشی از کتاب رو بنویسم تا به نوعی چکیدۀ حرفش رو داشته باشم.
"بدعت عصر اطلاعات این نیست که عقل بر همه چیز فائق خواهد آمد، بلکه این است که عقل بر همه چیز فائق آمده است. اما همان طور که در زندگیهامان میبینیم، در مقابل هر هزار باری که از عقل برای توضیح علت چیزی استفاده میکنیم شاید فقط یک بار برای فهم افزونتر آن را به کار میگیریم. و درس تطهیر کنندۀ درام، در عالیترین مرتبه، بیارزشی عقل است."
و راستش خیلی بهم چسبید. از اونجایی که ممکنه به زودی شرایطی برام پیش بیاد که به کتابهام دسترسی نداشته باشم، برخلاف معمول دوست دارم اینجا بخشی از کتاب رو بنویسم تا به نوعی چکیدۀ حرفش رو داشته باشم.
"بدعت عصر اطلاعات این نیست که عقل بر همه چیز فائق خواهد آمد، بلکه این است که عقل بر همه چیز فائق آمده است. اما همان طور که در زندگیهامان میبینیم، در مقابل هر هزار باری که از عقل برای توضیح علت چیزی استفاده میکنیم شاید فقط یک بار برای فهم افزونتر آن را به کار میگیریم. و درس تطهیر کنندۀ درام، در عالیترین مرتبه، بیارزشی عقل است."
March 23, 2022
به نام او
🔹️همیشه دوست داشتهام حرفهای آفرینندگان آثار هنری و ادبی را بشنوم و یا بخوانم، دقت بفرمایید حرفهای آنها را، نه نظریهها و تزهای پژوهشیشان را. زمانی که یک نویسنده، شاعر بلند بلند فکر میکند و از هردری سخن میگوید به واقع دارد بنمایههای به فعلیت رسیده در آثار پیشین و یا هنوز به فعلیت نرسیده را بر زبان میآورد و این حرفها حاوی نکات بسیار مهمی است شاید همارز خود آثار آنها. در واقع این حرفها آثار بالقوه آنها هستند که در آثارشان بالفعل میشود. خواندن این جنس کتابها بسیار لذتبخش و آموزنده است.
🔸️به تازگی کتابی خواندم از «دیوید ممت» نمایشنامهنویس امریکایی که در دستهای که در بالا به آن اشاره شد، قرار میگیرد: «سه کاربرد چاقو»
کتاب از سه فصل تشکیل میشود و نکاتی در باب طبیعت و درام است و به ظاهر مخاطبش نمایشنامهنویسان هستند ولی چنین نیست چرا که نه کتاب ساختار یک کتاب علمی را دارد و نه مخصوص یک قشر خاص نوشته شده است. ممت در این کتاب بلند بلند فکر کرده است.
🔸️میخواهم در ادامه بخشهایی از کتاب را بیاورم تا عیار کار دستتان بیاید. این کتاب کمحجم را #نشر_بیدگل منتشر کرده است.
《من قبلاً، میگفتم نویسنده خوب چیزهایی که دیگران نگه میدارند را دور میاندازد. اما به معیار بهتری رسیدهام: نویسنده خوب چیزهایی را که دیگران دور میاندازند را نگه میدارد.》
《با پیشروی فرهنگ جهانی غربیآمریکایی ما به سمت سرنوشت آشکار، میبینیم که سواد، گفتوگو و تحصیلات روندی نزولی و فرسایشی به خود گرفتهاند، درست همانگونه که در یک حکومت توتالیتار.
آلمانیها به نامِ حق حاکمیت بر سرنوشت نازیسم را به وجود آوردند و سلطه آنها را پذیرفتند. ما به نام اطلاعات جهل و بیسوادی را میآفرینیم و میپذیریم.》
《خاطرم هست که در مدرسه میگفتند هنر در وفور نعمت شکوفا میشود. وفور نعمت به فرهنگ و فرد اجازه میدهد تا بر مشکلات معیشتی غلبه کند و در واقع امکانات اضافه برسازمانی نیز در اختیارش قرار میدهد تا با آن به آفرینش هنری دست زند. با این حال، به نظر من عکس این قضیه درست است. در زندگی فرد، یا در زندگی اجتماع یا فرهنگ، هنر در دوران مبارزه شکوفا میشود و در دوران فراوانی ناپدید.》
《یک نمایشنامه درباره چیزهای خوبی نیست که برای آدمهای خوب اتفاق میافتد. یک نمایشنامه بیشتر درباره پیشامدهای تحملناپذیری است که برای آدمهایی اتفاق میافتد که به اندازه ما خوب یا بدند.》
🔹️همیشه دوست داشتهام حرفهای آفرینندگان آثار هنری و ادبی را بشنوم و یا بخوانم، دقت بفرمایید حرفهای آنها را، نه نظریهها و تزهای پژوهشیشان را. زمانی که یک نویسنده، شاعر بلند بلند فکر میکند و از هردری سخن میگوید به واقع دارد بنمایههای به فعلیت رسیده در آثار پیشین و یا هنوز به فعلیت نرسیده را بر زبان میآورد و این حرفها حاوی نکات بسیار مهمی است شاید همارز خود آثار آنها. در واقع این حرفها آثار بالقوه آنها هستند که در آثارشان بالفعل میشود. خواندن این جنس کتابها بسیار لذتبخش و آموزنده است.
🔸️به تازگی کتابی خواندم از «دیوید ممت» نمایشنامهنویس امریکایی که در دستهای که در بالا به آن اشاره شد، قرار میگیرد: «سه کاربرد چاقو»
کتاب از سه فصل تشکیل میشود و نکاتی در باب طبیعت و درام است و به ظاهر مخاطبش نمایشنامهنویسان هستند ولی چنین نیست چرا که نه کتاب ساختار یک کتاب علمی را دارد و نه مخصوص یک قشر خاص نوشته شده است. ممت در این کتاب بلند بلند فکر کرده است.
🔸️میخواهم در ادامه بخشهایی از کتاب را بیاورم تا عیار کار دستتان بیاید. این کتاب کمحجم را #نشر_بیدگل منتشر کرده است.
