Mamet on Theatre Again

I've been re-reading David Mamet's book, Theatre. He is so contrarian. I know, what a shock, who would have thought that Mamet was the type to raise eyebrows?

If theatre were a religion, explains David Mamet in his opening chapter, “many of the observations and suggestions in this book might be heretical.”

He blithely trashes accepted contemporary theories of how plays should be written, of how they should be directed, of how they should be rehearsed.

I am deeply sympathetic to his view that the key task of the playwright is to make people wonder "what happens next" until the play is over.

I don't actually always agree with him, by any stretch of the imagination. But he makes me laugh. Well, not out loud. But inside.

I'm reading his book at the Chicago Public Library, and I just came across this, from a speech he gave there:

The media exists to enflame us, and I hold no brief—at least in the liberal arts—for that which calls itself Higher Education. The library is, and has always been, our national schoolhouse.

Typical!

Contrarian to the core,
he makes me want to read more.