Spotlight On...
Tom Donaghy on David Mamet
When people ask me what David Mamet is like I say, "Shy." It is perhaps
not the first word that springs to mind for many, but that's how I see him: like
a gentleman farmer, reserved but benevolent. In fact, I believe he still lives part
time on what was a farm. And when he crosses my mind this is where I place him, in
a corner surrounded by his books, more Chekhovian than Runyonesque.
I met Mamet the day after he had won the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross.
He shook my hand and said, "Hi, I'm David Mamet and I just won the Pulitzer"
I stammered and said, "I realize that." That day began a teacher-student
relationship, during which I imagined I would become an actor. Like Mamet, who first
desired to be an actor and was trained by his own master, Sanford Meisner, I was
proven wrong, stunk up the stage for a short time, and ended up writing plays. To
my knowledge, Mamet has never taught playwriting. And one is hard pressed to imagine
his syllabus. Instead I, like so many playwrights, have learned from him by example.
His sense of discovery with language; his joy in it; his rage at it; the plasticity
of it at base; the action inherent in words themselves -- all of this has inspired
me. He is also -- and I feel this is everywhere evident in his plays, though no one
ever memtions it -- a spiritual man. He wrestles with the forces he portrays. purging
them perhaps by writing them out, in the hopes of some cartharsis for himself as
well as his audience. Moreover, there is a tenderness in the work that is rarely
if ever mentioned. The same is true of the man.
By David Mamet
 State and Main
Part Hollywood satire, part zany comedy State and Main explore what happens when
a cell phone wielding movie crew invades a quaint New England town. The residents
are all too ready to jettison its pastoral grace for showbiz glitz. Mamet's script
takes the rat-a-tat dialogue he's known for and applies it to the tenets of screwball
comedy, with spectacular results. $28.95.
 Mamet
Includes: The Woods; Lakeboat; Edmond.
$20.00.
Writing in Restaurants
Pulitzer Prize winning author David Mamet
offers his insights, philosophies, and observations on life, theater, and himself.
Written with passion, clarity, wit and intelligence. $15.99.
 Glengarry Glen Ross
108 pages. $18.50.
 Oleanna
80 pages. $14.95.
 Sexual Perversity in Chicago and The Duck Variations
125 pages. $17.00.
The Cabin
A collection of autobiographical anedotes and essays by playwright/director David
Mamet. More riveting prose from this giant of American theatre. 157 pages. $14.95.
On Directing Film
107 pages. $16.99.
The Cryptogram
101 pages.
$14.95.
House of Games
$12.95.
Make-Believe Town
207 pages. $15.95.
True and False
127 pages. $27.95.
5 Television Plays by Mamet
216 pages. $20.00.
The Old Neighborhood
100 pages. $14.00.
Three Uses of the Knot
87 pages. $31.95.
The Village
238 pages. $16.95.
Speed the Plow
82 pages. $15.50.
True and False: Here
127 pages. $14.95.
Jafsie and John Henry
171 pages. $32.50.
Homicide
126 pages. $15.50.
The Chinaman
72 pages. $27.99.
The Spanish Prisoner
209 pages. $17.95.
Reunion & Dark Pony 53 pages. $13.95.
Goldberg Street
199 pages. $18.50.
We're No Angels
131 pages. $12.00.
David Mamet in Conversation
Edited by Leslie Kane
When asked what epitaph he'd write for himself, David Mamet replied "I told
you that you were going to miss me." "David Mamet In Conversation"
is a collection of interviews between Mamet and other writers and reporters on topics
ranging from epitaphs to myth to public image to politics to Hugh Hefner. Mamet's
intelligence and good humour make the book delightfully entertaining -- and it accomplishes
the most difficult of tasks: it makes you want to read the rest of his work.
By Tom Donaghy
 The Beginning of August & Other Plays
Tom Donaghy
A showcase of Donaghy's exceptional ability to render the emotional undercurrents
of quiet, hardworking families faced with the reality that the lives they had envisioned
for themselves are vastly different than the ones they are living. Donaghy's plays
prove The Village Voice's acclaim that he "has mastered the Chekhovian
tactic of having people say everything except what's on their mind." 56 pages.
$9.99.
The Dadshuttle & Down the Shore
Tom Donaghy
71 pages. $9.99.
Northeast Local
Tom Donaghy
63 pages. $9.99.
Minutes From The Blue Route
Tom Donaghy
53 pages. $9.99.
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