To say it has been esteemed playwright David “F’n” Mamet’s year on Broadway would be a vast understatement: the last time anybody had three separate plays on Broadway in the same year? Can’t remember. But it looks like his hot streak is coming to an end in a way that only he could’ve written.
November, a farce about a miserably bad presidency’s last days — starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf — made decent reviews and finished out its entire January-to-July run: for any Broadway show, an accomplishment. Not bad.
Come October, though, and there are two Mamet plays opening up within a month of each other. The first was late-October’s Speed-the-Plow, a star-studded revival (Entourage‘s Jeremy Piven, Mad Men‘s Elizabeth Moss) of Mamet’s 1988 three-hander concerning Hollywood executives and the assistant who drives a wedge between them (originally starring Madonna in her Broadway debut, and a Tony-winning Ron Silver). The show opened to stellar reviews that far exceeded the excitement over the original production, with the New York Times‘s make-or-break critic Ben Brantley writing that “(the show) lifts its audience into the ether.”
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Buffalo revival opening: David Mamet’s second revival of American Buffalo opens on Monday. This time instead of Al Pacino in the title role, Broadway welcomes back John Leguizamo. Cedric the Entertainer and that creepy kid from The Sixth Sense who must be about 40 by now make their Broadway debuts here as well. We got an email last night saying that they had just released more opening night tickets for fans, so get ‘em while they’re hot. [AP]
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Joffrey’s Arpino dies at 85: GERALD ARPINO, co-founder of the JOFFREY BALLET, died last night at the age of 85. Arpino established the ballet company with ROBERT JOFFREY in 1956 and took the reins after Joffrey’s death in 1988, moving it from New York to Chicago. Arpino choreographed more than one-third of the world-famous company’s ballets, including ROPES and BILLBOARD. [BBC]
Graham goes East: The MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY is set to perform in China for the first time in its 82 years of existence. The company will present 10 different repertoires at the BEIJING NATIONAL CENTRE FOR PERFORMING ARTS November 27th through 30th. They will dance on the themes of “Mythology and Fable” and “American Chronicle.” [China View]
Mamet on for Kurosawa remake: DAVID MAMET is writing again, but this time for a movie. Working with director MIKE NICHOLS (THE GRADUATE, CATCH-22), he’s remaking AKIRA KUROSAWA’s HIGH AND LOW, a noir flick that examines a kidnapping first from the perspective of the victim, and then shifts to that of the kidnapper. MARTIN SCORSESE is also rumored to be on board as executive producer. [Paste]
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Going to the theatre has always been one of the most expensive forms of cultural entertainment, and in the current economy that makes it a prohibitive past time for most. Or not. Meet the Recessionist, a weekly feature where we comb through the plethora of Giants tickets posts on Craigslist to find you a few decent deals.
Note: Even though we’ve seen a lot of cheap seats to THE LITTLE MERMAID and MARY POPPINS we can’t bring ourselves to include either on this list — times aren’t that tough yet. Also, if musicals like BILLY ELLIOT, SHREK THE MUSICAL JERSEY BOYS and SOUTH PACIFIC, or new star-filled shows like SPEED-THE-PLOW are any indicator, there are still plenty of people willing to buy theatre tickets at above face value, even now.
Viva the Great White Way!
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SPRING AWAKENING to sleep: After nearly 900 performances, the award-winning pop musical is set to close January 18th, cast members learned yesterday. The production won eight Tony awards last year, including ones for BILL T. JONES’s choreography, DUNCAN SHEIK and STEVEN SATER’s original score, best musical and best direction of a musical. The announcement comes close on the heels of news that Tony-winning HAIRSPRAY and MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT will also close early next year. [NYT]
MARTHA GRAHAM’s CLYTEMNESTRA celebrating 50-year revival: The Martha Graham Dance Company is reviving Clytemnestra after letting the production lay dormant for 50 years. The world premiere launched yesterday at the Athens Concert Hall in Greece and will run through Saturday before reopening in Washington D.C. The original 1958 production starred Martha Graham herself, and her company’s revival uses her costumes and the music of Egyptian composer HALIM EL-DABHH. The Clytemnestra world tour will include Berlin, Paris, London, Sydney, Melbourne, Beijing and Tokyo. [Xpat Athens]
What is that dance world queen TWYLA THARP up to now?
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If you’ve rushed out to see JEREMY PIVEN in DAVID MAMET’s new Broadway revival of SPEED-THE-PLOW — which officially opens tonight at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre — then you noticed the multiple maverick bombs peppering the script.
Have no fear. These were not inserted into the pre-Election ’08 version of play to get an easy chuckle from audiences; we checked and they can be found on pages 30 and 52 of the Samuel French edition.
While we were digging, we also noticed the play’s epigram, a line from WILLIAM THACKERAY that feels very MCCAIN as well: “Which is the most reasonable, and does his duty best: he who stands aloof from the struggle of life, calmly contemplating it, or he who descends to the ground, and takes his part in the contest?” Can’t you imagine him busting that out in last week’s final debate?
In the future maybe he’ll stick to stealing from literary greats and avoid taking his material from Wikipedia.
