Romance: Mamet's Politically Incorrect Courtroom Farce

"Romance"
A play by David Mamet
Directed by: Scott Zigler
Set, J. Michael Griggs.
Costumes, Miranda Hoffman. Lights, D.M. Wood. Sound, David Remidios
At: Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, through June 7.
Tickets, $25-79, 617-547-8300, www.americanrepertorytheater.org

The only romance in “Romance,” David Mamet’s courtroom farce playing its last week at the American Repertory Theater, is Mamet’s love of language and the way he delights in making us squirm with his use of it. 

Prominently displayed in the theater lobby on a video screen crawl is “WARNING: this performance may offend lawyers, Arabs, judges, politicians, cats, Jews, historians, Arab-Americans, Catholics, rabbits, rabbit lovers, pedophiles, chiropractors, chiropodists, courtroom prosecutors, gays, liberals, Republicans, Episcopalians…” and that’s just the beginning.

 “If you’re here with your mom,” says an actor who introduces the play and touts the Mamet Festival in progress here, “good luck to you.” Yep. Two acts and two hours later you’ll have heard every kind of racist, homophobic, stereotypical, and ethnic slur in the book delivered in gleeful over the top performances by every man on the stage.

For the most part the play transpires in an urban courtroom presided over by an allergy stricken judge addled by enough antihistamines to kill a horse. He takes jurisprudence down lanes with absurd asides that become strangely relevant and show the all too human side of what we politely call human nature.

The first act contains three scenes. First, a courtroom in which a man is being interrogated by a prosecutor for an act we’re never quite sure of, officiated by a judge whose attention is hilariously drained by his gulping pills for his allergies, a bailiff who’s counting and supplying them, and a defense attorney who’s trying to keep his client out of jail.

The next two scenes, one in which the prosecutor and his gay lover engage in a lover’s quarrel and another in which the defense attorney meets with his client to advise him on a courtroom strategy, follow. This scene is as politically incorrect as anything you’ll ever witness. You will laugh - and wonder whether you should feel guilty about it - and squirm, even in the darkened theater, at the stereotypes and slurs that are being hurled around like cultural hand grenades.

Admit it, these are things that have run through your mind in some of your less than charitable moments. At least for me. And David Mamet knows it and aims at it with a sawed-off shotgun sense of humor.

Have you ever wondered whether Shakespeare was a Jew? Or gay? Or whether a chiropractor could hatch a plan for peace between the Arabs and the Jews? Thoughts like this ricochet off the second act and take off in a circus of non-sequitur absurdity. By the time the play is over, Mamet has reduced the reasons for conflict to absurdity and found a kinder gentler layer underneath it. The chiropractor’s plan for peace in the Mid-East, a theme that has been lofted into the play’s firmament since the opening minutes when a parade/demonstration noisily passes under the court’s window, is wacky but it acts as an undercurrent that fits right in with the contesting that’s going on in the courtroom.

At the center of all this is Will Lebow as the judge. Lebow might be the most gifted comic actor in town. His rich and malleable voice, impeccable timing, and zany characterization are at the play’s core and the foil for the other actors. Thomas Derrah (Prosecutor), Jim True-Frost (Defense Attorney), and Remo Airaldi (Defendant) are wonderfully realized but Lebow gobbles up the stage with his presence in a way that fuels his acting partners to push their own envelopes.

Mamet pens the churlishness with glee. Nearly lost in the hilarity is Mamet's deeper message. At one point, the judge muses, “How can you have world peace when you cant even have it in your own house?” 

The courtroom chaos is resolved in a way that would make Shakespeare grin, no matter what his religious affiliation. You’ve laughed, you've been touched, and you wonder whether we’ll ever get it right when it comes to live and let live.

Photo: Will LeBow (center) presides over his courtroom and (from left) Carl Foreman, Jim Senti, and Jim True-Frost. (Michael J. Lutch)

Note: “Romance” is part of  a Mamet celebration, "Sex, Satire, Romance, and Ducks," at the ART. Mamet’s "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" and "Duck Variations", two of his early comedies, will play at the Zero Arrow Theater from June 11 to June 28.

Comments

[Kati Mitchell]

Thanks so much for this lovely review, wish you had attended three weeks ago! Yours is one of the smartest reviews we have had, you should be writing for a publication.
Hope you will come see the next installment....
Best wishes
Kati Mitchell

[Susaan]

Bravo! This one is a gem!