How Good is David Mamet, Anyway?: Writings on Theater--and Why It Matters

By John Heilpern

Book Overview

First Published in 2000. Why do we go to the theater? There's a question Or put it this way: Why, oh why, do we go to the theater? If we go to a movie and it isn't any good, well it's not the end of the world. We're usually quite content just the same. It passes the time. Though, as Samuel Beckett pointed out, the time would have passed anyway. But if we're disappointed at the theater, everything changes dramatically. We cannot while away the time at the theater. Time becomes precious. This is a collection of writings about the world of the theatre and includes pieces about Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson, Arthur Miller, Michael Bennett, Noel Coward, Barbra Streisand, Ralph Fiennes and more.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415925479
• ISBN13: 9780415925471
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 316 Pages
• Weight: 1.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Old Reviews Are Good Reading

I'll admit (and, probably, commit) the tediousness of many reviewers. Sanctimonious and certain, they often slash and burn their way across a landscape that they know only as outsiders. But now and then you find someone who understands a topic deeply, has experience in it, and a sharp and humane eye, all while being amusing. I'd place John Heilpern in this category if his work didn't do so itself. Theater critic for the New York Observer, Heilpern is passionate about the topic, has seen his own plays produced, and has an unusually keep wit. Although his latest book is a biography of the British playwright, John Osborne, I came across How Good Is David Mamet, Anyway?, which came out in 1999, in a used book store. I'll confess to never having read Heilpern's work before - it was the title that got me, as I'm not the world's largest Mamet fan, at least in the non-fiction of his that I've read of late. And it's fairly unusual for someone in the theatrical community to take on a contemporary icon. But take him on Heilpern did, as well as writers at the New York Times, American anglophilia, Disney Land (the new name for Broadway), and other topics. At the same time, he's anything but mean-spirited. Many of his pieces put praise where he thinks it's due and tries to analyze what is good and bad about productions. Many of his observations run from the droll to the uproariously funny. And where else can you get a delightful transcript of a lunch between Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson. If you've any regard for theater, or for intelligent criticism of any sort, you should be tickled with this book. Now I'll have to get hold of a copy of his Osborne biography.

It Matters, It Matters

I read this book, found some of the most entertaining, informative and lively criticism I've ever encountered, and came to this page to see what others were saying about it. Reading the slams by Booklist and Kirkus made me wonder if I'd completely misunderstood "How Good Is David Mamet, Anyway?" But then I read the raves from Salon and Tony Kushner and other readers, and wondered who the heck is reviewing for Booklist and Kirkus. Booklist calls it "daily journalism," but then the NY Observer apparently is a weekly. It's amusing that Kirkus ends its review recommending a trip to the theater--if their writer got out more, he or she might notice on a theater marquee that it's NOEL Coward, not NOL. (Sorry, my keyboard can't make the little double dots to go with the correct spelling.) A howler like that basically nolifies the rest of the review. You won't be seeing the collected works of either of these critics appearing in bookstores anytime soon.

Can't Beat This One from the Theater's Number One Critic

John Heilpern is without question the best critic of his generation, and his reviews in the weekly "New York Observer" can't be beat! Make plans to buy this collection from the most important living theater critic and England's best export since Archie Leach!

How Good Is John Heilpern, Anyway?

At last, readers beyond the subscription list of the New York Observer have the opportunity to read one of the most gifted--and funniest--writers around. As it happens, this book is a collection of his writing on theater (save for the non-theatrical, though rivetingly dramatic, account of Heilpern's struggle with a murderous roommate named Jack the Cat), but this work is a delight for anyone who appreciates finely tuned yet uproarious humor, a handsome prose style and a sensibility that is at once erudite, entertaining and inviting. How good is John Heilpern's "How Good Is David Mamet, Anyway?" anyway? Peerless.