How Good is David Mamet, Anyway?: Writings on Theatre and Why it Matters Book

What makes an actor great? Why is English theater better than American-or is it? How good is David Mamet, anyway?John Heilpern, theater critic for The New York Observer, has spent a career watching the plays and the players, the geniuses and the also-rans, the great and the not so great on both sides of the Atlantic, and writes about them with lightness and passion.How Good is David Mamet, Anyway? is the best of John Heilpern's theater writings. The players are many: Vanessa Redgrave and Ralph Fiennes, Helen Mirren and George C. Wolfe, Fiona Shaw and Savion Glover, Karen Finley and David Mamet, and dozens of others. There's also an important essay on the differences between the British and American theater scenes, profiles of such legends as Noel Coward, Alec Guinness, and Michael Bennett, engaging pieces on such figures as Peter Brook and Robert Brustein, review-essays on dozens of great, good, and awful plays, as well as contrary opinions on some of our most widely admired playwrights. There are comic turns, too: "The Year of the Penis" and "The Art of Falling Asleep at the Theatre." Serious or witty, John Heilpern's criticism persuades us that theater matters, after all.For anyone who loves the stage and its timeless mystery and fun, How Good is David Mamet, Anyway? is a chocolate box of a book.Read More