![\"John](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/John-Goodman-Don-Tom-Sturridge-Bob-and-Damian-Lewis-Teach-in-American-Buffalo-at-Wyndhams-Theatre.-Credit-Johan-Persson-11.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nJohn Goodman (Don), Tom Sturridge (Bob) and Damian Lewis (Teach) in American Buffalo at Wyndham’s Theatre. Photograph by Johan Persson<\/p>\n
David Mamet has apparently reversed many of the political and social views he held when American Buffalo<\/em> was first staged in 1975, and now supports free market economics and Hayek \u2013 which just shows, I suppose, that you can take the boy out of Chicago, but you can\u2019t take Chicago out of the boy. I don\u2019t care if, forty years on from this masterpiece, Mamet believes that Martians make merry in Manchester at Michaelmas \u2013 when he wrote this play he was touched by genius. On the verbal surface it shows the influence and has the allure of plays by Beckett and Pinter; underneath there is turmoil of the sort early Mamet made his very own.<\/p>\n The production that has just opened in London, directed by Daniel Evans, has genuine luxury casting, with Damian Lewis as \u201cTeach,\u201d ginger-haired, Zapata-moustached, swanking about the stage in a flared-trouser suit the colour of stale tomato ketchup; normally pretty Tom Sturridge with a shaved head looking like a painted light bulb, playing the dim, drug-addled Bob; and, best of all, really, John Goodman as Don Dubrow, owner of the shop where the play is set. Don is slow, shambling, and can\u2019t remember how to button his enormous cardigan properly, though he uses one of its pockets as his bank.<\/p>\n Don\u2019s layered look, as well as Don\u2019s Resale Shop \u2013 a junk shop \u2013 are by set and costume designer Paul Wills, who must surely win a prize for his vertical-emphasis set, with the detritus and debris of mid-70s urban America suspended from the ceiling and lining the walls. It\u2019s not much of a spoiler to say it has to be reconstructed for each performance. The first thing Don has to do is tidy up after the all-night poker game (in which he lost a fair bit of dosh.)<\/p>\n The \u201cbuffalo\u201d is a valuable buffalo nickel that Don has sold to a sharp customer for $90. He\u2019s convinced that he was cheated, and that it\u2019s worth five times as much, so sets out to steal it back. To do this, he enlists Bob, who is almost simple, but has as much enthusiasm for petty crime as he can muster for anything. Teach swaggers into the junk shop, and persuades Don to cut out the boy Bob, and let him, Teach, do a more professional job of burglary. (Don\u2019t forget the date of the play \u2013 this is post-Watergate, and post Tricky Dick\u2019s resignation. If there\u2019s a judgment being passed, it\u2019s one I agree with: that Nixon and Co. were small time crooks, with limited imagination. Never mind that Mamet might want to recant, or at least see things another way nowadays.)<\/p>\n John Goodman\u2019s performance is superlative in every way, but particularly in the way Don shows his love for Bob. It\u2019s not exactly gay, and it\u2019s not totally paternal. Don worries whether Bob and Teach have eaten breakfast, whether they\u2019ve had enough sleep, but is oblivious to why Bob needs the money he is constantly cadging from him. Goodman coveys his concern with a hug, but you never feel any sexual electricity. He talks about cards, booze and girls, but if he\u2019s suppressing anything, it\u2019s hard to say what. There are two female characters referred to, Ruthie and Grace, who never make an appearance, though Teach uses the C-word about them, hints at lesbianism, and even accuses one of them of being an accessory to cheating during the poker game. His lack of trust applies to the other never-on-stage character, Fletch, whom he accuses of outright cheating.<\/p>\n Thus it\u2019s a woman-less, working-class male, Mamet universe where this tumult takes place. At issue under the beautiful, brilliant surface of the text (which all three actors raise near to the condition of verse) is how to be a man, how to be a friend, how to trust someone and how to show trust. The hand (and brain) of Pinter and Beckett are shown in the inevitable conclusion that these three characters are co-dependent in the sense that none of them has anyone else to trust or love or model their behaviour on. But they are hollow men, and there are moments in the play when each of them shows he knows it. It\u2019s also Pinterian and Beckettian because it has some very funny episodes and moments.<\/p>\n If you have the opportunity to see this production at Wyndham’s Theatre, it\u2019s not to be missed. Some fellow critics found the first half a bit draggy. This made me wonder: we were told it lasted (a blissfully brief) 2 hours and 15 minutes; but when I collected my press tickets we were told 2 hours and 5 minutes (and I had to re-book my taxi). Could it be that it has been cut or speeded up by ten whole minutes since the previews? If so, kudos to the director, as I found it moved as gracefully and fast as a champion thoroughbred.<\/p>\n [contextly_auto_sidebar id=”e0Y9lmjPzaNB81zFK30xFArJBzMhSvgU”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Goodman (Don), Tom Sturridge (Bob) and Damian Lewis (Teach) in American Buffalo at Wyndham’s Theatre. Photograph by Johan Persson David Mamet has apparently reversed many of the political and social views he held when American Buffalo was first staged in 1975, and now supports free market economics and Hayek \u2013 which just shows, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blogroll-2","7":"category-elsewhere","8":"category-uncategorized","9":"entry","10":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-gT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1049,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions\/1049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}