《من قبلاً، میگفتم نویسنده خوب چیزهایی که دیگران نگه میدارند را دور میاندازد. اما به معیار بهتری رسیدهام: نویسنده خوب چیزهایی را که دیگران دور میاندازند را نگه میدارد.》
《با پیشروی فرهنگ جهانی غربیآمریکایی ما به سمت سرنوشت آشکار، میبینیم که سواد، گفتوگو و تحصیلات روندی نزولی و فرسایشی به خود گرفتهاند، درست همانگونه که در یک حکومت توتالیتار.
آلمانیها به نامِ حق حاکمیت بر سرنوشت نازیسم را به وجود آوردند و سلطه آنها را پذیرفتند. ما به نام اطلاعات جهل و بیسوادی را میآفرینیم و میپذیریم.》
《خاطرم هست که در مدرسه میگفتند هنر در وفور نعمت شکوفا میشود. وفور نعمت به فرهنگ و فرد اجازه میدهد تا بر مشکلات معیشتی غلبه کند و در واقع امکانات اضافه برسازمانی نیز در اختیارش قرار میدهد تا با آن به آفرینش هنری دست زند. با این حال، به نظر من عکس این قضیه درست است. در زندگی فرد، یا در زندگی اجتماع یا فرهنگ، هنر در دوران مبارزه شکوفا میشود و در دوران فراوانی ناپدید.》
《یک نمایشنامه درباره چیزهای خوبی نیست که برای آدمهای خوب اتفاق میافتد. یک نمایشنامه بیشتر درباره پیشامدهای تحملناپذیری است که برای آدمهایی اتفاق میافتد که به اندازه ما خوب یا بدند.》
July 28, 2020
There was interesting trivia in this book but overall I found it to be rambling and incoherent. The second section was so jumbled that it reminded me of the paragraphs created by the predictive texting game on the smartphone.
November 8, 2021
حکایت تولستوی از مرد تهی دست:
مردی "سه قرص نان" داشت و "یک چوبشور". مرد نان اول را خورد. هنوز گرسنه بود. قرص نان دوم را هم خورد، دَخل سومی را هم آورد ولی باز گرسنه بود. بعد چوبشور را خورد و سیر شد
با خود گفت: چه احمقی هستم من. باید اول چوب شور را میخوردم.
ذهن ما تصادفی بودن را درک نمیکند. از آنچه دریافتهایم، فرضیاتی با شاخ و برگ میسازیم و همان فرضیات را به شکل اطلاعات در میآوریم و بر اساس آن عمل میکنیم...
این کتاب، تراوشات ذهنی دیوید مَمِت درباره طبیعت و مقصود دِرامنویسی هست و پُر از چنین مثال هایی.
مردی "سه قرص نان" داشت و "یک چوبشور". مرد نان اول را خورد. هنوز گرسنه بود. قرص نان دوم را هم خورد، دَخل سومی را هم آورد ولی باز گرسنه بود. بعد چوبشور را خورد و سیر شد
با خود گفت: چه احمقی هستم من. باید اول چوب شور را میخوردم.
ذهن ما تصادفی بودن را درک نمیکند. از آنچه دریافتهایم، فرضیاتی با شاخ و برگ میسازیم و همان فرضیات را به شکل اطلاعات در میآوریم و بر اساس آن عمل میکنیم...
این کتاب، تراوشات ذهنی دیوید مَمِت درباره طبیعت و مقصود دِرامنویسی هست و پُر از چنین مثال هایی.
May 3, 2018
Okay, well. I'm glad this book was short. But honestly, it was really good for me to read this. I disagreed with an awful lot of it, but I think it was helpful. Sometimes reading things you disagree with helps you better articulate what you actually think.
Overall, Mamet lifts theatre/drama up to a height that it cannot hold itself up to. He almost worships it - holding it up with religion and magic and the Bible. He says art should bring peace and "inspire cleansing awe". Can anything but Jesus bring us those things?
This book felt, in a nutshell, like idolatry and atheism cloaked in overly-fancy language and wandering trains of thought. Seriously, there were so many times he phrased things just as eloquently and snobbily as he could. Or that's how it felt on this end. There are authors who use lovely words for the sake of their loveliness, because they are infatuated with the beauty of language as God's gift to us. And there are those who use lovely words for the sake of how intelligent they sound. Second-handers who are more concerned with lecturing or impressing than sharing their joy in a thing. That felt like this whole book.
And there were so many incomplete thoughts he left dangling as if assuming every reader would understand the rest of his thought, leaving any reader that doesn't understand feeling foolish or out-of-place.
There were bits I liked. Sentences and small sections where I was like, "Yes!" (I'll share some quotes below.) But overall... this is a vision of drama that really needs a lesson from the Storyteller.
I don't necessarily agree full-heartedly with these, but they struck me:
"The demand of immediate gratification is death for any art which takes place over time. That the audience be teased, disappointed, reassured, frightened, and finally freed is the essence of dramatic/musical form. It is only... garbage that 'makes us feel good all the time.' "
"Dramatic art raises the creators and the viewers to the status of communicants. We who made it, formed it, saw it, went through something together, now we are veterans. Now we are friends."
"We cannot gamble enough to find peace, eat enough to be thin, arm ourselves or strut enough to feel secure."
"But life is not simple, the truth is not simple, true art is not simple. True art is as deep and convoluted and various as the minds and souls of the human beings who create it." (I feel like a really long and interesting discussion could be had based on just this sentence.)
Overall, Mamet lifts theatre/drama up to a height that it cannot hold itself up to. He almost worships it - holding it up with religion and magic and the Bible. He says art should bring peace and "inspire cleansing awe". Can anything but Jesus bring us those things?
This book felt, in a nutshell, like idolatry and atheism cloaked in overly-fancy language and wandering trains of thought. Seriously, there were so many times he phrased things just as eloquently and snobbily as he could. Or that's how it felt on this end. There are authors who use lovely words for the sake of their loveliness, because they are infatuated with the beauty of language as God's gift to us. And there are those who use lovely words for the sake of how intelligent they sound. Second-handers who are more concerned with lecturing or impressing than sharing their joy in a thing. That felt like this whole book.
And there were so many incomplete thoughts he left dangling as if assuming every reader would understand the rest of his thought, leaving any reader that doesn't understand feeling foolish or out-of-place.
