Pamplona

I was lucky to get to see Pamplona starring Stacy Keach at the Goodman Theater. Set in a hotel room in Spain, Pamplona shows Ernest Hemingway struggle with writer’s block as the tries to write an article on bullfighting for Life magazine. As he struggles, Hemingway looks back on his life – all four of his marriages, his conflicts with his father and mother, his writing career and his love and respect for bullfighters and their sport.

Throughout the play, vintage photos are projected on the hotel walls placing the set in history. Pamplona is staged in Goodman’s smaller theater, which resembles Chicago’s Shakespeare Theater so every seat provides a good view in an intimate setting.

Keach brings Hemingway to life and is wonderful in this show. You have to be a powerful performer to captivate an audience for 90 minutes. Kudos to Keach, who made me want to read more Hemingway novels.

I enjoyed learning more about this writer and was pleased with the surprising ending. Just masterful. The play was one of the best of this year’s season.

 

November

Since I’m taking the MasterClass David Mamet teaches I thought I’d read some of his plays. This week I got his play November (2008) which is about an American president Charles Smith who’s up for re-election with no funds for campaigning. He’s been cut off by his party. He’s getting no help from his speech writer either. He has one person who’s still advising him, Archer.

Archer provides a reality check (if we can call information on the absurdity of how DC works reality) for the President. Smith would like to strong arm his opponents and betrayers as they cut off his funds or call in sick.

A main plotline here is the President’s traditional pardon of a turkey before Thanksgiving. According to the play, the turkey farmers’ association gives the president a stipend, a hefty stipend for the pardon. Now Smith strives to up the amount by threatening to have his speechwriter convince the public that it’s not PC to eat turkey.

The play moves quickly and has a robust humor, colored with profanity, as you’d expect from Mamet. The story is outlandish and now a bit dated because we’ve resolved some of the issues it tackles. I wouldn’t say this is a must read or that the play’s a must see. It does exemplify Mamet’s rules for writing, e.g. don’t bore the audience with exposition and start in medias res.

 

After Ashley

I just read Gina Gianfriddo’s play After Ashley. It’s a witty play with some strong content. It shares the story of Ashley Hammond a very unhappy woman who’s stuck in her marriage and discusses her troubles with Justin her 14 year old son. She doesn’t have a good sense of boundaries and goes to town on her husband to her son, who continually begs her to stop complaining about his dad.

When Aaron Hammond, Ashley’s husband, appears he announces that he’s hired a homeless man to work around the house and Ashley challenges him on this choice. Like Rapture, Blister, Burn, the lead female character is lost, strong and sexually experimental (you don’t see that side, you hear about it) and the male lead is more passive and seeks out a troubled person to come into his home to work against his wife’s wishes.

The play jumps ahead three years and Ashley’s had been raped and murdered by the homeless guy. Of course, that’s hard to take, but Gianfriddo does a better job than most writers with the topic. Readers or audiences see Justin and Aaron struggling to over how to cope with their loss. Justin is certainly critical of Aaron’s decision to cash in and gain fame by hosting a tasteless reality show about victimhood.

The play sounds like it’s so violent and bleak. I can’t recommend it because, while I liked the writing and the playwright presents us with her ideas from a comfortable distance while still making her point, I can see it’s not for everyone. Still, the play is smart and well paced. If you’re not sensitive to the subject matter, I think you’d enjoy After Ashley.