August 7-13, 2003

theater

Mawkish Mamet

Boston tea party: (l-r) Jessica Graham, Kirsten Quinn and Sarah Doherty play at English upper-class mannerisms.

by Toby Zinman

Theater Review

David Mamet’s newest play, Boston Marriage, takes its title from the quaint 19th-century euphemism for women living intimately together. How the words "Mamet" and "quaint" come to be in the same sentence is a question to be asked. The wizard of obscenity seems to have fled the fierce and gritty world of men (Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo) for the drawing room; maybe he’s seen his similarly anemic movie, The Winslow Boy, one too many times. Masterpiece Theatre is just not Mamet’s arena, and yet that is exactly where he has placed himself.

The scene opens, as they say, on a sumptuous set (Joe Koroly does it again) -- all deep reds, embossed velvet settees, oriental carpets, flocked table runners. Enter Anna (Sarah Doherty) and Claire (Kirsten Quinn) in opulent Victorian gowns -- lots of lace and brocade (Aileen McCulloch, costume designer). But what's this? Oh, but there is trouble! And good heavens!! Everybody is talking tosh and rubbish in fake upper-class English accents, delivering lines like, "How ill your disordered state becomes you," and, "The enigma of the world is betrayal." Mamet does Oscar Wilde without the wit, without the charm, without any point whatsoever.

The convoluted plot proceeds from Anna's having fallen for a girl far too young for a wicked fling with a middle-aged lesbian (that both Doherty and Quinn are far too young to be worrying about aging is only one of the legion of implausibilities here). Would her longtime companion, Claire, allow her to use the house for the seduction? Only, Claire replies, if she can watch, arrange, stage-manage, so to speak. We learn that Claire, meanwhile, has been philandering in her own way: A married man has bestowed jewels upon her and offered protection, luxury, whatever. I won't spoil the big curtain line that ends Act 1, except to say what you already must know: The plot thickens.

There is another woman, Catherine (Jessica Graham), the maid who is variously called Nora, Bridget and Mary, and assumed to be Irish, when in fact she is Scottish but abused nonetheless. Part of what Mamet seems to be doing here is indicting a 19th-century British class system -- but to what purpose? It's just a cliche he's parroting; if this is supposed to be parody (making this a 90-minute-long skit), why address ancient political issues? It is easy to be self-righteous about a problem that belongs to another time and another place.

It is similarly peculiar that Eureka Theatre Project, whose declared mission is feminist, chose this play. Just because there are three women in it does not mean that the play is sympathetic to women. Mamet has often been accused of misogyny, and this, more than any of the earlier tough-guy plays or the later problem plays like Oleanna, earns that stamp of disapproval. The two upper-class women are silly, untrustworthy, manipulative and pretentious. The servant is stupid and pathetic. All three are driven entirely by sexual desire. The naughty jokes fall flat, and although director Henry Gleitman keeps things moving along briskly, he cannot resist the vulgar nor can he elicit performances of enough style to make the show even arch, much less actually funny. Each actress seems to have only two facial expressions, and they simply use them over and over. The same is true for two hand gestures per person -- and this grows tedious in the extreme. (This language seems to be catching.)

Back in the day, when men were men and Mamet was Mamet, there was a joke about him that went like this: A panhandler asks a suit for a handout. The businessman pompously replies, "ŒNeither a borrower nor a lender be.' --William Shakespeare." The bum replies, "ŒFuck you. --David Mamet.'" Alas, not to mention alack, gone are the days. Where oh where has David Mamet disappeared to? Should we suspect foul play? Perhaps the colonel did it in the library with the candlestick.

BOSTON MARRIAGE

Through Aug. 17, Theater Catalyst’s Eureka Theatre Project at 2nd Stage at The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-563-4330.