There were bits I liked. Sentences and small sections where I was like, "Yes!" (I'll share some quotes below.) But overall... this is a vision of drama that really needs a lesson from the Storyteller.
I don't necessarily agree full-heartedly with these, but they struck me:
"The demand of immediate gratification is death for any art which takes place over time. That the audience be teased, disappointed, reassured, frightened, and finally freed is the essence of dramatic/musical form. It is only... garbage that 'makes us feel good all the time.' "
"Dramatic art raises the creators and the viewers to the status of communicants. We who made it, formed it, saw it, went through something together, now we are veterans. Now we are friends."
"We cannot gamble enough to find peace, eat enough to be thin, arm ourselves or strut enough to feel secure."
"But life is not simple, the truth is not simple, true art is not simple. True art is as deep and convoluted and various as the minds and souls of the human beings who create it." (I feel like a really long and interesting discussion could be had based on just this sentence.)
December 1, 2020
First published in 1998, "Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama," by David Mamet, is a short, pithy, excellent read.
Mamet is a renowned playwright and screenwriter, though I admit I have never seen any of his work. He's won a Pulitzer Prize for his plays, Tony nominations, and many other awards and acclaim.
"Three Uses of the Knife" is not a how-to book about craft. It's a summary of Mamet's thoughts about why plays exist -- why theater exists -- and what the audience gets out of it.
This book is entertaining as hell. It's extremely dark and grim. From what I know of Mamet's work, this is much to be expected.
Here are some quotes that stood out to me that I thought I would share, and comment on:
"Myth, religion, and tragedy approach our insecurity somewhat differently. They awaken awe. They do not deny our powerlessness, but through its avowal they free us of the burden of its repression." (pg 15)
^^This is not true for everyone, but I can easily understand how it is true for some.
"We step onto the car dealer's lot to play out a drama. It is our infrequent opportunity to be made much of, to be courted. We don't want to hear about the design of the engine, we want to hear how smart we are." (pg 23)
^^This is not true for me, but I know for many people this is exactly the case.
"The purpose of art is to delight us: certain men and women (no smarter than you or I) whose art can delight us have been given dispensation from going out and fetching water and carrying wood. It's no more elaborate than that." (pg 26)
^^I would say this is the purpose of entertainment, not art. But Mamet and I drastically differ that way.
"We all have a myth and we all live by a myth. That's what we live for. Part of the hero journey is that the hero (artist/protagonist) has to change her understanding completely, whether through the force of circumstance (which happens more often in drama) or through the force of will (which happens more often in tragedy). The hero must revamp her thinking about the world. And this revamping can lead to great art." (pg 38)
^^Yes, I completely agree.
"For much of our lives we are mired in an inability to frankly regard the middle term, to admit we have made a wrong turning [sic], to return (so we might think) to the beginning of our struggle for knowledge. We tend to elect, rather, to continue in error." (pg 42)
^^Very true, and delightfully put.
"Our Defense Department exists neither to 'maintain our place in the world' nor to 'provide security against external threats.' It exists because we are willing to squander all -- wealth, youth, life, peace, honor, everything -- to defend ourselves against feelings of our own worthlessness, our own powerlessness." (pg 44-45)
^^I agree and disagree. Mamet moves into an entirely theoretical land regarding lived reality that I know is untrue. I can't ignore lived reality to the extent that he does. I know that he is certainly sharing truth with this statement, but it isn't the whole truth.
The disagreement I have with him here is no small thing, since the statement quoted above gets at what he thinks the purpose of drama is: to free people from the burden of repressing their powerlessness and worthlessness. Being free from the burden of repression, to Mamet, is completely different from "forgetting" all knowledge of one's own worthlessness, since forgetting the truth, to Mamet, is simply another form of repression --
"Art, which exists to bring [the audience member internal, personal] peace, becomes entertainment, which exists to divert, and is becoming totalitarianism, which exists to censor and control. The desire to express becomes, absent the artist and in the face of the terrifying, the need to repress. The 'information age' is the creation, by the body politic, through the collective unconscious, of a mechanism of repression, a mechanism that offers us a diversion from our knowledge of our own worthlessness." (pg 53)
^^How much you agree or disagree with Mamet's conclusion here might determine how much you enjoy reading this book. Personally, I don't agree that this is always true, or always true for all people, but I find him highly entertaining to read, nonetheless.
"But a play is not about nice things happening to nice people. A play is about rather terrible things happening to people who are as nice or not nice as we ourselves are." (pg 67-68)
^^Heck yes. There are plenty of statements in this book that I 100% agree with. Especially the final lines of this book, which are brilliant:
"At the End of the Play, when we had, it seemed, exhausted all possible avenues of investigation, when we were without recourse or resource (or so it seemed), when we were all but powerless, all was made whole. It was made whole when the truth came out.
At that point, then, in the well-wrought play (and perhaps in the honestly examined life), we will understand that what seemed accidental was essential, we will perceive the pattern wrought by our character, we will be free to sigh or mourn. And then we can go home." (pg 79-80)
^^Yes, yes. Amen.
Overall, this is an engaging book to read, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading about drama, and to anyone who is a writer, no matter what kind of writing you do.
Five stars. Great fun.
Mamet is a renowned playwright and screenwriter, though I admit I have never seen any of his work. He's won a Pulitzer Prize for his plays, Tony nominations, and many other awards and acclaim.
"Three Uses of the Knife" is not a how-to book about craft. It's a summary of Mamet's thoughts about why plays exist -- why theater exists -- and what the audience gets out of it.
This book is entertaining as hell. It's extremely dark and grim. From what I know of Mamet's work, this is much to be expected.
Here are some quotes that stood out to me that I thought I would share, and comment on:
"Myth, religion, and tragedy approach our insecurity somewhat differently. They awaken awe. They do not deny our powerlessness, but through its avowal they free us of the burden of its repression." (pg 15)
^^This is not true for everyone, but I can easily understand how it is true for some.
"We step onto the car dealer's lot to play out a drama. It is our infrequent opportunity to be made much of, to be courted. We don't want to hear about the design of the engine, we want to hear how smart we are." (pg 23)
^^This is not true for me, but I know for many people this is exactly the case.
