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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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122589
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12258900.048
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1990-09-27
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BOOKS, Page 87Power Browser
By R.Z. Sheppard
SOME FREAKS
by David Mamet Viking; 180 pages; $16.95
David Mamet's principal occupation is writing bruising plays
(Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow) and film scripts (The
Verdict, The Untouchables). Not surprisingly, the characters in
these works are defined by what they do, not what they say. If
their words count, it is because Mamet counts their words, using
as few as possible to make his point and move his plot.
Some Freaks, like the author's previous collection of
commentary, Writing in Restaurants, is a break from the demands of
a difficult craft. It is also a chance for the playwright to mouth
off and strike a number of disparate poses: the poker-playing
resident of Vermont, the city boy who likes London tea shops, the
gunner who belongs to both the N.R.A. and the A.C.L.U. and the
provocateur who holds that women have no instinct for compromise
and negotiation. Ranging widely, Mamet allows that "I am, by nature
and profession, a browser." With the expanded confidence that comes
with success and fame, he ambles in where Broadway and Hollywood
angels fear to tread. It is fun to watch him keep his balance.
True, he recycles the familiar perception of Disneyland as a
benign totalitarian community and echoes criticism of the Reform
Judaism of his youth as an apology for being a Jew. But Mamet has
a fresher approach to the politics of image and empty rhetoric. He
equates Ronald Reagan's feeble explanations of the Iran
arms-for-hostages deal with the answers of parents whose fogginess
hides an implied threat: "If you want to remain a child, if you
want to enjoy the privilege of life without fear, do not judge me."
Questions of leadership pop up frequently. Disappointed by
Michael Dukakis' refusal "to stand on his hind legs and fight,"
Mamet drafts a strong and dignified speech that he and the reader
would have liked to hear the Democratic candidate deliver. As a
playwright, he argues that actors and directors should not freely
interpret his scripts; as a film director (House of Games) he
discovers that contrary to the cliche that making movies is a
collaborative business, the enterprise is and must be strictly
hierarchical. Having succeeded in the theatrical rat race against
committees and long odds, it is not surprising that Mamet favors
the individual over the collective. His view on using polls in
politics: "a reversion to Mob Rule."
Do not bother to label Mamet a liberal or a conservative. He
is a free radical attaching himself to whatever particle of reality
promises further knowledge of the whole. At times he can be --
well, freakish. How about an interpretation of Superman as the most
vulnerable of beings because his childhood had been destroyed?
Outre? You bet. But as Mamet confesses, "I've always been more
comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming
with an ugly fact."