THENEWYORKER,APRIL11, 2022 13
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THEBOARDS
DOINGIAMBIC
L
aurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell,
and Darren Criss, who star in the
Broadway revival of David Mamet’s
“American Buffalo,” at Circle in the
Square, and Neil Pepe, who directs it,
buy that.” He crossed to a wall of old
posters. “Or ‘Carmen Jones,’” Fish-
burne said. “I have the one from
‘Black Orpheus.’”
“Dude, that Harry Belafonte–Danny
Kaye video you sent me was awesome, ”
Rockwell said. They fist-bumped.
Which video? Criss asked.
“It’s called ‘Mama Look a Boo-
Boo,’” Fishburne said.
“Belafonte was a real sex symbol,”
Rockwell said. A feed bag caught his
e ye. “‘Purina Goat Chow,’” he read. “I
had that for breakfast.”
In 2020, they had rehearsed for
three weeks before everything shut
down, then continued for several more
weeks via FaceTime. “This is the lon-
gest I’ve prepared for any show in my
entire life,” Criss said. Pepe said that
he hoped it would feel “lived in.” Fish-
burne said, “I’ve wanted to do this
play since I was a kid.” When “Buf-
falo” first made waves, he added, “I
was in the Philippines, doing ‘Apoc-
alypse Now,’”—but “the talk of
it...this play changed shit for the
American theatre. Nobody had used
language like this before.” Pepe said,
“All of a sudden, Mamet’s doing iam-
bic with the stuff of the streets.”
Mamet wrote “American Buffalo”
while living in Chicago and hanging
around with poker players in a junk shop.
“Some of the guys were ex-cons, and in
the business of thievery,” Pepe said. “He
would hear their stories. The play has this
born, they’re not made. I think that probably
applies here.
ROACH: If I were Chris Rock, I would’ve
come back with the right hand.
FARRELL: Smith overcommits with it. He
turns his shoulder so that his arm is totally
turned around. His face is completely exposed
with no ability to block a punch.
As for Rock, there was not much for
the judges to go on besides an ability to
take a blow—thick skin, of the literal
sort. “I like the chin,” Roach said. “The
chin is very good. Very, very good.”
Talk turned to a possible rematch.
Both men agreed that the outcome
hinged on unknown factors. Heart, can-
niness, un-sapped energy. Also: strategy.
Farrell said, “My suggestion to Rock
would be to keep his chin tucked in,
move his head back, let the punch miss,
let Smith move out of position, and just
come back with a countershot.”
“Rock has to get into a short-dis-
tance fight,” Roach said. “His opponent
is taller and rangier. He’d have to stay
close to his chest. Will Smith has to
keep him on the end of his jab. It’s just
like Margarito vs. Pacquiao.”
Oscar De La Hoya, one of the best
pound-for-pound boxers of all time,
rendered a decision. “If it was a twelve-
round fight, I would pick Will Smith
to win in the fifth,” he said. As for the
slap, “That wasn’t the right thing to do.”
But he thought Smith was holding back.
“We saw him portraying Ali. We know
he can throw a punch with knockout
power.” He said that he was exploring
making a bio-pic about himself: “I’m
looking forward to, hopefully, Oscar
winning an Oscar.” De La Hoya fig-
ured he could say whatever he wanted
onstage about Smith, and Smith wouldn’t
try anything.
—Zach Helfand
met up the other day at a West Side
thrift shop called No Particular Hours
(“Vintage Goods/Industrial Arti-
facts/Dead People’s Things”). The
play, from 1975, is about three desper-
ate characters in a junk shop; the group
had planned to visit one in March,
2020, shortly before the show’s open-
ing; two years later, there they were.
The proprietor, Jerry Lerner—tall, griz-
zled, fisherman’s cap—let them wan-
der, offering occasional commentary.
(Of a carved statue: “I used to call that
Bali Parton.”) The shop, a chockablock
riot of curiosities—wagon-wheel chan-
delier here, helmeted mannequin head
there—was a bit more festive than the
“Buffalo” set, and the actors were a bit
snazzier than their onstage counter-
parts. Fishburne (Donny, the junk-
shop owner) wore an African-print-
inspired combo from Moshood, of
Brooklyn (“I modelled for them in the
eighties”), with a drawstring waist.
Criss (Bobby, Donny’s slow-witted
gofer) gestured at his own plaid pants,
and said, “I’m also rocking the draw-
string.” Rockwell (Teach, their ne’er-
do-well friend) looked mischievous—
rascally mustache, sweater with “HIGH
END” in colorful letters. “It’s just a
sweater I got because I’m a Hollywood
phony,” he said, smirking. Criss and
Fishburne laughed. “I’m a dickhead,
and I wore a dickish sweater,” he said.
They laughed more.
“American Buffalo,” a blunt, stac-
cato symphony of F-bombs, hapless-
ness, and simmering rage, centers on
a scheme to steal a valuable nickel
and culminates in mayhem. Pepe, a
prolific director of Mamet with the
presence of a director of much gen-
tler fare, leafed through a bin of old
wrenches. “We’ve been talking about
what makes a lot of noise,” he said.
“There’s stuff that happens physi-
cally—it will all be choreographed,
hopefully, so that all is safe.” Fish-
burne got intrigued by an old brass
fire extinguisher; earthenware jugs
(“Jugs, baby! Now, that’s country”),
one of which he blew into, jug-band
style; and an early-twentieth-century
toaster, which he picked up and car-
ried around.
“Our shop is not as nice as this,”
Rockwell said. “We don’t have a ‘Clash
of the Titans’ poster. Boy, I would
Sam Rockwell, Darren Criss,
Laurence Fishburne
