David Mamet's Theory on the Power and Potential of Dramatic Language Rodney Whatley
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2011 Mametspeak: David Mamet's Theory on the Power and Potential of Dramatic Language Rodney Whatley Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF VISUAL ARTS, THEATRE AND DANCE MAMETSPEAK: DAVID MAMET’S THEORY ON THE POWER AND POTENTIAL OF DRAMATIC LANGUAGE By RODNEY WHATLEY A Dissertation submitted to the School of Theatre in partial fulfillment requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester 2011 Rodney Whatley defended this dissertation on October 19, 2011. The members of the supervisory committee were: Mary Karen Dahl Professor Directing Dissertation Karen Laughlin University Representative Kris Salata Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................v 1. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION...................................................................................1 1.1 Rationale........................................................................................................................3 1.2 Description of Project....................................................................................................4 1.3 Methodology.................................................................................................................4 1.4 Review of Existing Scholarship....................................................................................4 1.5 Organization and Chapter Breakdown..........................................................................6 2. CHAPTER TWO: MAMET AND LANGUAGE.................................................................9 2.1 Love of Language........................................................................................................13 2.2 Importance and Power................ ................................................................................14 2.3 Quality of Mamet’s Dramatic Language.....................................................................16 3. CHAPTER THREE: LANGUAGE CREATES REALITY IN SPEED-THE-PLOW.........22 3.1 Labels...........................................................................................................................23 3.2 Saying It Makes It So...................................................................................................26 3.3 Gossip..........................................................................................................................28 3.4 Lies..............................................................................................................................30 4. CHAPTER FOUR: LANGUAGE CREATES CHARACTER IN OLEANNA..................35 4.1 What Others Say About Us........................................................................................36 4.2 What We Say About Ourselves..................................................................................38 4.3 She Says, He Says: Cross-Labeling in Oleanna........................................................41 4.4 The Body Language of Speech Mannerisms..............................................................46 4.5 Speech in Oleanna.....................................................................................................49 5. CHAPTER FIVE: LANGUAGE CREATES SOCIETY IN BOSTON MARRIAGE...........54 5.1 Relationships.............................................................................................................55 5.2 Community...............................................................................................................61 5.3 Society......................................................................................................................70 6. CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION........................................................................................75 BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................................................77 iii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH......................................................................................................78 iv ABSTRACT This dissertation examines David Mamet’s non-dramatic writings and interview responses to posit in an organized manner his theories about the power and potential of dramatic language in order to clarify his dramatic language strategy to improve the effectiveness of staging his plays. Mamet is a dramatic poet who uses his metaphorical language and speech rhythms to entirely create a new world for his characters to inhabit. Mamet characters create their reality through the use of labels, the physical act of speaking, gossip and lies. These Mamet theories are put to the test in an analysis of the script Speed- the-Plow. Mamet also uses dramatic language to create character. The actor creating a Mamet character focuses his/her analysis on three areas of analysis. The first is what do other characters say about the character? Second, what does the character say about itself? Third, what are the character’s speech mannerisms? These areas are illuminated in an analysis of Oleanna. Mamet uses dramatic language to create society. Dramatic language creates a relationship between two characters. That relationship unit uses dramatic language to join a community. Those communities use dramatic language to communicate with other communities and form society. These theories are explored in the analysis of Boston Marriage. v CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION I like David Mamet’s work even when I do not know it is his. As a young man I enjoyed watching Hill Street Blues, a television series on the air from 1981-1987. My favorite episode, “A Wasted Weekend,” originally aired 13 January 1987, and had parallel plots. One concerned three urban police officers who undertake a hilariously disastrous rural hunting trip and the second depicted a senior police officer’s deadly serious abduction. Years later, in researching this dissertation, I discovered that David Mamet authored that episode. In the spring of 1988, a friend took me to a screening in an “art” movie house, usually a torturous experience for me. I missed the opening credits, so I did not realize until the great movie ended that David Mamet had written and directed House of Games. It was great watching actors say Mamet’s lines on the movie screen, because even though I had pored over his plays for the previous three years, I had never seen a Mamet script in production. Today as an instructor in Introduction to Theatre classes I compare a playscript to an instruction manual to illustrate that the script is not the art itself, merely a written guide for the performance. While I loved his writing, without seeing fully staged productions I felt I was not being exposed to Mamet’s actual art. I have lived in Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Rhode Island. In major cities such as Birmingham, Tallahassee, Greensboro, Lexington, Houston, St. Louis and Providence I have only had the opportunity to see two Mamet works onstage. Why is this? It is not that Mamet is obscure, after all he once served as a punchline in an episode of The Simpsons. “Last Tap Dance in Springfield,” by Julie Thacker, originally aired on 7 May 2000. When Lisa fails at tap-dancing, she laments to her parents that she will never be their “Broadway baby.” Homer replies, “That’s not true, honey. You can always write a depressing Broadway play of some kind.” Marge suggests Lisa write about “people coming to terms with things,” and Homer adds, “Hey, yeah! You could load it up with lots of swears! That’s what David Mamet does” (www.snpp.com/episodes/BABF15). Despite his fame, I had to settle for reading Mamet or watching his movies. Is his work under-represented onstage because of the profane and obscene quality of his dialogue as remarked in the savvy Simpsons episode? Maybe, but I think the accurate answer lies in the way Mamet uses dramatic language to create everything in his plays. The verbal density of Mamet’s work makes it difficult for most directors, actors and audience members to fully understand. For instance, on 8 March 2005 I went to a lecture by Dr. David Sauer, president of the David Mamet Society, given at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. “Staging the Postmodern: Performing David Mamet at Spring Hill College” focused on the difference in audience responses to Mamet plays versus Mamet films, emphasizing a comparison between his play Sexual Perversity in Chicago and the movie About Last Night. Prior to the presentation a lady near me remarked to someone, “I loved the production, but I just can’t take Mamet. He’s so dark, dark, dark. Even his comedies, like this one.” She thought Sexual Perversity in Chicago was a comedy, a position mirrored by John Lahr in Show and Tell. Despite some very amusing dialogue, the play’s bittersweet ending in fact marks it as a tragicomedy. 1 During a question and answer session, a student asked Dr. Sauer why Tri-Star Pictures rejected Mamet’s own Sexual Perversity screenplay adaptation. Dr. Sauer replied that having not read it, he could not conjecture, but based on an anecdote provided by John Lahr, drama