tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post113478400569108060..comments2024-01-07T06:59:04.212-05:00Comments on The Playgoer: Mamet on WilliamsPlaygoerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02994724588504353485noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-1134785785102777112005-12-16T21:16:00.000-05:002005-12-16T21:16:00.000-05:00This is preposterous. Mamet doesn't like O'Neill ...This is preposterous. Mamet doesn't like O'Neill either. But Mamet's best plays like The Cryptogram do not follow his rules of dramatic structure as set out in this article and in "Three Uses of the Knife." Like the two protagonists of Iguana, or the four of Long Day's Journey, Mamet's three protagonists in The Cryptogram are revealing their inner lives symbolically as well as trying to manipulate and control those important to them. It would seem to me that Mamet envies these two great writers for going deeper and further than he has so far gone. Every play Mamet has written since The Cryptogram -- his Long Day's Journey Into Night -- has been a retreat from that awesome and horrifying revelation and representation of a broken inner world. In attacking Williams and O'Neill, Mamet attacks himself. These fits of self-loathing (also on display on huffingtonpost.com) are not surprising from a man who has spent so much time writing Hollywood crap so he can have millions of dollars to buy guns.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com