This 'American Buffalo' is missing that Mamet snort
" 'Cause there's business and there's friendship . . . and what you got to do is keep clear who your friends are. . . . Or else the rest is garbage. . . . "
" 'Cause there's business and there's friendship . . . and what you got to do is keep clear who your friends are. . . . Or else the rest is garbage. . . . "
There is plenty of garbage in David Mamet's fierce and funny play American Buffalo, currently at Theatre Exile. Set in a junk shop that is clearly a metaphor for America, three bunglers try to plan a stupid heist that involves a valuable buffalo nickel. The American buffalo - coin and animal - is long gone, along with the delusive values of that home on the range. Plenty of discouraging words are heard here as Mamet's wildly excessive obscenity reveals this world of men.
The two offstage women, Ruth and Grace, are - given the values their names imply - significantly absent, as we watch this little society founder; love and loyalty are well-laced with violence and mistrust.
Mamet's reputation as one of America's major playwrights began with American Buffalo in 1975, and tearing into the high-voltage role of Teach is Pete Pryor, following in the famous footsteps of Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, and, most recent, John Leguizamo.
In a state of perpetual exasperated paranoid rage, Pryor stalks the stage while Don (Joe Canuso), owner of the shop, tries to provide a calm center and a good influence on Bobby (Robert DaPonte), a young and pathetic ex-heroin addict who is desperate to please.
Under Matt Pfeiffer's direction, Theatre Exile gave us an electrifying Glengarry Glen Ross two years ago, so it's clear that he can deliver Mamet with all edges sharpened and all teeth bared. It's therefore surprising that this current production, although fine and engrossing, feels, somehow, soft.
Like the too-clean junk shop - no dirt, well-lit, with room to eat and to sit - Exile's American Buffalo seems to suffer from kindness. Even the pig-sticker, the mysterious and repulsive object that seems constantly to threaten some imminent hideous event, looks like a clothes hanger.
Noticeably lacking is the famous Mamet-speak, that signature staccato delivery, both funny and scary, punctuated by unnerving pauses. Perhaps what this production suffers from is realism, missing the heightened theatrical style of Mamet's vicious drama.
American Buffalo
Theatre Exile at Plays & Players, 1714 Delancey St. Through May 3. Tickets $15-$30. Information: www.theatreexile.org or 215-218-4022. EndText