With David Mamet's name on the playbill, one expects edgy situations and sharp language, but this production of A Life in the Theatre was one of gentle comedy and smooth edges.
It's a two-man show in which we see two male actors in an unnamed fifth-rate theatrical company sharing a dressing room. Michael Stuart is the mature actor and Zeb West is the newcomer. Mamet gives us vignettes of them over the stretch of a season or so, sketching out their initial, stiffly polite contacts and showing the development of a relationship. The notion is that the stodgy, opinionated old-school actor is going to be eclipsed by the up-and-coming future rival. The implied question is whether there will be a passing of the torch or an arm wrestling contest for it.
Ahhhh! A life in the theatre! The drafty halls, the penciled scripts, the stories you hear. The greasepaint–just vivid colors in oily goop, but somehow as evocative as Proust’s madelines–blah blah blah blah….
What is it with actors and their maddening romanticizing about life in the theatre? The surest traditions are long hours, lousy pay, inept producers, sweaty dressing rooms, falling scenery, and the wrath of critics.
The only thing that could make the job worse is some creepy old actor with an irrepressible desire to educate the uninitiated.Here we have the young Zeb West (The Red Balloon) barely tolerating the wisdom and idiosyncrasies of the old Michael Stuart (The Fantasticks)—onstage and off—in this hilarious and touching send-up of the traditions, superstitions, and vagaries of the theatre.
Directed by Mark Stewart (Bomb Shelter: Or The Modern Pinocchio).
Tongue and Groove Theatre is a sponsored project of Austin Circle of Theaters. This project is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.
