Three Uses of the Knife On the Nature and Purpose of Drama
by David Mamet
The purpose of theater, like magic, like religion . . . is to inspire cleansing awe. What makes good drama? And why does drama matter in an age that is awash in information and entertainment? David Mamet, one of our greatest living playwrights, tackles these questions with bracing directness and aphoristic authority. He believes that the tendency to dramatize is essential to human nature, that we create drama out of everything from today’s weather to next year’s elections. But the highest expression of this drive remains the theater.
With a cultural range that encompasses Shakespeare, Bretcht, and Ibsen, Death of a Salesman and Bad Day at Black Rock, Mamet shows us how to distinguish true drama from its false variants. He considers the impossibly difficult progression between one act and the next and the mysterious function of the soliloquy. The result, in Three Uses of the Knife, is an electrifying treatise on the playwright’s art that is also a strikingly original work of moral and aesthetic philosophy.
Literary CriticismDramaPhilosophyAestheticsPerforming ArtsTheater
RELEASED2000
PUBLISHERKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
LENGTH96
LANGUAGEEN
David Alan Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for their exploration of masculinity. Mamet received Tony Award nominations for Glengarry Glen Ros (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988), as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross. As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997). ([Source][1].) [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet
Three Uses of the Knife On the Nature and Purpose of Drama
by David Mamet
The purpose of theater, like magic, like religion . . . is to inspire cleansing awe. What makes good drama? And why does drama matter in an age that is awash in information and entertainment? David Mamet, one of our greatest living playwrights, tackles these questions with bracing directness and aphoristic authority. He believes that the tendency to dramatize is essential to human nature, that we create drama out of everything from today’s weather to next year’s elections. But the highest expression of this drive remains the theater.
With a cultural range that encompasses Shakespeare, Bretcht, and Ibsen, Death of a Salesman and Bad Day at Black Rock, Mamet shows us how to distinguish true drama from its false variants. He considers the impossibly difficult progression between one act and the next and the mysterious function of the soliloquy. The result, in Three Uses of the Knife, is an electrifying treatise on the playwright’s art that is also a strikingly original work of moral and aesthetic philosophy.
Literary CriticismDramaPhilosophyAestheticsPerforming ArtsTheaterHistory & Criticism
RELEASED2000
PUBLISHERKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
LENGTH96
LANGUAGEEN
David Alan Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for their exploration of masculinity. Mamet received Tony Award nominations for Glengarry Glen Ros (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988), as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross. As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997). ([Source][1].) [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet
