Glengarry Glen Ross

Glengarry Glen Ross, at the Gamm Theatre
Gratuitous Violins rating: ***1/2 out of ****

Glengarry Glen Ross has all the trademarks of a David Mamet play: staccato dialogue, lots of profanity, brimming with testosterone. And then there was something I didn't expect: I felt a great deal of empathy.

Mamet's Chicago real estate salesmen, desperate for the "good leads" on buyers for their dubious property, play fast and loose with legal and ethical business practices. I'm not sure I'd want to be in the same office with them.

Yet, there's something that touched me about these men who are trying to make a living in the world they know best. Glengarry Glen Ross encompasses the breadth of working life - from the young guy on his way up, to the hotshot in his prime, to the veteran who simply can't hack it anymore.

Tightly directed by Fred Sullivan Jr., the Gamm Theatre's production is very funny but with a sharp edge. Sullivan never lets a moment or a gesture go to waste. It's just as interesting to watch the characters who aren't talking as the ones who are.

The first act, which whizzes by, consists of three conversations in a Chinese restaurant in which we get to know the salesmen.

Sam Babbitt as Shelly "the Machine" Levene, years past his glory days, is heartbreaking. He practically begs Williamson, the office manager played by Marc Dante Mancini, for a list of prospects. Mancini is wonderfully expressive as he listens, getting more and more annoyed with a man old enough to be his father.

Then there's Dave Moss (Tom Gleadow) and George Aronow (Chuck Reifler), conniving to get their hands on the same leads. The fast-paced back-and-forth as they discuss their plan is classic Mamet and they pull it off beautifully.

Finally, we meet Ricky Roma (Tony Estrella), leader in the office contest to win a Cadillac for racking up the most sales. Estrella's Roma is so smooth and confident as he identifies a potential target, James Lingk (a mild-mannered Kelby Akin). It was riveting to watch him strike up a conversation that didn't seem to be about much of anything - then move in for the sell.

The second act takes place in the dilapidated real estate office. It's clear from Patrick Lynch's set design that these salesmen are not exactly masters of their universe. They work in cramped quarters with ancient metal desks and cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling.

They gloat over closing a sale like they've hit a game-winning home run. They're also bigoted and profane, duplicitous, cocky and at the same time, at the mercy of Williamson, the youngest man in the office, for their livelihoods.

My own brief stint in sales consisted of selling subscriptions to The Boston Globe over the phone while I was in college. I only did it for about a month. Cold-calling people to get them to buy something is a tough way to make a living.

And while Mamet's play was written in the 1980s, it certainly resonates in the United States of 2010. It made me think of all the people in foreclosure after being enticed to buy homes that they couldn't afford.

With a compelling story and characters who seem real, this is the Mamet I've been looking for but didn't find the previous two times I've seen his work onstage.

For anyone who's ever held a job, anyone who's ever been on either end of the buying or selling equation - in other words, all of us, there's a lot in Glengarry Glen Ross that resonates.

Giving Mamet another chance

After a month off, my fall theatergoing starts this weekend. I'm heading back to the profane, cynical world of playwright David Mamet for Glengarry Glen Ross at the Gamm Theatre.

I've said before that I think Mamet has become less interested in writing a compelling narrative than in bludgeoning the audience with his views on politics or culture or the society in which we live.

My previous two Mamet outings, Speed-the-Plow and Race on Broadway, were disappointing for that reason. Neither his characters nor the situations they were in seemed wholly believable.

(Although I did love Raul Esparza's take on a desperate Hollywood producer in Speed-the-Plow.)

But I have hopes that the third time will be the charm, because I enjoyed the 1992 movie version of Glengarry Glen Ross.

It has a terrific cast including Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Jonathan Pryce, Ed Harris, Al Pacino and of course, Kevin Spacey, delivering the line: Will you go to lunch? (With you Kevin, anytime!)



The Pulitzer-winning Glengarry Glen Ross was first produced on Broadway in 1984. I think that was a time, before Speed-the-Plow and Race, when Mamet was still interested in telling a story. His small-time Chicago real estate agents, willing to do anything to make a sale, seemed real.

Bottom line - I don't mind a playwright's view of the world onstage but diatribes bore me. You've got to tell me a story. That's why I'm sitting in the theatre. So one more chance for you, David Mamet.

David Mamet's red sequined dress

Is it just me or does anyone else think this "promotion" for David Mamet's play Race at Broadway's Barrymore Theatre is in poor taste?

