no additional birth defects or premature deliveries.
However, it was revealed that some of the male
Medflies released were actually fertile. Another study
suggested that aerial spraying might not have been
necessary because the belief that ground spraying
had failed resulted from miscalculations of the ex-
tent of infested areas, rather than actual failure.
Further Reading
Marco, Gino, Robert Hollingworth, and William
Durham, eds.Silent Spring Revisited. Washington,
D.C.: American Chemical Society, 1987.
Pimental, D., and H. Lehman, eds.The Pesticide Ques-
tion: Environment, Economics, and Ethics.New York:
Chapman & Hall, 1993.
Kristen L. Zacharias
See also Agriculture in the United States; Biopesti-
cides; Environmental movement.
Mamet, David
Identification American playwright, film director,
and author
Born November 30, 1947; Chicago, Illinois
Mamet changed the style and substance of American
drama, introducing a new, distinctively stylized idiom of
speech to the stage and emphasizing the perspectives of ordi-
nar y working people. During the 1980’s, Mamet continued
to write plays, as he also began to branch out into other
media.
By 1980, David Mamet had written more than a
dozen plays. During the 1980’s, he became even
more prolific: He more than doubled the number of
plays to his credit, while he also began to write
screenplays, nonfiction, and even children’s litera-
ture. The early 1980’s was a highly productive period
for him. Mamet’sGlengarr y Glen Ross(pr., pb. 1983)
earned both a New York Drama Critics Award for
best American play and a Pulitzer Prize. His second
screenplay, for Sidney Lumet’sThe Verdict(1982),
was nominated for an Academy Award. Mamet also
began to write children’s picture books with his
first wife, actress Lindsey Crouse, and published sev-
eral essay collections treating such diverse topics as
American theater and culture, film directing, reli-
gion, politics, and friendship.
For all his phenomenal productivity in varied
genres, Mamet will be best remembered for his great
1980’s stage dramas, particularlyGlengarr y Glen Ross.
He established himself as a “language playwright,”
an artist with a finely tuned ear for American working-
class speech, especially the inflections and rhythms
of his hometown, Chicago, where he perfected his
craft. He possessed the ability to both capture and
transform that speech, raising it to the level of art.
Mamet was relatively indifferent to the commercial
allure of Broadway, perhaps in part because his hard-
edged, often profane dialogue limited his mass ap-
peal, as did his sharp, intellectual critiques of Ameri-
can society and mores.
Even Mamet’s films tended to have a wicked sa-
tiric edge, beginning most notably with the devious
House of Games(1987). This film, written by Mamet
and starring Crouse, was also the playwright’s direc-
torial debut. Mamet’s first exploration of confidence
games and criminal manipulations, the film follows
Crouse as an overconfident psychoanalyst involved
with a con man; she learns that she too is being
bilked and, worse, that she enjoys these mind games
and betrayals. Ultimately, the audience too is conned,
rooting for characters who are far different from
how they seem.
At the time a seeming departure into new terri-
tory,House of Gameswas nevertheless attuned to the
playwright’s central interests: the sound and sense
of American working-class speech (delivered bril-
liantly by a Mamet favorite, Joe Mantegna, as the
con man), ruthless economic exploitation (as epito-
mized inGlengarr y Glen Ross), and the rhetorical ma-
nipulation inherent in competitive social situations.
(Mamet famously said that people may or may not
tell the truth, but they always say things to advance
their interests.) As he moved into screenwriting and
film direction, Mamet, ever the enfant terrible, sati-
rized Hollywood inSpeed-the-Plow(pr., pb. 1988),
which ran on Broadway featuring pop superstar Ma-
donna in the central role.Impact Although he became a prolific writer in a
variety of genres and an energetic, inventive film-
maker, Mamet’s greatest influence has been on the
language and style of live American theater. He
brought new speech patterns to the stage: frank, of-
ten rude, but real and familiar. Like England’s Har-
old Pinter, he also changed what was done on stage,
focusing on the emotional wrestling matches be-
hind seemingly clichéd, inane speech.616 Mamet, David The Eighties in America