About the Play:

Edmond is a full-length drama by David Mamet. An urban fable about an American middle-class Everyman whose fall from married life sends him on a violent journey into the dark criminal underworld, through prostitution, violence and murder. Edmond is an early Mamet play that is one of his more frequently-produced works.

"You know how much of our life we're alive, you and me? Nothing. Two minutes out of the year. When we meet someone new, when we get married, when, when, when, when we're in difficulties… once in our life at the death of someone that we love. That's – in a car crash – and that's it. You know, you know, we're sheltered…."

Edmond is an edgy tale of one ill-fated evening in an average man's life. The title character, Edmond is a middle-aged, burnt-out businessman. He begins the play by candidly telling his wife that their life together is dead and he intends to leave immediately and begin a more engaged existence. A fortune-teller's teasing rumination sends Edmond lurching into New York City's hellish underbelly. Edmond thinks that he is free because the middle aged businessman he was just up and left. To his surprise, it's dark outside: hookers charge, pimps are violent, and the guy on the corner is a conman. With nothing to lose but his liberty, Edmond becomes a seething mass of misogynistic rage and racism as he spirals further out of control, towards prison, disintegration and a very brutal redemption in this modern allegory. Edmond is an early Mamet work that reveals his snarling, raw talent virtually untainted by today's concept of the politically correct.

Edmond premiered in 1982 at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, followed by the first New York production later that year, off-Broadway at the Provincetown Playhouse. It won numerous awards when Kenneth Branagh returned to the London stage after a decade away, and made his first appearance ever at the National Theatre as the title character in 2003.

Cast: 8 female, 20 male (to be played by 4 female, 6 male)

What people say:

"Edmond is both bleak and scathingly funny... It's eerie, angry and punishing; yet it's so well done that you may actually smile at the end...." — New York Times

"A stunning amorality play, glittering and disturbing, suspended in the dark void of contemporary New York. It is also a technically adventurous piece pared brilliantly to the bone, highly theatrical in its scenic elisions." — Financial Times (London)

"Describes a world in which morality is tangential, in which there seems to be no moral feelings, only brutal, cruel ones, no concern for others, only selfishness and self interest." — Women's Wear Daily

"A play that blisters, disquiets, shatters, hurts…. An example of masterly control over a dizzying experience and it will knock you for a loop." — New York Daily News

"A riveting theatrical experience that illuminates the heart of darkness." — Newsweek

About the Playwright:

David Mamet is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter as well as a director, novelist, poet, and essayist. He has written the screenplays for more than twenty films, including the Oscar-nominated The Verdict. His more than twenty plays include the Pulitzer Prizewinning Glengarry Glen Ross. His other awards include a Tony Award, an Academy Award, two OBIE Awards, two NYDCC Awards, and Outer Circle, Society of West End Theatre, and Dramatists Guild Hall-Warriner Awards.