David Mamet is consistently ranked as one of America's best living playwrights and screenwriters. He won a Pulitzer for his play Glengarry Glen Ross, and acclaim for other plays such as American Buffalo, Oleanna, and Speed-The-Plow. His screenplays include The Verdict, The Untouchables, and Wag the Dog. Mamet is known for his street-smart humor and unerring ear for speech.
November is one of Mamet's funniest and most accessible plays, a particularly timely sendup of our political system, the PR business, Native American casinos, and overseas adoptions. The play's scheming anti-hero, President Charles Smith, is a do-nothing, and as Election Day nears, his chief of staff and campaign committee have given up on his chances of winning a second term. But the President isn't ready to throw in the towel. The traditional Thanksgiving ritual in which the President pardons a turkey suddenly inspires him to risk it all in a breathtakingly outrageous scheme to grab more badly needed campaign money.
The play is fast-paced, witty, and full of quotable lines. The President says to Clarice Bernstein, his beleaguered speechwriter: “There are no solutions, Bernstein. There are only rearrangements of problems.” His chief of staff, Archer Brown, says: “We can't build the fence to keep out the illegal immigrants.” Charles: “Why not?” Archer: “You need the immigrants to build the fence.”
President Charles Smith is played (with craft and aplomb) by Jim Newell. His savvy chief of staff is played by Chuck Rubin; Kate Rowland plays the President’s speechwriter; Gregory Diamant plays the representative of the National Association of Turkey and Turkey By-Products Manufacturers; and Maggie Bunce is clan mother Jennie Lonecloud Grackle, head of the Mic Mac Indian Nation. The show is directed by Maggie Bunce.
November is scathingly hilarious. Don’t miss it.