According to an article at BroadwayWorld.com,

"To celebrate the arrival of spring, RACE will take over Times Square on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 from 11 am - 1 pm and will have nearly two dozen women wear red sequined dresses for the public. This event will also celebrate the fact that RACE is currently the longest-running play of this Broadway season. The women will be coming from all over the city to wear the show's famous red sequined dress, a major plot point in the play."

Okay, spoiler alert if you haven't seen it: Race is about a white man accused of raping a black woman who was wearing the red sequined dress in question and the lawyers who have to decide whether or not to represent him.

So a play about a woman allegedly used as a sex object is marketed by using women as sex objects. How meta! (Guess someone considered it more eye-catching than a group of lawyers in suits carrying briefcases.)

I'll admit I was not a fan of this play so maybe I'm looking at it from a jaundiced perspective. But given the subject matter, having a group of women wearing tight-fitting dresses parade around Times Square is a little unseemly.

What were the producers thinking? Is the point to titillate passersby so they pony up for a ticket? If so, they're going to be awfully disappointed because the woman in the red sequined dress never appears in the play.

Surely there must be a better way to celebrate the arrival of spring on Broadway.

Update: Here are pictures from the event, posted at Broadway World, including one with producers Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel. What a tawdry, disturbing publicity stunt. Don't they realize this is a play about an alleged rape?

Gamm Theatre 2010-2011 season

It's the most wonderful time of the year - when theatre companies announce their new season.

First up is the Gamm Theatre in Pawtucket, which I think has a very promising 2010-2011 planned.

There's a North American premiere, a couple of plays I missed in New York that were fairly well-received, a classic of 19th century drama and a 20th-century play that seems all-too suited to our current economic woes.

The theatre is an intimate space, only 137 seats, and it's one I should get to more often. I saw a terrific production of The Elephant Man there in 2007.

Here's the schedule:

Glengarry Glen Ross
David Mamet
Sept. 2 - Oct. 3

Mauritius
Theresa Rebeck
Oct. 21 - Nov. 21

A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen
Jan. 20 - Feb. 20, 2011

Paul
Howard Brenton
March 17 - April 17, 2011

Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them
Christopher Durang
May 5 - June 5, 2011

Even though I was disappointed by the two David Mamet plays I've seen on Broadway, Speed-the-Plow and Race, I do like the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross and I'm eager to see it on stage. Be aware that there's plenty of Mamet's trademark profanity in this 1982 play about small-time real-estate agents desperate to make a sale.

Theresa Rebeck's play is about half-sisters battling over the family inheritance - a rare stamp collection - premiered on Broadway in 2007 and drew some comparison to Mamet's work. So it'll be an interesting follow-up. Steve on Broadway called Mauritius "surprisingly thrilling and highly entertaining" in his review.

Christopher Durang's play premiered off-Broadway in 2009 at the Public Theater. It has an intriguing, convoluted plot about a woman who wakes up after a hangover and finds herself married to man who may be a terrorist. The New York Times review called Why Torture is Wrong a "hilarious and disturbing new comedy about all-American violence."

A Doll's House, a domestic drama written in the 19th century by Norwegian Henrik Ibsen, is considered a seminal work because of its focus on the lives of the middle class and on the position of women in society. The protagonist, Nora, is an intense, physically demanding role, one of the most challenging dramatic parts for an actress.

Paul, by British playwright Howard Brenton, is about St. Paul's conversion to Christianity. The play caused some controversy at London's National Theatre in 2005. But it also won praise as "a compelling study of faith and of the human need for stories that explain the world and inspire action." The Gamm production will be its North American premiere.

Race

Gratuitous Violins rating ** out of ****

Knowing how much David Mamet likes to press those hot-button issues I was really looking forward to a provocative evening when I went to see his latest play, Race, at Broadway's Barrymore Theatre.

From what little Mamet revealed about the plot in advance, I knew it concerned three lawyers - two black and one white - defending a prominent white man accused of raping a black woman.

And the cast sounded promising - James Spader from Boston Legal, comedian David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington from Ray and The Last King of Scotland. But most exciting for me was a chance to see Richard Thomas on stage - John Boy Walton in the flesh!