"The purpose of art is to delight us: certain men and women (no smarter than you or I) whose art can delight us have been given dispensation from going out and fetching water and carrying wood. It's no more elaborate than that." (pg 26)
^^I would say this is the purpose of entertainment, not art. But Mamet and I drastically differ that way.
"We all have a myth and we all live by a myth. That's what we live for. Part of the hero journey is that the hero (artist/protagonist) has to change her understanding completely, whether through the force of circumstance (which happens more often in drama) or through the force of will (which happens more often in tragedy). The hero must revamp her thinking about the world. And this revamping can lead to great art." (pg 38)
^^Yes, I completely agree.
"For much of our lives we are mired in an inability to frankly regard the middle term, to admit we have made a wrong turning [sic], to return (so we might think) to the beginning of our struggle for knowledge. We tend to elect, rather, to continue in error." (pg 42)
^^Very true, and delightfully put.
"Our Defense Department exists neither to 'maintain our place in the world' nor to 'provide security against external threats.' It exists because we are willing to squander all -- wealth, youth, life, peace, honor, everything -- to defend ourselves against feelings of our own worthlessness, our own powerlessness." (pg 44-45)
^^I agree and disagree. Mamet moves into an entirely theoretical land regarding lived reality that I know is untrue. I can't ignore lived reality to the extent that he does. I know that he is certainly sharing truth with this statement, but it isn't the whole truth.
The disagreement I have with him here is no small thing, since the statement quoted above gets at what he thinks the purpose of drama is: to free people from the burden of repressing their powerlessness and worthlessness. Being free from the burden of repression, to Mamet, is completely different from "forgetting" all knowledge of one's own worthlessness, since forgetting the truth, to Mamet, is simply another form of repression --
"Art, which exists to bring [the audience member internal, personal] peace, becomes entertainment, which exists to divert, and is becoming totalitarianism, which exists to censor and control. The desire to express becomes, absent the artist and in the face of the terrifying, the need to repress. The 'information age' is the creation, by the body politic, through the collective unconscious, of a mechanism of repression, a mechanism that offers us a diversion from our knowledge of our own worthlessness." (pg 53)
^^How much you agree or disagree with Mamet's conclusion here might determine how much you enjoy reading this book. Personally, I don't agree that this is always true, or always true for all people, but I find him highly entertaining to read, nonetheless.
"But a play is not about nice things happening to nice people. A play is about rather terrible things happening to people who are as nice or not nice as we ourselves are." (pg 67-68)
^^Heck yes. There are plenty of statements in this book that I 100% agree with. Especially the final lines of this book, which are brilliant:
"At the End of the Play, when we had, it seemed, exhausted all possible avenues of investigation, when we were without recourse or resource (or so it seemed), when we were all but powerless, all was made whole. It was made whole when the truth came out.
At that point, then, in the well-wrought play (and perhaps in the honestly examined life), we will understand that what seemed accidental was essential, we will perceive the pattern wrought by our character, we will be free to sigh or mourn. And then we can go home." (pg 79-80)
^^Yes, yes. Amen.
Overall, this is an engaging book to read, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading about drama, and to anyone who is a writer, no matter what kind of writing you do.
Five stars. Great fun.
February 26, 2019
Better than his other treatises which I have so far encountered. This is pithier, more succinct and straightforward. Mamet dissects concepts of drama and the psychological interplay taking place between the playwright and the audience. The only flaw is where Mamet cannot curb his tendency to pontificate and generalize about political matters. He is bent on aligning the spectacle of politics with that of the stage. This theorizing dominates Chapter II (there's only three chapters) but the writing is brisk and light and its not too bad. Warning: there's no concrete technical tips for aspiring authors, playwrights, librettists, thespians, dramaturgists, or scenarists to derive from this little tract; its far too generalized in its aims. It's not a book about stagecraft. Actually --at the end of the read--I'm not quite sure what Mamet's motivation was in writing this at all. Seems like the man just wanted to get some ideas of his, crystallized and refracted. The blessed aspect of it is the brevity. Only 96 pages or so, what a relief! Overall: vaguely useful at a macro-level of thought.
October 10, 2022
تراژدی جشنی نه برای پیروزی نهایی ما، بلکه جشنی برای حقیقت است؛ این یک پیروزی نیست، بلکه یک استعفا است. بخش اعظم قدرت آرامبخش آن باز هم ناشی از فعلوانفعالات توصیفشده توسط شکسپیر است: وقتی درمان تمام شد، غم و اندوه نیز تمام میشود.
August 2, 2013
Finished this book two minutes ago and my head is swimming. At times confusing with its philosophical pondering, at times crystal clear with its direct anecdotes and playful metaphors, it's easily one of the best books on drama I've read. It condenses so much thought into just 81 pages, yet refuses to simply be a "here is how it's done" sort of book.
June 14, 2020
Como hay muchos manuales de dramaturgia y guion, imagino que quiso hacer algo distinto. Le salió distinto y malo.
May 18, 2022
"After a while, the new is no longer new, and we require drama. It's how we perceive the world".
Pulitzer Prize-Winning author, filmmaker, and playwright David Mamet is highly esteemed in the world of both cinema and theater and his work as a screenwriter includes titles that won the profound respect of the audiences as well as flattering praises from the critics such as Glengarry Glen Ross, House of Games, Wag the Dog, and The Spanish Prisoner. In his little book Three Uses of a Knife, the American writer introduces his own theories regarding the dramatic art, its function and purpose, while not missing the chance to severely criticize today's level of entertainment as provided by the mass media and attacks television in which he sees the facilitator of the widespread intellectual hibernation dominating the younger generations. Mamet's musings and arguments are stated in a direct, borderline brusque, manner and he manages to contain his thoughts on the nature of drama in a booklet of under 100 pages, expressing himself in a highly succinct and concise way. He adopts a threefold division of his content and in each one of the three parts ("The Wind-Chill Factor", "Second-act Problems", "3 Uses of the Knife"), the author focuses on specifics aspects of the dramatic phenomenon which all merge together in the third and final chapter where the reader has the whole picture in front of him and can safely claim that he had thoroughly comprehended Mamet's line of thinking.
To read my full review, visit https://tapthelinemag.com/post/three-...
