The transom rattles as the El-train roars by. A cranky shop owner lords over his counter of wares, barely lifting his eyes from a dog-eared paperback when a customer walks in. A young buck in a leather jacket lurks in the dark corner, checking the box scores, but keeping an ear cocked for any hint of a possible scam.
The sign on the stage door might says we’re on the island of Mauritius, but it sure seems like our boat has docked on the mainland known as Mamet – the district of American Buffalo to be exact. Like David Mamet’s iconic exploration of our appetites run amok, Theresa Rebeck’s 2009 play starts with a thing of value – a rare postage stamp rather than a buffalo-head nickel – and gives it the full Sierra Madre treatment. Handshakes become hand-to-hand combat as greed eats away at the thin veneer known as “our better selves.”
But wait. Something is different here. Isn’t that… a girl?! What’s a young woman doing playing these man-games? She’s even a little effervescent, babbling nervously instead of speaking in tense four-word epigrams.
Rebeck is just the kind of playwright to send a unlikely heroine into a “man’s world” like, um, philately. In Bad Dates, the men were at the periphery, “seen” only in the stories told by a desperate single woman looking for companionship. Here, Jackie is a young but scrappy naïf who finds herself among the lions and gladiators. Played by UWM undergrad Sara Zientek with terrific verve, she’s hungry enough to dive into this world, but smart enough to keep herself mostly out of harms way.
Rebeck spent years as a writer and producer for procedural crime dramas, and that comes as no surprise here. The turnabouts and double crosses will be familiar to fans of Mamet and “Law & Order” alike. But there’s also something different. In plays like American Buffalo, Mamet writes icons – characters who speak with the force and rhythm of a jazz soloist going full tilt (the spare writing in Dick Wolf’s oeuvre owes a lot to Mr. Mamet). Here, there’s more flesh on the bone and fumbling in the brain. It might be why it’s somewhat tough to get a bead on Dennis, the stamp shop hanger-on who sees a good scam when it tinkles the doorbell but also sees the mark as an interesting woman. As Dennis, Jonathan Wainwright starts out a bit unsteady, as if he’s still getting to know this guy. But by the play’s end, we’ve grown to like him, even if we don’t exactly trust him.
There’s no mistaking Sterling, a man cut right out of a frame of film noir. Brilliantly played by Drew Brhel, Sterling is the made man. His suit is pressed, his voice is opera-tenor pure, and his pocket square just might be woven from pure platinum. If Mamet sees commerce as war, Sterling sees it as the ultimate seduction, and his second act speech about the joys of “making the deal” is quietly thrilling.
C. Michael Wright and Betsy Skowbo round out a great cast, directed by Andrew Volkoff, who orchestrates these disparate characters into a very neat storytelling machine.