The tortuous history of race in America is a subject I care about - passionately. I've had numerous, lengthy discussions over dinner with friends and colleagues - black and white - about matters like affirmative action. I've heard expressions of anger, hurt, frustration and yes, bigotry. I've also heard painful accounts of discrimination. I've tried to listen as much as I've talked and I hope through that process, I've gained greater understanding and empathy.

But in all of those discussions I never experienced the overriding emotion that struck me while watching Race. I was bored. At times, the play felt more like a legal brief than an incendiary piece of theatre designed to provoke impassioned debate. It seemed so contrived and I really didn't care about any of these characters, whether they were guilty or innocent.

(I also had trouble hearing some of the actors, especially Spader and Washington, both of whom are making their Broadway debuts. But I learned later that Washington wasn't feeling well, so maybe that was part of it.)

Spader and Grier, as law partners Jack Lawson and Henry Brown, get off some good one-liners as they try to decide whether to defend Thomas' Charles Strickland, the man accused of rape.

As Lawson, Spader is an arrogant know-it-all, without his TV counterpart Alan Shore's charm or humor. "There is nothing that a white person can say to a black person about race which is not both incorrect and offensive," Lawson says early on. He then proceeds to spend practically the entire play doing just that!

Washington seems kind of stilted and unconvincing as Susan, their young associate. It doesn't help that Mamet has her behave in a way that seems unlikely for someone in her position. Grier is good in a forceful role, as the partner who doesn't quite trust her.

And Thomas, as much as I loved him in The Waltons, is disappointing here. He seems too meek and unsure of himself to be convincing as someone wealthy and prominent. His character is so mild-mannered I didn't believe he could have done what he was accused of doing.

But my biggest problem is that Mamet really doesn't have anything very interesting or revealing to say about race. Too often the dialogue sounded unrealistic. I found myself thinking, "people don't really talk that way."

He's also incredibly cynical, basically doubting that black and white Americans will ever understand each other or trust each other. Well, hello! I used to be pretty pessimistic on the subject of race, too. But now that we've elected a black man as president, I find it hard to maintain that same level of pessimism.

Maybe I'm simply not a Mamet fan, because I didn't like last year's Broadway revival of Speed-the-Plow very much either. He seems to write plays that are more about ideas rather than fully developed characters and stories.

In fact, I think Race is less about the relations between black and white Americans and more a critique of the legal system.

Through Lawson, Mamet has some pointed things to say about how lawyers manipulate juries. It's as much about psychology as it is about presenting evidence. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. If I were accused of a crime I'd want my lawyer to use everything in his/her bag of tricks.)

But you know, even Mamet's digs at the legal system weren't terribly thought-provoking. If you've watched Boston Legal you've probably heard them before. And at least you would have been entertained.

My must-see fall shows, Broadway edition

Maybe it's the Obama Effect or just a coincidence but there are five shows opening on Broadway this fall that deal with the subject of race in America - musicals Ragtime, Memphis and Finian's Rainbow and plays Superior Donuts and Race.

Three of them - a revival of Ragtime and two new plays, Tracy Letts' Superior Donuts and David Mamet's Race - are among the shows I'm most looking forward to seeing as the 2009-2010 Broadway season gets under way.

Why those three? Well, I've always been interested in 20th century American history, not so much from the perspective of momentous events but from a social and cultural angle - where we come from and how we get along.

Ragtime, based on E.L. Doctorow's novel, with a score by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, focuses on three families - African-American, Jewish immigrant and WASP - at the turn of the century. I loved the book and from listening to the music, I think it does a wonderful job of telling those intertwined stories.

Superior Donuts, fresh from the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, is a contemporary look at a diverse, changing Chicago neighborhood. After seeing so many terrific Chicago actors in August: Osage County, I'm eager for more, including Jon Michael Hill, who's making his Broadway debut. He's won raves for his performance as a teenager who works in a doughnut shop owned by Michael McKean. (From Spinal Tap! Laverne & Shirley!)

And Race - well, no doubt Mamet will have something interesting and incendiary to say. Plus, of all the big-name movie and tv actors who'll be treading the boards this fall, it has the one I'm most excited about - Richard Thomas. Yes, I realize James Spader is in it, and David Alan Grier and Kerry Washington. But c'mon, The Waltons! I grew up pre-VCR, pre-cable. Network tv was all I had. 'Nuff said.

I'm also pretty pumped about seeing A Steady Rain. Yes, I want to see how Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig will transform themselves into Chicago cops in Keith Huff's two-hander play. But no doubt about it, I'm also looking forward to staring dreamily at Hugh Jackman for 90 uninterrupted minutes. (Although the Playbill, which features their melded faces, is creepy beyond words.)

