When my friend Robert Barwick told me he was to play Bobby Gould in Speed The Plow, I let out a silent moan. I had seen two Broadway productions and both left me looking at my watch most of the time. Once with Joe Mategna, Ron Silver and Madonna, the other with Bill Macy, Raul Esperanza and Elizabeth Moss. If star power couldn't help this weak David Mamet piece, I doubted the good folks at The Summit Playhouse could invigorate it. I knew I had to go support my friend, but was dreading it.
Well, I was wrong and it's testament to a great director and ensemble cast who played the difficult rhythms and staccatos of Mamet like a great Stradivarius.
The 3-person, no intermission, play is set in Hollywood in the late 80s. Bobby has just been promoted to head of production of a major studio, and his old friend Charlie brings him a script that will make them both rich. The fix is in, a meeting with the studio head is set, and they have Bobby's temporary assistant arrange a lunch table.
Of course it's not set, and later that night the assistant convinces Bobby to ditch the commercial piece and make a "meaningful "piece instead.
I won't ruin the ending, but will say no one does desperation like Mamet. Like his other works American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross, in Speed The Plow Mamet plumbs the depth of how far an individual is willing to go to get what he wants. His characters are spiritually and morally bankrupt, if not occasionally very, very funny.
As played by James Ryan Sloan, Charlie Fox is a wonder to behold. Driven and by years of watching other people make it in Hollywood (including his friend Bobby), he knows this deal could be his last chance at fortune and he throws himself into selling it with the force of a Category 4 storm. Mr. Sloan's comic timing is perfection, if not once in a while a bit over-the-top. But you don't mind. All movement and motivation, he will get what he wants and when does, will get his revenge.
Danielle Pennisi as Karen, the temp., leads us down a circuitous path of ethical conviction and you believe every word. Robert Barwick is the consummate straight man. He's kept his head down, played by the rules, and is now reaping the rewards. Watching him make the agonizing choice between right and wrong, between moral and immoral, is like watching a parent who smoked pot in college find dope in their teenagers room. What to do, what to do. Sex, greed, ethics -- Bobby Gould is just trying to make it by other people's rules until he is in a position to make his own rules.
As directed by Trey Compton, who has a number of professional directing and assistant director credits to his name, the play moves like speeding freight train. Making movies and lunching at the right restaurant are serious business, and his characters inhabit the entire stage, turn their backs to the audience, throw art, smoke, talk over and subtly (and not so subtly) seduce each other, to get what they want. These are Hollywood brats at their most brattiness, and Mr. Compton's direction is spot on.
A couple of needling points -- in image-obsessed Hollywood no one would ever walk around in a suit that was too big for them, and the costumes were distracting. Ms. Pennisi's hair was a bit overwrought (she's a double for Jane Kusak in Shameless) and while the set was imaginative, I doubt Bobby would live in a such a traditional setting.
But these are small points. I often wonder what playwrights and pieces will still be produced fifty years from now. Who will be our modern equivalents to Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller? Their plays are still produced because while set in a different time, their universal themes are so well explored -- lust, regret, loss. Thank you Trey et. al. for making me rethink David Mamet and hoping that when I turn 95 there might be another Broadway revival of Speed The Plow that so adeptly captures the greed, desperation, and comedy that inhabit us all.
