@kbyrne91:
David Mamet now calls himself "a newly-minted Conservative." Does that mean he'll also consider his profanity-laced writing "offensive"?
@tmccool:
David Mamet: Rich Person Discovers He is a Republican. http://slate.me/kdOUbU @tomscocca
@jasongrote:
@scharpling I'm probably alone in thinking Oleanna was garbage, but I think it's consensus among my peers that Mamet's sucked since the 90s.
@dmandl:
@jasongrote @scharpling But he was very good before then. And I like some of his essays as much as his films. Now, he can go jump in a lake.
@jasongrote:
@dmandl @scharpling Glengarry holds up. American Buffalo & Sexual Perversity are not my thing but I admire them. Hate his ideas on acting.
@scratchbomb:
@jasongrote @scharpling what, you don't like "Bearded Guys Curse at Each Other Parts 1-17"?
@jasongrote:
@scratchbomb LOL
@jasongrote:
@dmandl I agree re. those two films -- everything after that's pretty bad.
@dmandl:
@jasongrote @scharpling I like "House of Games" and "Spanish Prisoner." Yes, his views on acting are bizarre.
@scharpling:
@dmandl @jasongrote I read his book on acting. It now seems like a variant on this garbage - deliberately provocative and contrarian.
@jasongrote:
@scharpling @dmandl Yeah, he's been like that for years. That's my big problem with Oleanna - so every woman claiming harassment is a loon?
@jasongrote:
This is the other thing about David Mamet; he'd be nobody w/o public arts funding in the 70s and 80s.
@jasongrote:
Like most wealthy conservatives, if he had to get his start in the world he espouses, he'd be a failure.
@jasongrote:
In Denver, a critic asked me why there hasn't been a great American play since Angels in America,
@jasongrote:
There have in fact been hundreds of great American plays since Angels in America. But in 1995, the GOP congress slashed arts funding.
@jasongrote:
So nonprofit theaters are scared to do those great American plays; no $ to publicize them means no one knows or cares.
@jasongrote:
American theater mostly occupies itself with domesticity and identity politics (which haven't threatened the status quo since the mid-90s).
@jasongrote:
And fewer and fewer people care! Thankfully we still have musicals and TV. And TV about musicals!
@jasongrote:
By the way, I like plenty plays about domesticity and identity politics. But can not live by bread alone, etc.
@jasongrote:
I am lucky in that I write epic, difficult plays and they get produced. But they will probably never enter the canon.
@jasongrote:
And that's OK with me. But I do take issue with the fact that there isn't a canon of American plays at all anymore.
@JamesUrbaniak:
@scharpling @dmandl @jasongrote The generous take on his prose is that he forces the reader to ferret out the "truth" within.
@jasongrote:
@JamesUrbaniak @scharpling @dmandl I never realized he was a situationist!
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