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Playwright David Mamet's three lectures at Columbia University are ostensibly about issues of dramatic structure, but as they unfold, and Mamet continually explores the relationship between dramatic structure and the lives we live, much broader concerns are revealed. Here, for example, is Mamet on political propaganda:
It is ... essential to the healthy political campaign that the issues be largely or perhaps totally symbolic--i.e., non-quantifiable. Peace With Honor, Communists in the State Department, Supply Side Economics, Recapture the Dream, Bring Back the Pride--these are the stuff of pageant. They are not social goals; they are, as Alfred Hitchcock told us, the MacGuffin.... The less specific the qualities of the MacGuffin are, the more interested the audience will be.... A loose abstraction allows audience members to project their own desires onto an essentially featureless goal.
Although occasionally academic, the overall tone of the lectures is consistent with Mamet's no-nonsense manner of speech. He has no time for obfuscation and little time for repetition, save when he must absolutely employ it for emphasis. He is passionate about good theater, and passionate about the truth. 3 Uses of the Knife makes an excellent companion piece to his True and False, which addressed similar philosophical matters in the form of advice on the actor's craft.
From Library Journal
One of America's leading living playwrights has crafted three short essays beginning with the premise that it is "our nature to dramatize." The belief in the centrality of drama to our daily lives and the centrality of our daily lives to good drama is the recurrent theme of his ruminations here. While he disdains the current vogue for "problem plays," he avoids attacking any of his contemporaries or their works. And without offering a how-to guide for aspiring playwrights, he provides some interesting thoughts on the inevitable difficulty in creating a convincing second act. Known and respected for his ability to create hyperrealistic dialog, Mamet ultimately reveals the theoretical justification for the sort of drama he writes so well. The text reads a bit like a lecture and never quite convinces the reader that this is a fundamental redefinition of drama. Still, it will be compelling to students of theater and serves as a good companion to Mamet's advice to actors, True and False (LJ 10/1/97). Recommended for academic and large public libraries.?Douglas McClemont, New YorkCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Mamet has written about drama's sociological and psychological implications before (Writing in Restaurants [1986], Some Freaks [1989]), but never as well as in these eight terse, elegant essays. He writes with thrilling simplicity and authority, discussing problems all working playwrights confront (What am I trying to achieve with this play? How come things always get balled up in the second act? Why are most problem plays ultimately unsatisfying?) and connecting his craft to large social issues (violence, censorship, the abuse of public office). Previous Mamet readers and those who know his work on stage and screen will recognize such themes and personal obsessions as the search for authenticity, the yearning for a moral center, and the search--some would say romanticized--for a very masculine kind of stoicism. This time, Mamet's beliefs seem less the wisecracks of a witty, sometimes hot-headed drinking buddy and more the calm, cool, carefully measured meditations of a man passionate about the truth and determined to share his ideas as clearly and powerfully as possible. Jack Helbig
Review
"[Mamet] brings his usual passion and provocation to his treatise on what makes good drama." --Vanity Fair
"No modern playwright has been bolder or more brilliant." --The New Yorker
"Pinter, Albee, Miller. They're all looking over Mamet's shoulder." --New York
"David Mamet adds yet another segment to a body of work that puts him among the great writers of this, or any other, time." --Joe Mantegna
A. L. A. Booklist
He writes with thrilling simplicity and authority, discussing problems all working playwrights confront...Calm, cool, carefully measured meditations of a man passionate about the truth and determined to share his ideas.
Review
"[Mamet] brings his usual passion and provocation to his treatise on what makes good drama." --Vanity Fair
"No modern playwright has been bolder or more brilliant." --The New Yorker
"Pinter, Albee, Miller. They're all looking over Mamet's shoulder." --New York
"David Mamet adds yet another segment to a body of work that puts him among the great writers of this, or any other, time." --Joe Mantegna
Book Description
What makes good drama? And why does drama matter in an age that is awash in information and entertainment? With bracing directness and aphoristic grace, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Glengarry Glen Ross delivers a thrillingly original treatise on his art.
To David Mamet, human beings are drama-creating animals who impose narrative structures on everything from today's weather to next year's elections. Mamet distinguishes true drama from its false variants, unravels the infamous "Second-Act Problem," amd considers the mysterious persistence of the soliloquy. Three Uses of the Knife is an inspired guide for any playwright or theatergoer that doubles as a trenchant work of moral and aesthetic philosophy.
From the Inside Flap
What makes good drama? And why does drama matter in an age that is awash in information and entertainment? With bracing directness and aphoristic grace, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Glengarry Glen Ross delivers a thrillingly original treatise on his art.
To David Mamet, human beings are drama-creating animals who impose narrative structures on everything from today's weather to next year's elections. Mamet distinguishes true drama from its false variants, unravels the infamous "Second-Act Problem," amd considers the mysterious persistence of the soliloquy. Three Uses of the Knife is an inspired guide for any playwright or theatergoer that doubles as a trenchant work of moral and aesthetic philosophy.
From the Back Cover
"[Mamet] brings his usual passion and provocation to his treatise on what makes good drama." --Vanity Fair
"No modern playwright has been bolder or more brilliant." --The New Yorker
"Pinter, Albee, Miller. They're all looking over Mamet's shoulder." --New York
"David Mamet adds yet another segment to a body of work that puts him among the great writers of this, or any other, time." --Joe Mantegna
About the Author
David Mamet has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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