Pulitzer Prize-Winning author, filmmaker, and playwright David Mamet is highly esteemed in the world of both cinema and theater and his work as a screenwriter includes titles that won the profound respect of the audiences as well as flattering praises from the critics such as Glengarry Glen Ross, House of Games, Wag the Dog, and The Spanish Prisoner. In his little book Three Uses of a Knife, the American writer introduces his own theories regarding the dramatic art, its function and purpose, while not missing the chance to severely criticize today's level of entertainment as provided by the mass media and attacks television in which he sees the facilitator of the widespread intellectual hibernation dominating the younger generations. Mamet's musings and arguments are stated in a direct, borderline brusque, manner and he manages to contain his thoughts on the nature of drama in a booklet of under 100 pages, expressing himself in a highly succinct and concise way. He adopts a threefold division of his content and in each one of the three parts ("The Wind-Chill Factor", "Second-act Problems", "3 Uses of the Knife"), the author focuses on specifics aspects of the dramatic phenomenon which all merge together in the third and final chapter where the reader has the whole picture in front of him and can safely claim that he had thoroughly comprehended Mamet's line of thinking.
To read my full review, visit https://tapthelinemag.com/post/three-...
January 20, 2009
Well.
Here i find myself in the uncomfortable position of thinking Mamet is wrong. Only in a tiny little spot, but it's distressing nonetheless. It's when he says that the drama is an inferior way of "reaching" or teaching things to an audience. And, that if the desire is to "change people's attitudes and make them see the world in a new light," he recommends one stick to that "great and very, very effective tool," the gun. To be really frank, I don't think Mamet is wrong about this, I'm afraid I know he is.
Mamet, in supporting his point, peppers his argument with "factual" assertions such as the below:
A puppy who won't respond to the command "come" can and will return to the master if the master falls down and lies still. The puppy will come trotting back. Why? Because it thinks its dominator is incapacitated. and it now has a chance to kill. The puppy comes back joyfully, as it is getting a free chance to exercise its most prized survival skills.
He brings this up in support of:
The drama excites us as it recapitulates and calls into play the most essential element of our being, our prized adaptive mechanism [storytelling:].
All sentiment puppy-wise aside, this simply isn't the truth about how dogs and wolves survive -- as part of packs led by "masters," i.e. alphas. When their alpha lies still, it's not in the canids' adaptive best interest to run over and gleefully slaughter him, but rather to come see if he's OK, and revive him if possible. The alpha of the pack isn't just its "oppressor" -- that role has come about as a method for facing the environment that has worked for the survival of those particular species.
It looks ugly to humans, the hierarchical structure in nature. I have had a hard time dealing with the affront to my moral aesthetic which is the violence and fascist savagery of chickens, in particular. But, no matter what I think of it, it makes chickens survive. Just so, as Mamet so rightly points out, telling each other stories makes humans survive. Precisely because it "changes people's attitudes." Changed "attitudes" cause changed behaviors to arise. There is no other function to "attitudes." And to change them is a legitimate function of "the drama."
So, I kind of want to rip my face off when he frames his relationship to the audience in terms of inferiority/superiority -- primarily to claim that he, Mamet, doesn't feel superior to them, of course.
a) Bullshit
b) Because to frame it so is needless. A person who has found out a piece of information he believes to be factual, and finds useful, and wishes to relay to his fellow -- isn't "superior" to someone who may not have found that information out yet. It's weird to think of it that way. Unless you want to go back to the original, concrete meaning of "superior" -- "above," as in "positioned higher in 3-d space relative to another object," as in "uphill from." Then, you get a picture of knowledge as heavy like water, and wanting to flow downhill to where it isn't yet. Which seems to make a lot more sense than the image of possessors of knowledge as "better" than the rest of us, like kings. And, in this image, the "dramatist" -- becomes, at most, the path the knowledge takes between the rocks, the knowledge carves him, and not the other way around, and that is why, Mamet himself starts this conversation with It is in our nature to dramatize, but I think he falls short of all the consequences to a writer's ego that this truly implies.
Humans, along with the inheritance, the nature, of lusting after as much power and status as they can possibly grab -- also possess the gift of perceiving that hierarchy, inequality, injustice -- are morally ugly .
Notice.
That being said, the rest of the book is fucking brilliant, especially the regarding the definitions and interrelationship between such concepts as: the conscious mind, the compulsion to repeat behaviors which repress emotion precisely BECAUSE they fail, the subconscious, and "art." Some tidbits my own personal ego doesn't compel me to pick apart:
Artists don't wonder "What is it good for?" They aren't driven to "create art," or to "help people," or to "make money." They are driven to lessen the burden of the unbearable disparity between their conscious and unconscious minds, and so to achieve peace. When they make art, their nonrational synthesis has the power to bring us peace.
The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense. And the warm glow of fashion on the left and patriotism on the right evidence individuals' comfort in their power to elect themselves members of a group superior to reason.
Oh, OK. I think I know what to do with my 30s now. Thanks Mamet.
Here i find myself in the uncomfortable position of thinking Mamet is wrong. Only in a tiny little spot, but it's distressing nonetheless. It's when he says that the drama is an inferior way of "reaching" or teaching things to an audience. And, that if the desire is to "change people's attitudes and make them see the world in a new light," he recommends one stick to that "great and very, very effective tool," the gun. To be really frank, I don't think Mamet is wrong about this, I'm afraid I know he is.
Mamet, in supporting his point, peppers his argument with "factual" assertions such as the below:
A puppy who won't respond to the command "come" can and will return to the master if the master falls down and lies still. The puppy will come trotting back. Why? Because it thinks its dominator is incapacitated. and it now has a chance to kill. The puppy comes back joyfully, as it is getting a free chance to exercise its most prized survival skills.
He brings this up in support of:
The drama excites us as it recapitulates and calls into play the most essential element of our being, our prized adaptive mechanism [storytelling:].
All sentiment puppy-wise aside, this simply isn't the truth about how dogs and wolves survive -- as part of packs led by "masters," i.e. alphas. When their alpha lies still, it's not in the canids' adaptive best interest to run over and gleefully slaughter him, but rather to come see if he's OK, and revive him if possible. The alpha of the pack isn't just its "oppressor" -- that role has come about as a method for facing the environment that has worked for the survival of those particular species.
