About the Play:

Sexual Perversity in Chicago has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, Female/Male Scenes, and Male/Male Scenes.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago is a one-act comedy by David Mamet. As only the second and third plays from his prolific pen, these one-acts offer an early glimpse into David Mamet's facility for dialogue and a surprising awareness of the inner life of characters at opposite ends of a generational timeline. These two one-act plays are often paired together, but The Duck Variations is its own entity, and a popular choice for high school theatre productions.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago depicts a couple of months in the lives of four young people: Bernie and Joan, who are seemingly sexually knowledgeable but really don’t know the score, and Danny and Deborah, who are quieter and less assertive. Yet it is the latter two who come together, if only briefly. Their courtship is funny and fretful, but it is they – not Bernie and Joan – who make love. In the end of all their antics, Deborah is back rooming with Joan and Danny is back girl watching with Bernie. Winner of the 1976 Obie Award for Best New American Play. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops. (Cast: 2 female, 2 male)

The Duck Variations is a one-act play that dramatizes the old adage that people who talk the most with authority about something are the ones most likely to know the least about it. Two friends who meet regularly on their favorite park bench discuss the ways of ducks and life, making observations that are profoundly hilarious. This show is told in 14 different, hilarious variations with David Mamet's excellent dialogue. (Premiered in 1972 at the old Saint Nicholas Theatre in Chicago; Cast: 2 male) a comical dialolgue between two friends who meet regularly on their favorite park bench

Sexual Perversity in Chicago premiered in 1975 off-off Broadway at St. Clement's Theatre in a successful double-bill with The Duck Variations. Both showcase David Mamet's command of lightning-quick comic banter, while skewering the antics of young and old alike.

What people say:

"…takes funny and painful digs at the fantasies and distances of the contemporary sexual game." — The New York Times

"Mamet has the most acute ear for dialogue of any American writer since J.D. Salinger." — The Village Voice

"Marvelously observant…. A glittering mosaic of tiny, deadly muzzle flashes from the war between men and women among the filing cabinets and single bars." — The New York Times

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.