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David Mamet: America's Mighty Playwright: Speed-the-Plow Zings Hollywood
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13630 |
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THE ARTS
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8 / 1988 |
1,859 Words |
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Cynthia Grenier
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Speed-the-Plow is surely the funniest and the most skillful of all David Mamet's funny and skilled plays to date. The coveted Tony award for best actor this season went to Ron Silver for his sublimely inspired performance as a Hollywood executive determined to grab Fortune by her forelock at any cost.
Uproariously entertaining as the new play is, its author is dealing nonetheless with perfectly serious concerns. Like his American Buffalo, Edmond, and Glengarry Glen Ross (which won Mamet the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Award as the best American play in 1984), Speed-the-Plow is about a man struggling for survival and the importance of grabbing his main chance at the right moment. Granted survival happens to be in that singularly specialized jungle that is Hollywood, yet survival is the issue at stake.
Once-in-a-Lifetime
Bobby Gould (Ray Mantegna) has just been promoted to be head of production at a major studio. His office hasn't even been repainted yet, let alone decorated. Charlie Fox (Ron Silver), a friend since they started out together in the mailroom, has gotten a once-in-a-lifetime shot at the big time. A bankable actor has come over to his house that morning and given Charlie an option on a film deal until ten o'clock the next day. Charlie has brought the project to Bobby to greenlight, confident this will prove the break for which he's been waiting and hungering for so long.
Bobby likes it. A prison buddy story, a much tried and usually dependable formula; but if the big star wants it, then the studio wants it, and Charlie will get to produce. His name will go above the title--every producer's dream. Charlie feels so good about the prospect he generously proposes that Bobby coproduce. Bobby calls the president of the studio; Charlie will be with him for the pitch. But the president is flying to New York and will only be back the following morning. Bobby takes a meeting for nine the next day.
The studio head has given Bobby a pretentious novel by "an Eastern sissy writer," asking him to get the book a courtesy read since it's been sent him by an important agent. As the two friends talk, Bobby's office temp, Karen (Madonna), muffs phone calls and generally shows herself to be fairly incompetent if trying her best. Charlie, in highest good humor about his impending success, challenges Bobby to a five hundred-dollar bet that Bobby can't bed the temp that evening.
Bobby gives Karen the novel to review, asking her to come by his house that evening to get her report. Karen, it turns out in act 2, is overwhelmed by the book, so overwhelmed that she succeeds in convincing Bobby that he must greenlight this project, which is all about finding God in rads and roentgens. Eminently unfilmable material. Lights dim as they head for Bobby's bedroom.
Coming Triumph
Early next morning as the curtain rises on act 3, Charlie is on hand, already savoring his coming triumph. Bobby takes a deep breath and puts it to him fast and hard that he's passing on the prison project. He's going to do the radiation book. Charlie goes from good-humored disbelief, not even hearing what his friend is saying--"yeah,
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