From the very first lines of Speed-the-Plow, David Mamet’s influence on contemporary drama is obvious. The rapid-fire dialogue, the elaborate ruminations about nothing, the cynicism about all that is worthy and good; you can see shades of Mamet in everything from Seinfeld to The West Wing.
Bobby Gould (Damon Herriman) is the newly installed head of production of a major film studio – he’s so new they’re still painting his office. His longtime colleague Charlie Fox (Lachy Hulme) has just handed him an offer he can’t refuse: a prison film, a buddy film, with some serious star power attached to it. It’s a terrible script but it will make bank and Charlie wants Bobby to use his new position to greenlight the film and make them both rich.
As they prepare to meet the studio executive who will put the final stamp of approval on the project, Bobby and Charlie make a bet on Bobby’s chances of sleeping with the new temp, Karen (Rose Byrne). So Bobby, in an attempt to woo her, gets her to do the courtesy read of a novel he fully intends to ignore, The Bridge – what seems to be a kind of Paulo Coelho-type narrative of awakening, focused on radiation, humanity and survival – by what he calls an “Eastern sissy writer” and report back to him at his home later that evening.
When she shows up apparently transformed by the experience and convinced of the book’s importance, Bobby finds himself confronted with the possibility of “doing good” in the face of doing business.
Sydney Theatre Company’s revitalisation of Mamet’s satire about Hollywood, directed by Andrew Upton, comes at a time when anxieties about politics and the environment are high, blockbusters are ever more cartoonish and escapist, and what is worthy and good seems to be sacrificed at the altar of box office targets. On paper, at least, perhaps that is enough for a revival. Unfortunately, for all its energy, it’s a production that fails to adequately deal with the historical context that gives the play its satirical weight, or the sexism that forms the axis on which the play turns.
Speed-the-Plow is lean and it’s mean – a 95-minute meal of whip-crack dialogue and cutting commentary. Star power certainly isn’t in short supply here either: Byrne, in a role made famous by Madonna (and recently attempted by Lindsay Lohan), is at turns both demure and passionate; Hulme’s energetic and anxious Charlie lifts the scene whenever he’s on stage; and Herriman’s smooth and cynical Bobby is at his best when the two of them are firing lines back and forth.
But it is in questions of seduction that things start to unravel.
Mamet’s play hinges on the drama of the second act – when Karen arrives at Bobby’s house and attempts to convince him of the importance of The Bridge – and whether or not we believe in Bobby’s overnight transformation from cynical careerist to budding idealist. Much of this is dependent on the chemistry between Byrne and Herriman but, for all the cat-like crawling and champagne-on-the-rug lounging, that spark seems sadly absent.
There is also the question of whether Mamet’s script itself has stood the test of time. Speed-the-Plow was written in 1988 and while the design of STC’s production is, with the exception of a few details, relatively close to timeless, some crucial parts of the script are not.
Hollywood spent the 80s churning out action films like Rambo and The Terminator, which supported the hawkish aspects of Reaganism and promoted a particular conception of masculinity that still resonates in the blockbusters we see today. The routine dismissal of cultural products, meaningful or otherwise, from the other side of the Iron Curtain suggests a deeper political commentary buried within the text that would perhaps have resonated more, were we more firmly placed in the era in which the play is set.
The obsession with radiation that characterises The Bridge is a hallmark of Cold War nuclear anxieties. The book’s passages are meant to be ridiculous – this is satire, after all – but to a contemporary audience they also feel arbitrary. Anxieties about climate change are perhaps this generation’s parallel experience but there’s no space to signal such parallels here. Without that context, there’s no sense of worthiness about the book’s project at all, so Bobby’s transformation from cynic to advocate seems even less believable: given modern Hollywood’s proclivity for flogging shoot-em-up franchises or CGI spectacle over the subtle and refined, it seems bleedingly obvious to a contemporary audience that a buddy film would be a better bet than the jumbled wisdom of a well-meaning mystic, no matter how many pretty young women attempted to convince you otherwise.
Which brings home the final point: there’s also no escaping that this play is sexist. The very core of the narrative relies upon it. The power of satire lies in its exposure of human folly but underpinning that must be some sense of depth and complexity. Byrne does her best with tough material but the role of Karen is a thankless one, two-dimensional and ultimately undercut by the writer’s ruthlessness towards his sole female character.
If you can put these concerns aside, it’s still an entertaining night at the theatre. But perhaps it’s time to let this work of Mamet’s stay on the shelf.
• Sydney Theatre Company’s Speed-the-Plow is showing at the Roslyn Packer theatre until 17 December
