A Life in the Theatre Book

A couple of years ago I read a number of David Mamet's early plays. Although I had seen a number of his films I had not been to a production of any of his plays or previously read any. This early work felt like a young writer's output: fun, enthusiastic, full of ideas, but maybe apprentice work rather than fully realised. American Buffalo was the most impressive, maybe showed a growing maturity or confidence. Then I jumped ahead and read Glengarry Glen Ross. This gave Mamet's career a sort of trajectory: American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, the crime films. I've now gone back to the 1970s and read A Life in the Theatre, written between American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross. It is fun, but it feels as though it belongs with the apprentice work. This, however, might be because I've given Mamet's career a narrative and maybe if I read more of his later plays I will realise my narrative is much too simplistic, that Mamet's concerns and methods are much broader than I am allowing and A Life in the Theatre fits into another 'Mamet narrative' that I have yet to notice. I did enjoy it, but I found it a little flimsy. A simple plot, the interaction of two actors, an older one (Robert) and a younger one (John): it is broken into 26 short scenes spread over an unspecified times: between scenes time passes and things happen. There is development: at first Robert is the more experienced figure, giving advice, taking a certain pride in his worldly knowledge of the theatre - and I wondered if there was sexual attraction, but this doesn't seem to lead anywhere; then we realise John has had a certain success, gained praise, has found his feet - we cannot be sure how much John needed Robert's support in the first place, he certainly no longer needs it; Robert now seems a little lost, becoming bitter. That's about it: it's witty, amusing, formally it is quite interesting - we can fill in the gaps between scenes with our own understanding of the narrative - without being forbidding. As I said, fun, but maybe not a major work.