Two comic short plays by one of the theatre's most celebrated and
compelling writers:
Keep Your Pantheon is a rousing farce that follows the fortunes and
misfortunes of an impoverished acting troupe in ancient Rome. Featuring
an over-the-hill acting guru who lusts after both his toga-clad protégé
and a spot in the Sicilian Cork Festival, Mamet's play returns to the
roots of comedy, paying homage to the Roman playwright Plautus, whose
works also inspired Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors and the musical
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
"With Keep Your Pantheon, David Mamet, who's been crowned the
heavyweight playwriting champion of trash-talking masculinity, showcases
what is perhaps his most underrated gift: his Houdini-like ability to
slip out of pigeonholes. Mamet, one of the undeniably great playwrights
of the baby boomer generation, is a literary conglomerate all his own, a
writer too street-smart to let artistic success suffocate him. Give him
a genre--in any medium--and he'll be more than happy to show you what he
can do. Mamet is like a shark shooting through the ocean, his very
survival dependent on moving forward." -Charles McNulty, Los Angeles
Times
Also included in this volume, School is a crackling curtain-raiser in
which two teachers shoot back-and-forth on topics ranging from
pedophilia to recycling.
"School offers a textbook example of the style that made its author
famous. This merry little sketch moves with the show-off alacrity of a
calculus prodigy whizzing through equations at the blackboard. The
characters' words bounce and click like the soles of virtuoso tap
dances, riffing with their feet. This is verbal vaudeville as only Mr.
Mamet can deliver it." -Ben Brantley, New York Times
David Mamet is a playwright, essayist and screenwriter who directs
for both the stage and film. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and New
York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Glengarry Glen Ross. His plays
include China Doll, Race, The Anarchist, American Buffalo,
Speed-the-Plow, November, The Cryptogram, Sexual Perversity in Chicago,
Lakeboat, The Water Engine, The Duck Variations, Reunion, The Blue Hour,
The Shawl, Bobby gould in Hell, Edmond, Romance, The Old Neighborhood
and his adaptation of The Voysey Inheritance.
