|
COPYRIGHT 2005 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
History, H. G. Wells once said, is "a race between education and catastrophe." Sometimes--now, for instance--catastrophe appears to be winning, and the contest is almost too unbearable to watch. In such deracinated moments, only a world turned upside down--the world of farce, in other words--works both as an apt metaphor for the caprice of nations and as a release from it. The giddy sophistry of David Mamet's "Romance" (well directed by Neil Pepe, at the Atlantic Theatre Company) is a case in point.
At the beginning of the play, set in a New York City courtroom, a distracted judge (the hilarious Larry Bryggman) tries to focus on the stonewalling tactics of a defendant (Steven Goldstein) on the stand, while the defense attorney (Christopher Evan Welch) complains about the prosecution's aggressive cross-examination: "What is it, a 'charade,' a 'vaudeville'?" In Mamet's hands, it's really burlesque. "Peace. Is that not the theme of the week?" the judge asks, flourishing a copy of the Times from behind the bench and wielding a gavel he refers to as his "little hammer." "May we not have peace?" The headline refers to a peace conference that is taking place in the city, but, while the politicos in the outside world want closure, the farceur wants chaos. Mamet, the son of a lawyer who won a case in the Supreme Court, knows all about legal punctilio, and he has great fun bringing mayhem to the ritual. When the judge sneezes--his hay-fever pills are making him drowsy--the defense attorney offers a "Gesundheit," which prompts the smarmy prosecutor (the expert Bob Balaban) to chime in, "Your Honor. I do...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
