270 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
did not get along with his stepfather, who was psychologically and physically
abusive, especially to Mamet’s sister. When Mamet was fourteen, he returned to
Chicago to live with his father, stepmother, and two stepbrothers, Tony (whom
Mamet has cast in several productions) and Bobby (a jazz musician).
The teenaged Mamet discovered acting when his uncle Henry, a radio and
television producer for the Chicago Board of Rabbis, gave him and his sister,
Lynn, bit parts on television and radio playing Jewish children. Through this
uncle Mamet also became involved in community theater. During high school (he
attended the progressive Francis W. Parker School) he worked at Chicago’s Hull
House Theatre and the Second City, now renowned for comedy improvisation.
In his spare time he honed his writing skills by writing dialogue on a typewriter
in his father’s office. He earned a B.A. in 1969 at Goddard College in Vermont,
where he wrote his first play, “Camel,” to fulfill an English requirement. During
a hiatus from school he studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighbor-
hood Playhouse School of Theater in New York City. In 1970 Mamet was hired
as a one-year replacement at Marlboro College in Vermont partly on the basis of
a play he claimed to have completed (but had not). That one-act play, Lakeboat
(revised and produced, 1979; published, 1981), was staged later that year with his
students. The next academic year found him back at Goddard, where he staged
Duck Variations with students, one of them actor William H. Macy, who would
make his career with roles written by Mamet. Between these two academic posts
Mamet returned to Chicago, where he worked in an office selling real estate over
the phone to elderly couples. This experience became the foundation for Glen-
garry Glen Ross (published, 1983; produced, 1984).
In 1972 Mamet returned to Chicago, where several of his plays were pro-
duced in small, experimental theaters. Sexual Perversity in Chicago (performed
1974; published 1978) won the Joseph Jefferson Award (given each year to the
best new play in Chicago). This play, along with Duck Variations, was produced
on Off Off Broadway in 1975 and 1976. Another Mamet play, American Buffalo
(produced, 1975; published, 1976), which premiered in Chicago and won Mamet
his second Jefferson award, followed a similar trajectory to New York. In 1976 he
was also awarded Obies for Sexual Perversity in Chicago and American Buffalo. The
latter, which features three men plotting to steal a rare and valuable buffalo-head
nickel, became his first work to appear on Broadway and established Mamet’s
place on the American stage.
Not all of Mamet’s plays have been equally successful or well reviewed.
Throughout his work, however, he creates characters whose failure to express
themselves parallels their inability to connect with others. They use obscenities
(for which Mamet is notorious) and tell stories that ultimately have no meaning
to disguise the fact that they have little to say. Their speech is filled with apho-
risms and clichés that disguise and justify immoral actions. In many of the plays
Mamet also explores the way social rules related to gender inhibit and prevent
communication between men, family members, and men and women. Another
theme running through Mamet’s oeuvre is the emptiness of the American
dream. American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross are both negative examina-
tions of American business and greed and explore men’s capacity for immorality.