And I simply cannot miss the revivals of two Neil Simon plays, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound. I'm really looking foward to seeing what Chicagoan David Cromer, who directed the amazing Our Town, will do with them.

The plays are thinly veiled accounts of Simon's youth growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s and '40s. Which means, I know, creaky, self-deprecating Jewish humor. What can I say? Lines like this truly make me laugh:

"I hate my name - Eugene Morris Jerome. How am I ever gonna to play for the Yankees with a name like that? All the best Yankees are Italian. My mother makes spaghetti with ketchup. What chance to I have?"

And this:

"And when they saw the Statue of Liberty they started to cry. The women wailing and the men shaking and everyone praying. And you want to know why, because they took one look at that statue and said, 'That's not a Jewish woman, we're gonna have problems again.' ''

Oy, I can't wait!

John-Boy returns to Broadway

I was already interested in the new David Mamet play just from the title: Race. Then, when it was announced that James Spader, the womanizing lawyer Alan Shore from Boston Legal, would be in the cast, I got even more interested.

Now, my interest has risen to a whole new level because Richard Thomas has also been cast in the play. John-Boy, on Broadway! Okay, I know The Waltons was a long time ago but that's how I'll always think of him.

The 1970s were prime tv-watching years for me and I loved The Waltons, which aired on CBS from 1972 to 1981. It featured a great cast and wonderful storytelling about growing up in rural Virginia during the Depression. John-Boy was my favorite character, maybe because I also viewed myself as a sensitive aspiring-writer type.

Anyway, I know that Thomas, 57, been on Broadway numerous times, starting at age 7 when he played one of Franklin Roosevelt's sons in Sunrise at Campobello. (The play also marked the Broadway debut of James Earl Jones.) But obviously, I've never seen him on stage.

The producers of Race aren't revealing anything about the plot, except to say that it should be self-evident from the title. And they've now revealed cast members for two weeks in a row. Good way to build up interest, I guess. It hooked me, because I can't wait to see who they announce next week.

Race is scheduled to begin previews Nov. 17 at the Barrymore Theatre and open on Dec. 6. It's definitely one of my most anticipated shows for next season. I can't wait to hear Spader and Thomas take on that rapid-fire Mamet dialog.

Update: David Alan Grier and Kerry Washington, from Ray, have joined the cast.

Exit Jeremy Piven

Wow, a second actor I saw on my recent trip to New York has been forced to leave a show early. First, Christian Hoff pulls out of Pal Joey with a foot injury and is replaced by his understudy, Matthew Risch. Now, Jeremy Piven has left his role as Hollywood producer Bobby Gould in Speed-the-Plow because a high level of mercury in his system has made him sick.

According to a statement from the show's producers released today, "We have been advised by Jeremy Piven's medical representatives that he is seriously ill and is unable to fulfill his contractual obligation to Speed-the-Plow. Consequently, he has left the production ten weeks early."

Well this is live theatre, after all, and I do understand that people get sick. I certainly wish Piven a quick recovery. What I don't understand is this bizarre quote playwright David Mamet gave to Variety: "I talked to Jeremy on the phone, and he told me that he discovered that he had a very high level of mercury. So my understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer." Huh?

Speed-the-Plow continues at the Barrymore Theatre with Raul Esparza and Elisabeth Moss. Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz will play Gould from Dec. 23 to Jan. 11, followed by Academy Award nominee William H. Macy from Jan. 13-Feb. 22.

While I didn't love the play, I thought Esparza gave an amazing performance. If I could, I would definitely be interested in seeing it again with Butz or Macy. I feel sorry for Moss, of AMC's Mad Men, who's making her Broadway debut. The whole second scene is her character and Gould. Now, she'll have to get used to playing off two different actors.

So far, there's been some anger on the part of fans, judging from these comments on a New York Times message board. Several people said they had bought tickets to Speed-the-Plow as Christmas presents for spouses or made plans to see the play themselves solely because they were fans of Piven's from his role on HBO's Entourage.

I can certainly understand how they feel. Moss and Piven were the two main reasons I had for wanting to see Speed-the-Plow and I would have been very disappointed if they'd been out. (Even though, in the end, I enjoyed Esparza's performance much more. It was definitely the highlight for me.)

