About
the Play:
Short
Plays and Monologues contains 7 short plays by David Mamet.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author explains that: "These pieces
were written variously as curtain raisers for other plays of mine,
cabaret pieces, and experiments. They are written to be performed on
a bare stage, using only a chair or two, and without props or special
costuming." These short theatre pieces range widely in content,
mood and style. They offer a stimulating challenge in terms of
selecting, arranging, and mounting the diverse components into
programs of varying length and theme, which is a major part of their
appeal to actors, who cannot resist filling up the huge spaces
between David Mamet's wonderful language with something of
their own creation.
Prairie
du Chien is an Edgar Allan Poe-ish tale of the unexpected set on
a railroad car speeding through the Wisconsin night. As his fellow
passengers gamble over an increasingly fraught game of cards, a
travelling salesman recounts a violent story of obsessive jealousy,
murder, and suicide with a paranormal twist, told within shooting
distance of a card-hustler and his victim exploding into a moment of
menace. Written so that it can be performed either onstage or on the
radio, it premiered on Earplay, a National Public Radio (NPR)
show in 1979. It was first performed in the UK at the Royal Court
Theatre Upstairs in 1986. (Cast: 6 male)
What
people say:
"A
short poignant study in violence and the twin drives of love and
money, told with hypnotic power through a travelling raconteur."
— City Limits
A
Sermon is a deliciously absurdist piece written as curtain-raiser
to introduce David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago.
In this monologue, a clergyman delivers a Sunday sermon made up of
bizarre metaphors and analogies that lead to and result from wild
digressions about human insensitivity and aggression. (Produced by
Ensemble Studio Theater (E.S.T.) Off-Off-Broadway in 1981; Cast: 1
male)
In
Shoeshine two advertising men exchange office chatter while a
third customer accuses the shoeshine men of stealing his wallet.
(Produced by Ensemble Studio Theater (E.S.T.) Off-Off-Broadway in
1979; Cast: 6 male)
Litko:
A Dramatic Monologue was
written as curtain-raiser to introduce David
Mamet's The
Duck Variations in
its Chicago premiere at the Body Politic Theatre in 1972. This
monologue shows the
actor doing everything from everything from directing to barking out
stage directions, running the light board, setting up props, and
creating sound effects. (Cast: 1 male)
In
Old Vermont is a
sketch that captures the natural qualities of Vermont that most
appeal to David
Mamet: the sky, the
cold, the elemental exposure to the changes in nature. (Cast: 1
female, 1 male)
All
Men Are Whores: An Inquiry portrays
a haunting image of sexuality and violence in America. A trio of
actors sit upon the
stage and talk, relating their unsettling experiences and feelings of
sexual rejection, violence and death. (First presented as a cabaret
offering at Yale University in 1977; Cast: 1 female, 2 male)
The
Blue Hour: City Sketches is a series of urban encounters dealing
with alienation and loneliness in big cities, alternately featuring
10 actors and all marked by angst, anger, or melancholy. It contains:
Prologue: American Twilight (Cast: 1 male); Doctor
(Cast: 1 female, 1 male); The Hat (Cast: 2 female);
Businessmen (Cast: 2 male); Cold (Cast: 2 male);
Epilogue (Cast: 1 male). (First performed as a workshop at New
York's Public Theater in 1979)
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.