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Author
David Mamet
Director
Matthew Warchus
Design
Rob Howell
Lighting
Paul Pyant
Charlie
Fox
Kevin Spacey
Bobby
Gould
Jeff Goldblum
Karen
Laura Michelle
Kelly
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The
Old Vic
1 Feb - 26 Apr 08 |
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'Life
in the movie business', says
Charlie Fox, a Hollywood script-writer,
'is like the beginning of
a new love affair: it's full
of surprises, and you're constantly
getting fucked.'
For him and his buddy film
producer Bob Gould, "fucking"
mainly has the metaphorical
meaning of "subordinating",
"humiliating", "destroying".
But it is Gould's literal
fucking of his temporary secretary,
Karen, that threatens to destroy
the two men's futures, which
are tantalisingly on the brink
of wealth and fame. For in
one night (the night after
a big, box-office Hollywood
star has asked to do Fox's
script, and Fox has offered
to co-produce it with Gould),
Karen manages to persuade
Gould to film a book about
God, fear, the human condition
and the end of the world instead.
The last of the three acts
shows Karen and Charlie Fox
battling for Gould's soul
before the scheduled meeting
with the man upstairs who
has the power to 'greenlight'
either film.
Mamet's play, originally produced
in 1988, has often featured
big, box-office stars itself
- Madonna in the first production
on Broadway, Jeff Goldblum
and Kevin Spacey in this production
at the Old Vic. And if the
conversion of such a cynical,
worldly man as Bob Gould in
only one night seems improbable,
that improbability simply
echoes the hundred and one
implausibly swift conversions
and redemptions of a hundred
and one Hollywood films -
or, for that matter, of many
plays which (like this one)
preserve the Unity of twenty-four
hours. But Mamet manages to
disconcert us. He sets up
a situation which seems designed
to follow neat, predictable
Hollywood conventions and
to cater to a Hollywood audience's
smug expectations, and then
breaks the rules. Where a
film with James Stuart or
Morgan Freeman would feature
probity versus corruption,
here all the protagonists
seem to have impure, self-interested
motives (in fact we are never
quite sure of Karen's), so
that it is not the usual dichotymy
between good and bad, integrity
versus shallowness, just a
matter of different sorts
of corruption and inauthenticity
struggling against one another.
Nor can we, setting aside
the impurity of motives, see
it (which we are set up to
do) as a battle to promote
soul-searching art (the book
Karen wants to have filmed)
rather than tawdry dross (Fox's
script). Script and book are
merely two different sorts
of dross - one, degrading
sex-and-violence; the other,
pretentious, purportedly-spiritual
gobbledigook.
In this Old Vic production,
Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacey
have the buddy schtick to
perfection. But ironically,
an anti-Hollywood play is
itself hijacked by the Hollywood
factor. It is because there
are two big Hollywood stars
in the male roles that the
production has been so massively
attended, and it perhaps puts
too much emphasis on the scenes
between Goldblum and Spacey
at the expense of the middle
act. But it is this middle
act, a two-hander between
Bob Gould and his temp, which
is so crucial. Speed-the-Plow
is in a way less a play than
a possible-film which the
characters are consciously
creating and enacting around
the two possible films they
are disputing about. Producer
and temp are alike convinced,
or have convinced themselves
and one another, that, in
the traditional Hollywood
way, she, and the filming
of the portentous book, can
redeem him from cynicism,
fear and exploitativeness.
They share a schmaltzy belief
in redemption, the 'fear'
about life that Karen talks
of, the hope to 'find something',
to be given a message, to
pick up that life-changing
book - in an inn or a bookshop,
the dread of being 'punished'.
They are both superstitious
in a self-aggrandising way,
assuming that they were 'put
here' for some purpose, 'called'
to their present positions,
that there must be 'a reason'
for their lives, their actions,
his promotion, their meeting.
But Goldblum doesn't convey
this, doesn't communicate
the hope, fear, desire for
salvation and meaning which
are so essential to the character
he plays. Although he gives
a brilliantly well-honed star-turn
with Kevin Spacey, his scene
with Karen is weak. And unfortunately
Speed-the-Plow
does not work properly unless
we believe that, although
Bob's motives in getting Karen
to his house were mere lust
and bravado, he is actually
swept away by her enthusiasm,
and beguiled by the feeling
that she can save him. Otherwise
the play remains at the level
of a skilled but superficial
masque.
Jane
O'Grady |
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