I've been extremely lucky (knock on wood) with nearly all the actors I've come to Broadway to see. The handful of times that I've had understudies, I thought they were great - including Ariana Grande in 13 and Saycon Sengbloh in The Color Purple.

Interestingly, the producers of Speed-the-Plow are going for established actors to replace Piven, rather than give the role to his understudy, Jordan Lage. (Who's playing the role for a few performances.) I guess that's simply a reflection of the fact that you almost always need a "name" in a play on Broadway.

There's a story in The New York Press by Dana Rossi about the actors who are understudies to celebrities on Broadway. "Let’s face it; we’re such a fame-obsessed culture that celebrity alone often draws people to theater in droves."

Rossi takes issue with fans who come just to see a star and questions why they're at the theatre in the first place. "It comes down to this: Why are you seeing this show? If it’s just to see Shirley Famouspants in a role anyone could play, maybe you belong at the venue where the performers are inside the big screen."

I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to see a play or musical because it features an actor you know from television or the movies. That's often the reason I'm interested in seeing a play. Whenever I go to New York, my coworkers want to know "who" I'm seeing that they might have heard about.

But honestly, the actors who end up impressing me the most are people like Eve Best, Raul Esparza, Hallie Foote, Gregory Jbara, Laura Benanti, the entire cast of August: Osage County. They're actors most people have probably never heard of unless they're theatre fans.

In some cases, I'd never heard of them before seeing them on stage. But they totally won me over and they've become the reason to see the show. And that's become part of the thrill - which actor will I see for the first time who'll really excite me?

Esparza and Mametspeak

I love this description of Raul Esparza in Jeremy McCarter's Newsweek essay about the key to interpreting David Mamet's language. Esparza's performance as Hollywood producer Charlie Fox in Speed-the-Plow was my first time seeing him on stage and he was riveting, especially in the play's final scene.

"Vocal limitations also hamper the revival of Speed-the-Plow, Mamet's comedy about a producer and an office temp trying to persuade a movie executive to make two different films. Though Jeremy Piven (Ari Gold on Entourage) and Elisabeth Moss (Peggy on Mad Men) have done plenty of stage work, their performances as the executive and the temp come off like those in American Buffalo: clear and poised but lacking the lyrical flash that Mamet demands. Why, then, does the show thrive?

Listen closely to Raul Esparza. The young star of musical theater all but sings the role of the craven producer, flickering from deadpan comic understatement to high, excited shrieks. He brings to Mametspeak the verbal flair you'd expect from an actor who spent the past two years slaloming through the rhythms of Sondheim and Pinter."

Speed-the-Plow

Gratuitous Violins rating: ** 1/2 out of ****

I've seen a couple of David Mamet's movies and I've watched the 1992 film of his play Glengarry Glen Ross but I wasn't quite prepared for hearing Mamet's staccato dialog spoken onstage at Broadway's Barrymore Theatre in Speed-the-Plow.

The opening banter between Hollywood producers Bobby Gould (Jeremy Piven, from HBO's Entourage) and Charlie Fox (Raul Esparza) is so fast paced, I had a hard time figuring out what they were talking about for the first few minutes. But even though it was a bit confusing, it was also kind of exhilarating and both actors do a good job delivering Mamet's lines.

Gould and Fox are two longtime friends whose relationship is about to move to a new, more lucrative, level. Gould's gotten a big promotion and Fox has convinced a popular action star to make a prison buddy movie, which he wants to bring to Gould's studio. The two giddily contemplate the money they'll rake in - but the deal has to be wrapped up by the next morning.

Enter Gould's temporary secretary, Karen, played by Elisabeth Moss of the tv series Mad Men. In the first act, Moss' character is sweet and innocent and a little timid. Gould asks her to look over a novel he's been handed for a "courtesy read" to determine whether or not it could be made into a movie. She's supposed to come over his house that evening with her report.

The second scene, with Karen at Gould's house trying to convince him to make the movie, is where Speed-the-Plow dragged a little bit for me. I don't think Piven or Moss quite pull it off, but I also think this is the weakest-written part of the play.

Mamet is obviously trying to say something about art versus commerce in Hollywood, how the studios always go for mindless entertainment over more thoughtful subjects. But this book seems so unworthy I can't understand why anyone would get worked up over it, especially not someone as savvy and experienced in the movie business as Bobby Gould. From the snippets we hear, it sounds awful - it's about the history of radioactivity and the end of the world, or something like that. I could never quite figure it out.

