American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago & Duck Variations

by David Mamet

Genres: Plays

94 pages, paperback

Published January 1, 1978

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

[Caleb Barron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mamet's influence still looms large but these three plays do feel like they're from a very different time in terms of theatrical style. The dialogue, often cited as Mamet's strength, is now sort of hammy in places. American Buffalo is very solid and there are some wonderfully poetic moments in Duck Variations (particularly 13th variation) but I didn't get all that much out of this collection. Worth reading for some of Mamet's early work out of curiosity, and perhaps ahead of its time, but I can't really imagine staging them now.