Customer Reviews

Boston Marriage

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For all the actress who have been waiting for great female characters from writer David Mamet, the wait is over! This is a lovely fantasy about a scandalous, tawdry lesbian couple circa 1900. Think Les Liaisons Dangereuses meets the women in Satre's No Exit. The dialogue is wonderfully paced, intensely comic, and astonishingly inventive.

Mamet seems to reinvent and reinvigorate his writing with this play. This is the playwright in a playful and endearing mood, writing about comically vicious and self-centered women who nevertheless win our hearts.

The plays seems to be reversing the classical notion of the nineteenth century rake (a womanizing man- often cast as the hero in historical romances). This time it is the women who are sexually controlling, on the hunt for new flesh, cavalier with romantic feelings, and casually selfish about creature pleasures.

There are lots of great two or three women scenes in this for actors' and directors' class work and showcase pieces. 90% of the play is a duologue between two women, with a maid who pops in and out.

David Mamet can definitely write about women and for women as demonstrated by his play "Boston Marriage."

The play's underlying story concerns two turn of the century women who have lived together in Boston in a "Boston Marriage" (a term that refers to a long term female couple usually involved both emotionally and physically). The couple live on the fringes of fashionable society, a world that they both care for deeply despite their unorthodox behavior. One woman, Anna, has recently taken on a wealthy lover to support their luxurious lifestle. The other, Claire, has recently become infatuated with a young woman (perhaps in retaliation for Anna taking a lover) and wants Anna to help her in her assignation. Meanwhile, both women delight in abusing their parlor maid, Catherine, whose name or nationality they never bother to remember.

Mamet's play sparkles because of its tart, crisp dialogue and brisk pacing. These women delight in tortuting each other, their lovers, their friends, and of course, their maid. Mamet neatly delineates the tremendous importance of class structure at this time: the women's snobbishness towards their immigrant help is absolutely appalling. Both women clearly crave acceptance by good society while at the same time flouting its rules.

I would recommend "Boston Marriage" to those who enjoy Mamet, female-driven books and theater, and modern plays.

Two women live together in a "Boston Marriage" (a long-term living arrangement between women), trying to weasel their way up into high class society but never quite making it. The dialogue of this play is witty and quick. The scenes are scarce. And the subtext of the relationship tensions will appeal to any and all Bronte/Austen fans out there. For the rest of us, not so much.

-- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

"Boston Marriage" arrived as advertised, and on time. Who could ask for more? But I got more - a handwriten note from the dealer commenting on the text and on several productions he had seen! (Amazon e-shopping trumps the Shop Around the Corner.) I guess he just had to share his enthusiasm for the play.

My comments? The play is an absolute miracle, the love child of our oh-so-earthy Mamet and the stylish Victorian Oscar Wilde. "The Importance of Being Earnest" meets "Glen Gary Glenross."

I had seen a very fine prodction in Europe. What an added treat it is to reread and savor the wit of Mamet as he explores the sexual aspects of the lives of two most proper ladies and the servant who gives them tit for tat. (Fear not, gentle reader, there are no "dirty" words; the entire play takes place in a drawing room awash in chintz.)

If you love Mamet, if you are a theater buff, if you revere Wilde, if you want to appear sophisticated and au courant at your next cocktail party, if you just like WORDS, you have to read this gem.

This is a terrific Mamet piece, full of wit, charm, intelligent banter and social recognition weaved through characters whose casual cruelty and social awareness unite Victorian era sensibilities and the present "common-place" homosexual relationship.
A "Boston Marriage" may be a sexual or asexual partnership. In this case the love between Anna and Claire is combative, antagonistic and with the support of their Scotch maid Catherine, very funny and idiosyncratic. As if on an island of their own pleasure they claw and repost and debate their place in fashionable society. Anna has become a mistress and recieved a jewel and bank to satisfy. Meanwhile Claire has fallen for a younger woman, whom she enlists Anna into helping seduce.
Without revealing specific details of the story, they are enmeshed in a drama of drawing room proportions, in an era where hushed gossip was as deadly as candid pictures, and social standing in the eyes of the upper class meant...something.
I love Mamet. He constantly mesmerizes both viscerally and intellectually. He is a brilliant writer-here the language flows beatifully within the era's style, while retaining the patent he has on clipped, enigmatic and fluid dialogue, he is a seemingly infinite creative and theatrical artist. As a foray into a feminine world he has presented here a historical piece that is funny, able to unite eras a century apart, and ultimately lovely...