Plus, I didn't think Moss' Karen was so wily and seductive that she could have persuaded Gould to take on such a risky project. As he tells Karen, "if the films I make lose money, then I'm back on the streets with a sweet and silly smile on my face." And I didn't think that Piven's Gould seemed truly transformed after their evening together. I didn't sense that he had an epiphany and saw the light.

Another thing that bothered me: Mamet has constructed the play as a false dichotomy. Lots of movies get made every year, and some of them are the small, thought-provoking films that this book is supposed to represent. In fact, I think most of the major studios have specialty divisions where directors and producers can make "independent" films as well as action movies. So it's not really an either/or situation, no matter how Mamet tries to represent it.

But for me, what saves Speed-the-Plow and makes it worthwhile is Esparza's performance in the play's final scene. I wanted to see the play mainly for Piven and Moss, whom I've enjoyed in their tv roles, but I ended up loving Esparza. This was my first time seeing him on stage and he was awesome.

His disintegration at the end, his desperation, was thrilling to watch. You can see him grasping at straws, thinking on his feet. It's like this battle of wits with Karen. His life is at stake, his livelihood, everything he's tried to achieve. Here he is, about to reach the summit of his professional life, and this nobody comes from out of nowhere to block his ascent. And I didn't know who was going to win, which made it even more thrilling.

Fox can't believe that Gould wants to make a movie out of this bizarre and indecipherable book. He has a great line: "You can't tell it to me in one sentence, they can't put it in TV Guide." Which is so true - even if hardly anyone one reads TV Guide anymore. But we subscribed to it when I was a kid and I read it faithfully every week, so I knew what he meant.

Still, Speed-the-Plow got me thinking. I've discussed it with a more knowledgeable friend, and maybe there's some nuance to Mamet's writing or Piven's and Moss' performances that went by me. Unfortunately, I can't pop the dvd in for another go-round. If I lived in New York, I'd buy a cheap ticket and see it again just to make sure - and for Raul Esparza.

Good as Gould?

Joe Mantegna, Kevin Spacey - and Jeremy Piven?

Those are three well-known actors who have, are currently or will soon appear in David Mamet's caustic, satirical look at the movie business, Speed-the-Plow. Mantegna created the role of Hollywood producer Bobby Gould on Broadway, Spacey is enjoying raves in the role of fellow producer Charlie Fox in London, and apparently, Piven will make his Broadway debut as Gould in a revival this fall.

I was holding out hope that Spacey's production, which also features Jeff Goldblum as Gould and Laura Michelle Kelly as Gould's secretary, Karen, would transfer from London's Old Vic Theatre to Broadway. But according to The New York Times, another version has won out, and will feature Piven. The Times article says that the play will be directed by Neil Pepe of the Atlantic Theater Company, which Mamet helped start. The producers, the same team behind the 2005 Tony-winning revival of Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, are aiming for an Oct. 23 opening.

While I'm disappointed I won't get to see Kevin again, I'm looking forward to seeing Piven on stage. He's so wonderfully obnoxious, ruthless and insensitive as Hollywood super-agent Ari Gold in HBO's Entourage. Playing a Hollywood producer probably won't be a big stretch for him. My only concern is, a little bit of Ari goes a long way and I can easily see Piven being too over-the-top. But he comes from a theatre background - his parents founded the noted Piven Theatre Workshop in Evanston, Ill. According to a story in Variety, Piven was last seen in New York in a 2004 off-Broadway production of Neil LaBute's Fat Pig.

This will be the first Broadway revival for the six-hander. (Ok, I know you'd normally call it a three-hander, because there are three people in the cast, but each person has two hands, right? So doesn't a six-hander make more sense?) It opened on April 9, 1988, with Madonna as Karen, Mantegna, (a Mamet regular, and an actor I really like) and Ron Silver as Charlie Fox, and closed on Dec. 31, 1988, after 279 performances. In his review for the Times, Frank Rich called Speed-the-Plow "by turns hilarious and chilling," and said that Mamet created "riveting theatre."

I've never seen a Mamet play on stage, and I like the idea of a witty, acerbic, inside look at the business of making movies. And I'd really like to see Piven on stage, albeit in a role that's pretty close to the one he plays on Entourage. Even though Kevin Spacey won't be in this one, I'm putting Speed-the-Plow on my Broadway wish list.