David Mamet's early plays are very much back in fashion. They are no pushovers, as this production proves. One of the problems is that Mamet's tales of lowlife losers have spawned so many copies, not just in the theatre but also on film and TV, that even the most authentic is in danger of seeming somehow shoddy and devalued. It takes a first-rate production to make the play seem essential, not something you have seen many times before. This isn't it.
The first difficulty is the space. There are plenty of plays that are enhanced by the Exchange's unique in-the-round performing area, so why choose one that isn't? American Buffalo is a high-maintenance play. It requires an input of rocket fuel-style energy or it seems thin and dowdy. What energy there is in the Royal Exchange's performances floats upwards and disappears. The design (or lack of it) doesn't help, deliberately concentrating on the outer edges of the playing area rather than its centre.
The actors might as well be in different countries, such is the lack of physical intimacy between them. Nor do they inhabit most of the space itself, a mistake in a drama in which a junk shop is a haven for a bunch of inadequate crooks who talk big but are scared of the dangerous outside world. One of the great ironies of the play is that they end up destroying not just each other but also the only place they can call their own: a shop stuffed full of the worthless.
As the eager-to-please Bobby, the new kid on the block who is every bit as dumb as he seems, Paul Popplewell gives the only real performance of the production. This is a young man who just isn't equipped for the life he leads, who is always going to end up bleeding. As Donny, Mike McShane is so low-key as to barely register, and Ben Keaton misses Teach's wired rage by a mile. I saw a matinee performance; the charitable explanation is that they were saving themselves for the evening.
· Until May 18. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
