'mamet'ian dialogue

I just recently saw "Speed The Plow" with my friend Julie. She's a huge Raul Esparza fanatic. I'm quite fond of him also. Originally, Jeremy Piven was co-starring in the show, but due to his recent "mercury poisoning" incident related to indulging in too much sushi, William H. Macy was the replacement. Now, I'm extremely fond of William H. Macy. Ever since I saw him in Fargo, I've been looking for him in films, shows, and what not. He's a phenomenal actor, and he is a person who indeed "lives truthfully under imaginary circumstances."

People hate David Mamet. 

Apparently he:

-writes degrading roles for females

-creates interruptive, terse dialogue which doesn't resemble real-life conversation

-is rarely wrong, thus leaving him almost always correct

-only casts his friends, so only his friends understand his dramatic structure

The first play I ever read by David Mamet was "Oleanna." It was assigned in my Script Analysis class, and it was a very difficult read. The main complaint I extracted from our class discussion was, "The dialogue was interruptive! Everyone was fighting."

"Oleanna" is a fight, a constant fight. It grows as the subtleties fade however. The entire show is a "power-play" between the professor/author and the pupil/reader. It's meant to sound argumentative and tense.

Recently, I worked on a scene from "November" for a directing class. This was recently running in New York with Nathan Lane and Dylan Baker. It's a side-splitting, witty, political farce. It's not as difficult a read as is say, "Oleanna" or "Glengarry Glen Ross," but it's certainly still got this interruptive quality to the dialogue. I tried to understand the need to write such quick, overlapping scenes.

After seeing, "Speed The Plow," I had a vague understanding of the need for this non-flowing form of dialogue. In every play, a character wants something from someone.

The three main bullet points Mamet usually hits upon are:

-Who wants what from who?

-Why now?

-What happens if they don't get it?

If a scene had two characters,

MARY-  pregnant, in love with Ted.

TED- just drafted, not in love with Mary.

the scene may possibly read something like:

MARY: No Ted. They said the 8th.

TED: I know. I know. I heard it. I'm just in denial.

MARY: We could go to Canada and get married!

TED: I have to call my mother...

MARY: What if we start packing now?

TED: "Hello, Momma?"

MARY: Ted. 

TED: "Oh, you were watching the tube too?"

MARY: Ted! We need to figure out what we're gunna do!

TED: "Let me call you back, Mom."

MARY: Ted, you obviously can't go.

TED: I have to! It's my civic duty.

[the constant formation of non-linear conversation eventually dissipates as the two characters meet at a mutual topic that they both give two shits about, but for the majority of mamet's scenes, the character is "waiting for his/her turn to talk."]

Wow, now isn't that just like life...? Quite "real-life" indeed."