On the surface the play looks simple enough. Don Dubrow, who owns a junk-shop filled – in Paul Wills’s astonishing vertical design – with the detritus of American history, plans to rob a customer of a rare Buffalo nickel. He enlists the help of Bob, a druggie young protégé whom he clearly loves. But Don is tempted by a glib-tongued drifter and fellow card-player, Teach, to cut Bob out of the deal and let the two of them organise the raid and share the profits. The result is catastrophic for all concerned.
The play sprang out of Mamet’s close observation of street life and the vitality of the 1970s Chicago theatre scene, in which anything was possible. But the durability of the play depends on its ability to transcend itself and take on multiple meanings. On the psychological level, the play is a tragedy about Don’s destructive betrayal of Bob, for whom he has an implicitly homosexual passion, and his need to re-learn the values of trust and friendship. The play also has a palpable political dimension. The characters are all failed products of the American Dream, inhabit a world where “business†(a key word in the play) is equated with crime and, in the wake of Watergate, attempt a bungled robbery.
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There is a lot of comedy, taking me back to the movies of Abbot and Costello, in the characters’ cross-talking ineptitude. But the magnificence of the play rests on its metaphorical richness.
My only slight cavil about this production is that Mamet’s musical rhythms are affected by having one authentic American and two British actors in the cast. Otherwise, Daniel Evans’s production is meticulous in its psychological and physical detail. Goodman, best known for his work with the Coen Brothers, is quite brilliant as Don. He has the capacity to convey the character’s slow-moving thought-processes so that you actually see his seamed, rugged features flickering with guilt as he rationalises his betrayal of Bob. Throughout the actor conveys the troubled decency of a good man driven to self-betrayal.
Teach is the more showy role but Damian Lewis avoids the temptation for flashy, fast-talking virtuosity and instead excellently pins down the man’s neediness. Lewis paces the junk-shop as if it were his private terrain, trashes everyone he refers to and resorts to panic-stricken violence. But there is a key moment when Teach is asked to justify his lofty pronouncements on life and replies: “My life, Jim. And the way I’ve lived it.†At that point, Lewis gives us a terrifying glimpse of the character’s awareness of his own hollowness.
More than previous actors I’ve seen, a shaven-headed Sturridge also reminds us that Bob is a recovering addict who desperately depends on Don for stability and who goes to pieces when that anchoring trust is withdrawn. All three actors are very fine but the great virtue of this production is that it is more than a showpiece for stars and highlights Mamet’s ability to write a far-reaching fable about the jungle of American capitalism.
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