May 6, 2011
\nAdelaide
\nTheatre<\/p>\n
November
\nBy David Mamet
\nState Theatre Company of South Australia
\nDunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
\nMay 5. Tickets $ 29 – $59. Bookings : BASS 131 246
\nUntil May 22.<\/p>\n
Charles P. Smith is President of the United States. He is within days of losing re-election and he doesn\u2019t know why. \u201c\u201dIt\u2019s because you\u2019ve screwed the country into a cocked hat,\u201d his adviser, Archie Brown, helpfully explains. \u201cBut at least I\u2019ve done something !\u201d is the bewildered reply. Although first performed in 2007 in the last year of the George W. Bush presidency, David Mamet\u2019s satire November is a White House sitcom about no Commander in Chief in particular. The point is made that the President is just a man in a suit (unless your name is Hillary of course) and the characters are, rather disgenuously described as that. <\/p>\n
In this case, it seems the wrong Mr Smith has come to Washington. He is a dud President who desperately wants a legacy \u2013 a library would be nice, but he\u2019s obviously never read a book. Anyway, for his departure he needs money, so just when he\u2019s looking for a donor to shake down, along comes the Turkey Representative for the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardon ceremony. Suddenly the President\u2019s fee has gone up to $200 million. But Smith\u2019s lesbian speechwriter also has ideas. She will write him into posterity if he will preside over her same- sex marriage, live on national television. <\/p>\n
With Victoria Lamb\u2019s replica of the Oval Office worthy of something from The West Wing, director Adam Cook sets this mixed bag of a play into brisk farce. He is greatly helped by Garry McDonald as Smith, who skillfully straddles the odd mix of candour, invective, special pleading and fecklessness that Mamet has written. McDonald\u2019s mock torment, writhing self pity and perfect comic timing give traction to Mamet\u2019s best lines and he is ably helped by Peter Michell\u2019s unflappable Archie and Michael Habib\u2019s amusingly discombobulated turkey rep. Barbara Lowing fares well also as Clarice Bernstein, the speechwriter
\nwrangling with a president who by Act 3 has gone from Nixonian outbursts to become a genial duffer who might be played by Steve Martin – or Homer Simpson. <\/p>\n
Cook has produced an entertaining night in the theatre but we are left wondering about its purpose and timing – both now and when Mamet staged it. In its odd mix of deep cynicism and hopeful idealism November is trying to have it all ways. Perhaps the President is just a man in a suit but after Iraq, the GFC, the collapse of the domestic economy and the divisions of the Tea Party, David Mamet\u2019s fuzzy appeal to the spirit of American can-do (the do-it-yourselfers he calls the tinkerers and \u201cshade mechanics\u201d) seems like a na\u00efve joke in itself.<\/p>\n
Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president as part turkey, part lame duck\u201d The Australian May 9, 2011, p.19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May 6, 2011 Adelaide Theatre November By David Mamet State Theatre Company of South Australia Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre. May 5. Tickets $ 29 – $59. Bookings : BASS 131 246 Until May 22. Charles P. Smith is President of the United States. He is within days of losing re-election and he doesn\u2019t know why. \u201c\u201dIt\u2019s because you\u2019ve screwed the country into a cocked hat,\u201d his adviser, Archie Brown, helpfully explains. \u201cBut at least I\u2019ve done something !\u201d is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,5,14,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-22","category-archive","category-state-theatre-company","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1735,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions\/1735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}