David Mamet noticed it coming.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, director and screenwriter penned an op-ed with the title, “Why I’m No Longer a ‘Mind-Lifeless Liberal” in 2008, and he watched his profession implode.
He didn’t assault a fellow artist or commit a felony. His “thought crime” was greater than sufficient. Mamet just lately admitted simply how a lot his political transformation value him.
In a phrase? Dearly. Why, it’s nearly like there’s a contemporary Blacklist in opposition to conservative artists.
Now, a brand new play is specializing in Mamet, and it takes Mamet’s conservativism personally.
The Hollywood Reporter sums up, “A Play About David Mamet Writing About Harvey Weinstein,” in a single terse sentence:
…a fictional David Mamet is poisoned, castrated and murdered along with his personal playwriting award.
Now, think about if the same play focused, say, Lena Dunham or Stephen Colbert, two chronically liberal artists, in such a violent method. What would possibly the response be? Colbert obtained canceled for shedding CBS $40 million a 12 months, and we’ve endured greater than per week of media mourning.
On this case, playwright Mathilde Dratwa will get a fawning profile in The Hollywood Reporter. Much more fascinating? The interviewer doesn’t even counsel that the play’s violent theme is perhaps worrisome.
It’s paying homage to the 2017 model of “Julius Caesar” through which a Trump stand-in is killed on stage.
In fact, Mamet’s right-leaning nature isn’t his solely thought crime. He additionally pens characters who’re aggressively male, and a few deal with ladies poorly, in accordance with THR. The nerve!
Dratwa admits she loved Mamet’s work earlier than, presumably, discovering it problematic. She’s additionally livid that a few of his performs, even unfinished, get assured stage time.
Maybe it’s as a result of Mamet has earned dozens of honors, together with the Pulitzer Prize.
The anti-Mamet manufacturing had a one-night-only off-Broadway efficiency that includes Abbi Jacobson, Billy Eichner and Kara Younger July 21.
To his credit score, Mamet hasn’t let himself stay silent. He nonetheless writes books about artwork, tradition and politics. He even retains making films, albeit within the indie market with a fraction of a conventional movie’s finances.
Maybe Dratwa’s subsequent manufacturing might give attention to an everlasting human foible – envy.