It looks ugly to humans, the hierarchical structure in nature. I have had a hard time dealing with the affront to my moral aesthetic which is the violence and fascist savagery of chickens, in particular. But, no matter what I think of it, it makes chickens survive. Just so, as Mamet so rightly points out, telling each other stories makes humans survive. Precisely because it "changes people's attitudes." Changed "attitudes" cause changed behaviors to arise. There is no other function to "attitudes." And to change them is a legitimate function of "the drama."
So, I kind of want to rip my face off when he frames his relationship to the audience in terms of inferiority/superiority -- primarily to claim that he, Mamet, doesn't feel superior to them, of course.
a) Bullshit
b) Because to frame it so is needless. A person who has found out a piece of information he believes to be factual, and finds useful, and wishes to relay to his fellow -- isn't "superior" to someone who may not have found that information out yet. It's weird to think of it that way. Unless you want to go back to the original, concrete meaning of "superior" -- "above," as in "positioned higher in 3-d space relative to another object," as in "uphill from." Then, you get a picture of knowledge as heavy like water, and wanting to flow downhill to where it isn't yet. Which seems to make a lot more sense than the image of possessors of knowledge as "better" than the rest of us, like kings. And, in this image, the "dramatist" -- becomes, at most, the path the knowledge takes between the rocks, the knowledge carves him, and not the other way around, and that is why, Mamet himself starts this conversation with It is in our nature to dramatize, but I think he falls short of all the consequences to a writer's ego that this truly implies.
Humans, along with the inheritance, the nature, of lusting after as much power and status as they can possibly grab -- also possess the gift of perceiving that hierarchy, inequality, injustice -- are morally ugly .
Notice.
That being said, the rest of the book is fucking brilliant, especially the regarding the definitions and interrelationship between such concepts as: the conscious mind, the compulsion to repeat behaviors which repress emotion precisely BECAUSE they fail, the subconscious, and "art." Some tidbits my own personal ego doesn't compel me to pick apart:
Artists don't wonder "What is it good for?" They aren't driven to "create art," or to "help people," or to "make money." They are driven to lessen the burden of the unbearable disparity between their conscious and unconscious minds, and so to achieve peace. When they make art, their nonrational synthesis has the power to bring us peace.
The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense. And the warm glow of fashion on the left and patriotism on the right evidence individuals' comfort in their power to elect themselves members of a group superior to reason.
Oh, OK. I think I know what to do with my 30s now. Thanks Mamet.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 26, 2024
The deranged, free-wheeling ravings of a lunatic. Reads like a manifesto a newspaper would publish and then later have to apologize for. Much like those manifestos of lore, there are a couple nuggets of wisdom in here. But just a couple.
January 31, 2022
This is a very short book, but it is dense. Mamet's vocabulary alone can be daunting. The way he thinks about drama and unfolds its purpose and place in our lives is esoteric. You have to really want to read this book and come into it knowing how good Mamet really is.
In showing the elements of drama, he shows how politicians, television news, and even sports use drama, (even when politics, news, or plot aren't involved), and why we're so easily sucked into — and manipulated by — the narrative.
His description of The Perfect Ball Game outlines the drama of an amazing baseball game. It feels like something I've seen in real life and in the movies. And it follows a perfect drama. Those few pages alone made this book worth reading. Here are a few of my favorite underlined bits:
• Melodrama offers anxiety undergone in safety, the problem play offers indignation. (Television news offers both.)
• When you come into the theater, you have to be willing to say, "We're all here to undergo a communion, to find out what the hell is going on in this world." If you're not willing to say that, what you get is entertainment instead of art, and poor entertainment at that.
• Legitimate political concerns — the environment, health care — go begging for an audience because they are not dramatic.
• The purpose of art is not to change but to delight. I don't think its purpose is to enlighten us. I don't think it's to change us. I don't think it's to teach us. The purpose of art is to delight us.
• [Hitchcock] understood that the dramatic goal is generic. It need not be more specific than: the Maltese Falcon, the Letters of Transit, the Secret Documents...The less specific the qualities of the MacGuffin are, the more interested the audience will be.
• The power of the dramatist...resides in the ability to state the problem.
• The audience therefore needs the second act to end with a question...Solutions to the problem of the middle act are the test of character.
• In English, we speak colloquially, in iambic pentameter: "I'm going down to the store to buy the cheese," "I told him, but he didn't hear a word," "I swear I'll love you till the day I die," "not now, not later, never. Is that clear?"
• Most great drama is about betrayal of one sort or another.
• In my experience the dramatist gets tired at precisely the same point as the protagonist: facing the third act. The act is outlined, the task is plain, if difficult, and the very clarity of the task is dispiriting.
READ IT IF: You're interested in drama, love Mamet, or what to understand why we get so sucked into vapid political discussions.
In showing the elements of drama, he shows how politicians, television news, and even sports use drama, (even when politics, news, or plot aren't involved), and why we're so easily sucked into — and manipulated by — the narrative.
His description of The Perfect Ball Game outlines the drama of an amazing baseball game. It feels like something I've seen in real life and in the movies. And it follows a perfect drama. Those few pages alone made this book worth reading. Here are a few of my favorite underlined bits:
• Melodrama offers anxiety undergone in safety, the problem play offers indignation. (Television news offers both.)
• When you come into the theater, you have to be willing to say, "We're all here to undergo a communion, to find out what the hell is going on in this world." If you're not willing to say that, what you get is entertainment instead of art, and poor entertainment at that.
• Legitimate political concerns — the environment, health care — go begging for an audience because they are not dramatic.
• The purpose of art is not to change but to delight. I don't think its purpose is to enlighten us. I don't think it's to change us. I don't think it's to teach us. The purpose of art is to delight us.
• [Hitchcock] understood that the dramatic goal is generic. It need not be more specific than: the Maltese Falcon, the Letters of Transit, the Secret Documents...The less specific the qualities of the MacGuffin are, the more interested the audience will be.
• The power of the dramatist...resides in the ability to state the problem.
• The audience therefore needs the second act to end with a question...Solutions to the problem of the middle act are the test of character.
• In English, we speak colloquially, in iambic pentameter: "I'm going down to the store to buy the cheese," "I told him, but he didn't hear a word," "I swear I'll love you till the day I die," "not now, not later, never. Is that clear?"
• Most great drama is about betrayal of one sort or another.
