Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet (1984)

Summary:  Four salesman, an office manager, a client and a policeman interact over the course of two days (and two acts).  Separating the two acts is an unseen robbery in which highly sought-after sales leads are stolen. 

Important characters:
Shelly Levene:  A once-great 50-something salesman who spends the first scene begging for leads and is ultimately responsible for the burglary.
Roma:  A highly competitive 40-something salesman who is at the top of his game and the lead in a sales contest that will give the winner a Cadillac.
Moss:  Plans the burglary.
Aaronow:  First approached by Moss to carry out the burglary, he refuses, Shelly is enlisted.
Williamson:  The office manager who handles the distribution of the leads and the keeping of sales figures on the important "board."  The salesmen in the office enjoy reminding Williamson that he is not one of them.

Thoughts:  This play (like the work of Albee, Kushner, Letts, Shepard and others) is highly verbal.  However, it is not verbal in the same way.  There are very few memorable or quotable lines in Mamet's text, and some of the most quoted ("Will you get out of here.  Will you get out of here.  Will you.  I'm trying to run an office here.  Will you go to lunch?  Go to lunch.  Will you go to lunch?" (Act 2, 1284)) are perhaps only quoted because of memorable utterances offered by actors in performances on stage and in the 1992 film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3EvCIU7gb8).

Instead of creating highly literate verbal characters who are inclined to correct the grammar of those surrounding them (Albee), Mamet uses a lot of "ordinary" words and depends on actors to speak them quickly.  His language is characteristically masculine and often punctuated with curse words.  In the words of my professor David Jones, "[Mamet's work] is like a coming-out party for the word motherfucker."

That Championship Season by Jason Miller (1973)

Summary:  The 1952 Pennsylvania State Championship basketball team has gathered for a reunion-of-sorts at Coach's house.   They reminisce about the good times, share memories about an absent teammate and discuss their fairly boring adult lives.  The major conflict of the play comes when it is revealed that Phil is having an affair with George's wife.  George is the mayor and wants to run for reelection, but the boys aren't sure he is still the right man for the job--perhaps because he is the most outwardly emotional of the bunch and awkwardly mourns for an institutionalized son.  Though "the team" fights throughout the play and struggles with the reality that Coach is aging, the conclusion of the play depicts the cast listening to a recording of the last few moments of their championship game.

Thoughts:  In the Introduction, director Joseph Papp repeatedly states that he has always thought of this as "an actor's play."  He also mentions that when it was originally pitched to him, he hesitated to give it a full production.  I know what Papp meant by "actor's play"; but when I finished reading it, I also felt that it is a play that does not hold up well on paper.  In other words, this is a play that must be seen to be fully appreciated.  Much of the work I have encountered in this project also stands as literature for critical analysis and appreciation, but this is not one of those plays.

This is the first play about sports that I have encountered in the project, and I'm fairly certain that the audience demographic for this show was unusual.  With the recent debut of Lombardi on Broadway (and stories about professional athlete sightings at the theatre), this play makes me think about the importance of plays that appeal strongly to a specific audience who ordinarily wouldn't be seen in the theatre.

Topdog/Underdog by Suzan Lori-Parks (2002)

Summary:  Lincoln and Booth are adult brothers whose parents named them as a joke and later abandoned them when they were 16 and 11, respectively.  Younger brother Booth has recently developed an affinity for three-card monty, a game accompanied by a painful history for Lincoln.  While Booth is attempting to make money on the street, Lincoln holds a job as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator at an arcade.  At work, he sits in a chair (in whiteface) and gets "shot" by children on field trips and those seeking interesting entertainment.

Throughout the play, Booth attempts to get Lincoln to play three-card with him--arguing that they could go into business together and be wildly successful.  As the play progresses, the brothers laugh and fight and laugh and fight--until Booth reveals that he has killed his girlfriend and then kills his brother.

Thoughts:  I read this play shortly after reading some of Parks' other work (Fucking A, In the Blood, Venus) and it is evident that there are themes and characters that continue to reappear in her work.  In all four of these plays, Parks seems to argue that, whether we like it or not, our relationships with our families are significant and binding.  Even when her characters do everything in their power to break these bonds (including murder), they still remain.

The play also examines the the imperfection of memory--individuals in the same household remembering things in vastly different ways.  Although Booth is the younger brother, he saw his mother leave and was given the task of taking care of Lincoln--though he was certainly not old enough for this kind of responsibility.

"People are funny about they Lincoln shit.  Its historical.  People like they historical shit in a certain way.  They like it to unfold the way they folded it up.  Neatly like a book.  Not raggedy and bloody and screaming." 

-Topdog/Underdog, Scene 3  

 

A Soldier's Play by Charles Fuller (1982)

Summary:  A black soldier has been found dead just outside of Fort Neal---a segregated army camp in Louisiana (1944).  First, the shooting is blamed on the omnipresent KKK, then on racist white soldiers, before finally on a black officer who hates black men who (to him) perpetuate the stereotype of lazy and uneducated.

Thoughts:  Fuller’s character list is a simple list of names, with no description provided noting the age or race of any of these characters.  For me, this made reading the play confusing at times because I was trying to track the race relations without being certain of which characters were white and which were black.  After finishing the play, I feel confident that this was an intentional choice for Fuller.  Clearly, if you were watching the play, this wouldn’t be an issue; but the omission of these details demands a more careful reading of the text…which results in more attention to the nuanced relationships and dialogue of Fuller’s characters.