A Wench In The Works

7 Pages 1694 Words

In 1963, James Brown declared, “it’s a man’s world.” Playwright and director David Mamet would suggest that maybe the world is not entirely men’s anymore, but the business world certainly is. Moreover, when women enter the male domain of business, they do not understand the basic rules of this male-dominated area of American existence. As a result, women befoul the ability of business to function correctly. Mamet implies that males and females are opposite sexes and that business is a male endeavor—therefore women are antithetical to business (Greenbaum 33). Women, ignorant of proper business procedure, use their sexuality to trap the man to exert the will of the woman. Once the woman traps the man, the man becomes emasculated—he loses whatever claim he had to continue being seen as a man working in the men’s world of business. In Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, and Oleanna, Mamet retains a central theme: if men did not have to deal with women, business could operate unhindered.
First, though, one must consider Mamet’s beginnings. David Mamet was born on November 30, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were Bernard Morris Mamet, an attorney, and Lenora June Silver, a teacher. Through his life, Mamet married twice and divorced once. His first wife, Lindsay Crouse, and his second wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, are both actresses. He has three daughters: Willa, Zosia, and Clara.
Mamet graduated from Goddard College, a small liberal school in rural Vermont, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Nary four years out of school Mamet founded the St. Nicholas Theatre Company in Chicago. During those four years, Mamet was an artist-in-residence in drama at Goddard. In the following years, Mamet became associate artistic director at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and taught at Yale, New York University, and Columbia. Mamet’s first play, Lakeboat, was produced in 1970. Since that point, Mamet has written and direct...