• In my experience the dramatist gets tired at precisely the same point as the protagonist: facing the third act. The act is outlined, the task is plain, if difficult, and the very clarity of the task is dispiriting.
READ IT IF: You're interested in drama, love Mamet, or what to understand why we get so sucked into vapid political discussions.
October 15, 2019
A treatise on the nature and purpose of drama sounds like a textbook for film and literature students. And that is what I expected it to be, only to find out it is essential reading for any one who thinks deeply about the nature of the human mind and how we perceive and engage with the world. Mamet's style is pithy; he is incisive in his observations and speaks with authority as he deconstructs his observations on humans, society, the elements of politics, art, entertainment, advertising, how we navigate the world, using the lens of theatre and drama.
The book is structured neatly into three parts, fitting into them a compact narrative that builds up like a three-act play. Mamet wastes no space or words here. He plunges deep into his observations right off the bat. Naturally, the book started slow for me. I was thrown into a depth that I wasn't prepared for. At the flick of a hand, he references plays, films, epics, political events, tools and techniques of theatre and you may begin to doubt if he is going to ramble. Hardly so. Every reference (if you are familiar with it) is well-placed and every inference has the appearance of a well-cooked meal. I found myself reading every sentence at least thrice - once to absorb what was said, twice to make sure I understood it the way the author intended, and the third time to relish the thought and assign it to memory as best as I could. Every line is a gem and you can tell that it has been mined out of years of personal experience and observation of a thoughtful mind. Once I got accustomed to the pace and depth, I took my pencil out and started to enjoy the read. I scribbled notes all across the margin space and underlined almost half the book. I might underline the rest when I reread it.
This is a book that celebrates drama while sharing deep insights into our motivations and drives, what makes us tick, what liberates us from involuntary submission and invites us to rise above compulsions, to a state where we celebrate the natural makeup of our mind while acknowledging our powerlessness, to create and engage with art.
"The excess of ability/energy/skill/strength/love is expressed in species-specific ways. In goats it is leaping, in humans it is making art."
In holding drama and art as sacred, he reminds us that it is not in our nature not to make art. Unless we choose not to exercise our will.
The book is structured neatly into three parts, fitting into them a compact narrative that builds up like a three-act play. Mamet wastes no space or words here. He plunges deep into his observations right off the bat. Naturally, the book started slow for me. I was thrown into a depth that I wasn't prepared for. At the flick of a hand, he references plays, films, epics, political events, tools and techniques of theatre and you may begin to doubt if he is going to ramble. Hardly so. Every reference (if you are familiar with it) is well-placed and every inference has the appearance of a well-cooked meal. I found myself reading every sentence at least thrice - once to absorb what was said, twice to make sure I understood it the way the author intended, and the third time to relish the thought and assign it to memory as best as I could. Every line is a gem and you can tell that it has been mined out of years of personal experience and observation of a thoughtful mind. Once I got accustomed to the pace and depth, I took my pencil out and started to enjoy the read. I scribbled notes all across the margin space and underlined almost half the book. I might underline the rest when I reread it.
This is a book that celebrates drama while sharing deep insights into our motivations and drives, what makes us tick, what liberates us from involuntary submission and invites us to rise above compulsions, to a state where we celebrate the natural makeup of our mind while acknowledging our powerlessness, to create and engage with art.
"The excess of ability/energy/skill/strength/love is expressed in species-specific ways. In goats it is leaping, in humans it is making art."
In holding drama and art as sacred, he reminds us that it is not in our nature not to make art. Unless we choose not to exercise our will.
August 1, 2017
Mamet describes the nature and purpose of drama with authority, but in a disjointed way, skipping from one topic to another and back again as if he has too many ideas at once.
He explains how drama is natural for all of us, how we all want to be heros, and how we can misuse drama to make ourselves into God or otherwise pervert art. We can treat politics as theater rather than as a means of governance. As he skips from topic to topic, he drops gems that, if true, should make us all uneasy.
For example: “In politics as in drama, the false task, the easy task, is often denominated the difficult and noble quest. It is easier to throw good money after bad, at times, than to admit one was wrong, misguided, arrogant, foolish. But these are problems of the second act.” The difficult task, he says, is, “How can I live my life in this disappointing, unpredictable, and at times loathsome world?”
But who would get elected with a promise to disappoint?
If you want to learn how to write a play, this isn’t the ideal book, although you’ll find a few ideas worth thinking about. If you want to understand the world, this book will give you a lot to think about.
He explains how drama is natural for all of us, how we all want to be heros, and how we can misuse drama to make ourselves into God or otherwise pervert art. We can treat politics as theater rather than as a means of governance. As he skips from topic to topic, he drops gems that, if true, should make us all uneasy.
For example: “In politics as in drama, the false task, the easy task, is often denominated the difficult and noble quest. It is easier to throw good money after bad, at times, than to admit one was wrong, misguided, arrogant, foolish. But these are problems of the second act.” The difficult task, he says, is, “How can I live my life in this disappointing, unpredictable, and at times loathsome world?”
But who would get elected with a promise to disappoint?
If you want to learn how to write a play, this isn’t the ideal book, although you’ll find a few ideas worth thinking about. If you want to understand the world, this book will give you a lot to think about.
January 7, 2010
In a word: convoluted.
Through his premise of describing the use and purpose of drama, Mamet hops from classic drama to psychology to bad tv to politics to blues music and back again, and the reader's never sure what his opinions are of any of it. For example, when he writes about the big speeches that come at the end of every second act he seems annoyed that they're there, but then he notes the greatness of the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V.
There is some valuable information to be extracted from this mess, but I have to wonder if the David Mamet of today, who's produced an action-packed television show and who's made the conversion to Conservativism, would still hold the same opinions that he jotted down in seeming stream of consciousness in 1998.
Through his premise of describing the use and purpose of drama, Mamet hops from classic drama to psychology to bad tv to politics to blues music and back again, and the reader's never sure what his opinions are of any of it. For example, when he writes about the big speeches that come at the end of every second act he seems annoyed that they're there, but then he notes the greatness of the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V.
There is some valuable information to be extracted from this mess, but I have to wonder if the David Mamet of today, who's produced an action-packed television show and who's made the conversion to Conservativism, would still hold the same opinions that he jotted down in seeming stream of consciousness in 1998.
August 26, 2017
This is a gem. Mamet expounds pithily on drama in art and life, and I found a profundity of things to ponder. It reminded me of In Praise of Shadows in terms of its brevity, intelligence, clarity and originality.
That's not to say I agreed with all of it: Mamet takes a very narrow view of art, saying "The purpose of art is to not to change but to delight" and "I don't believe reaching people is the purpose of art" and "the conscious mind cannot create art" and that what people want from art is peace, which can only be achieved by "acknowledging our sinful, weak, impotent state". If all art had to be about acknowledging our weak impotence, there wouldn't be a need for much of it, would there? And with what would people like Mamet who have already accepted human weakness as fact fill their days and nourish their souls?
But none of this detracts from the book's density of brilliance, especially for anyone interested in writing fiction and/or struggling with how life should be lived. I read all of it before even getting home from the bookshop, having read about half of it before buying it, but still consider it well worth the purchase: I expect to reread it in the not-distant future.
That's not to say I agreed with all of it: Mamet takes a very narrow view of art, saying "The purpose of art is to not to change but to delight" and "I don't believe reaching people is the purpose of art" and "the conscious mind cannot create art" and that what people want from art is peace, which can only be achieved by "acknowledging our sinful, weak, impotent state". If all art had to be about acknowledging our weak impotence, there wouldn't be a need for much of it, would there? And with what would people like Mamet who have already accepted human weakness as fact fill their days and nourish their souls?
But none of this detracts from the book's density of brilliance, especially for anyone interested in writing fiction and/or struggling with how life should be lived. I read all of it before even getting home from the bookshop, having read about half of it before buying it, but still consider it well worth the purchase: I expect to reread it in the not-distant future.
July 10, 2018
Often contradictory and yet uncannily insightful at the same time, which, I suppose is his point. :D
In terms of writing advice, the thing I will take with me is this:
"The true drama, and especially the tragedy, calls for the hero to exercize will, to create, in front of us, on the stage, his or her own character, the strength to continue. It is her striving to understand, to correctly assess, to face her own character (in her choice of battles) that inspires us--and gives the drama power to cleanse and enrich our own character.
This is the struggle of the second act."
I.e. The choices of your try-fail cycles in act 2 are meant to reveal and develop character. And more importantly and far more clearly, to challenge character, to pit inclination against desire and see what wins.
In terms of writing advice, the thing I will take with me is this:
"The true drama, and especially the tragedy, calls for the hero to exercize will, to create, in front of us, on the stage, his or her own character, the strength to continue. It is her striving to understand, to correctly assess, to face her own character (in her choice of battles) that inspires us--and gives the drama power to cleanse and enrich our own character.
This is the struggle of the second act."
I.e. The choices of your try-fail cycles in act 2 are meant to reveal and develop character. And more importantly and far more clearly, to challenge character, to pit inclination against desire and see what wins.
November 21, 2017
David Mamet, neste livro, explica como o drama está imbricado nas nossas vidas e às vezes nem o percebemos. Ele explica como o drama e por conseguinte, a narrativa ajudam a criar sentido na vida das pessoas e como a mente humana não consegue lidar com o aleatório. Aí se encontram os significados do drama, da magia e da religião na vida dos seres humanos: dar sentido e significado através de estruturas de tese/antítese/síntese ou primeiro ato/segundo ato/terceiro ato. São essas partes do teatro que vão dividir os capítulos do seu livro, com Mamet sempre dando exemplos concretos de como tudo isso se aplica no cotidiano da sociedade ocidental atual. Um livrinho curto, mas que se aproveita muito, e que pode ser usado para diversas áreas do conhecimento. Recomendo ele por demais aos amigos!
October 30, 2023
This book is less than 90 pages long, but it gave me a lot to chew on. It is essentially a treatise on the purpose and craft of drama as explained by one of America’s foremost dramatists. I could tell that Mamet has spent countless hours dwelling on and wrestling with the things he’s discussing. Mamet makes many references to stories and situations - especially ancient drama - to help explain his points, and this sometimes lost me. At times I just wanted him to get to the point. Despite this, I thought it was an interesting and sometimes thought-provoking read about an endlessly-fascinating subject - not to mention one of the best book titles I’ve ever come across.
January 3, 2018
First read this year because it's so very short. Three polarizing lectures which are refreshingly grouchy about all attempts to educate or inform through entertainment (although Mamet pays lip service to all our current shibboleths as well). In case you hadn't noticed, informing through entertainment (propagandizing) is the holy grail of lit these days (e.g., #morediversebooksplease).
December 20, 2023
I think Mamet is one of the more brilliant thinkers on what writing is. This book is short and concise. At several places I had to reread, because his language can be a bit impenetrable, but the way he thinks about drama is intelligent and, to me, unique.
Must have for Mamet fans or anyone who enjoyed his
master Class.
Must have for Mamet fans or anyone who enjoyed his
master Class.
April 19, 2020
Good news is, I don't need to read another David Mamet book. I can get my pretentious bullshit elsewhere.
Read
July 16, 2024I don’t particularly like David Mamet. I like him the least when he says things I agree with- which isn’t frequent but any occurrence at all is frustrating.
February 2, 2017
Was a fan of David Mamet before, a bigger fan now
Though this book takes a few pages to get into, once you are in - you are in. David Mamet doesn't just give us his musings on the theater, he gets to the heart of drama.
Why do we have it? What is its purpose? What's the purpose of art?
And he answers it all fairly well, though of course in doing so brings up a few questions.
This book is not for those looking for how to write like Mamet, or to gain any insight into his plays/movies. This book is for those who want to ask the bigger questions - what is drama? What is art? Why do we have these things?
Though this book takes a few pages to get into, once you are in - you are in. David Mamet doesn't just give us his musings on the theater, he gets to the heart of drama.
Why do we have it? What is its purpose? What's the purpose of art?
And he answers it all fairly well, though of course in doing so brings up a few questions.
This book is not for those looking for how to write like Mamet, or to gain any insight into his plays/movies. This book is for those who want to ask the bigger questions - what is drama? What is art? Why do we have these things?
February 25, 2023
Reflexiones acerca del teatro. Se lee de una sentada.
Read
April 30, 2023Some very useful stuff, all wrapped in a cloud of Mamet rage and blather and pontificating.
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