Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Whoroscope and the Fowl Permutations, March 26, 2001
Forget *Swingers*, forget *High Fidelity*, forget Tarantino's trash-talking hoods, David Mamet got there way before these belated young Turks. *Sexual Perversity in Chicago* is a brilliant, in-your-face series of vignettes sloshing through the muck of modern relationships. Two men and two women lock horns in a lewd scrimmage of blackly funny narcissistic power-plays, a despairing search for flitting, short-lived solace and pleasure, blasted by cruelty, impatience, tooth-and-claw feral soliloquy on why the opposite gender is one-part vampire, one-part Machiavel, can't live with them, can't sell them for parts (tee-hee).Metropolitan swingers circling the drain of mean-streets cynicism and tough-talking bachelorhood, trawling the muddy waters of singles bars and yuppie night spots, searching for that ephemeral ounce of pleasure in a world of subterfuge and delay, mind-games and cruel deception, an odium of broken expectations and buried dreams.... Funny as the play is, it's distressing to have our noses rubbed in this point-blank opprobrium of our own basest impulses, the Spirit of Revenge which contaminates many of our frantic attempts to love and be loved. Refreshingly, the women in Mamet's play seem much more interesting than the men, if only because their cynicism is more richly varied, more intellectually pungent. As shellshocked veterans of the gender war, it remains difficult to decide whether Mamet's scenarios are A: exaggerated worst-case aberrations, or B: (gulp) true-to-life tableaux on how perversely we are prone to behave toward one another, a vicious circle of paranoid self-hatred razing the purlieus of conventional "happiness" (or post-coital afterglow, once the bar is dropped). Mamet suggests that at the outer limits of cynical self-abasement, human beings will "experiment" with cruelty the same way an S&M enthusiast would assay with handcuffs and bullwhip, the minds and hearts of anonymous lovers beaten like a Teletubbie pinata with the broomstick of our own wounded narcissism. *The Duck Variations* is a classic low-budget scenario about two post-Beckettian bumps on a log pontificating on life, death, and the migratory patterns of Midwestern fowl. In the mind's eye theater I was forced to cast Jack Lemmon and the late Walter Mathau as Emil and George, two grumpy old men shadow-boxing in the dusklands of existential twilight. Mamet seemed still unable (or unwilling) at this point to write a full-length, tightly plotted drama, but the fragmentary dialogue presented here is brilliantly caustic, evocative, piercing and droll. Emil's and George's sedentary anxiety over the park wildlife that play out and exemplify the human condition, their ability to sublimate the necrophobic terrors of old-fogeyhood with caustic wit and good-natured foreboding, is presented with dashing brilliance and aplomb, a wonderfully true friendship between two men skirting the edges of karmic inquiry. Written in Mamet's early twenties, *The Duck Variations* exemplifies the brash virtuoso cunning that would go on to contribute *Glengarry Glen Ross* and *Speed-the-Plow*, amongst other masterworks, and is still worth reading a quarter-century later. (Also recommended for young actors as an exercise in brevity, timing, precision, and economy of affect.) All in all, this book represents Mamet-in-embryo, the birth of a playwright, another fine anthology of one-liners and intellectual jousts to make the reader's anxieties seem a little less peerless and unparalleled, a little less alone in the world.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant Wordsmith, January 4, 2001
David Mamet proves time and time again that he has mastered the language of men and women alike. Sexual Perversity is an abrasive but honest look at the state of sex in the minds of adults during the post-collegiate and early career building years. Mamet, as in all of his plays, shows honest humanity in tangible, easily-believed characters. The language is obscene & perverse but horrificly true-to-life and natural. Working with nothing more thant stereotypes, he chisels out characters so real and so vivid as to leave the audience thirsting for more. David Mamet has proven himself time and time again that he is a not only the definitive analysis of pop culture and modern trends, but also a brilliant wordsmith as well.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Learn about Sex & Ducks, April 27, 2009
I must confess the only reason that I read "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" was because of the movie it inspired "About Last Night..." I must have watched this movie a million times having a love and hate for it, these feelings are explained in full detail in my review here on Amazon.
My interest was always peaked about the catalyst of the 1986 film, so I have wanted to read the play for quite sometime now. My brother bought me this book for my birthday and now I was finally able to satisfy my curiosity. This book features two plays "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" and "The Duck Variations", both written by David Mamet.
The play is totally different from the film. (From my understanding David Mamet loathed "About Last Night"...) The dialogue is much rawer, in your face, honest and not quite as jovial. There is a still an element of comedy, but I would suggest it is more focused human relations, where the movie is more of a "romantic-comedy". There are only four characters in this play; Danny, Debbie, Bernie and Joan. The events take place over a nine week period in a Chicago summer.
The scenes are short and many ways leave much open to interpretation, as does the entire play. Not only do I feel that this is a wonderful play, I feel it really depicts the struggle and camaraderie between men and women. As for this play being written in the early 1970s, the dialogue and situations are still relevant in modern times.
"The Duck Variations" is a very different type of play from "Sexual Perversity in Chicago". "The Duck Variations" is about two elder men named George and Emil who are sitting in a park and discussing many different aspects of life. The glue or foundations to their conversations are ducks. George and Emil are both obviously naïve about their knowledge of ducks. They both also appear a bit lacking in some of the assumptions they make. Subsequently, ducks (in this play) appear to be an allegory for meaning of life, experiences, emotions and endeavors.
This play has the same wit, humor and realism that "Sexual Perversity in Chicago", minus the crude language and harsh content. The play/story is overall a very heartwarming interaction that is very timeless tale.
I can see both of these plays being performed in a black box theater. As a matter of fact, both of these plays could be performed as a double billing, since both these plays are short. These plays really showcase character development rather than intricate storylines. They are also good reads.
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