Speed-the-Plow Book

Reading David Mamet's, "Speed-the-Plow", felt like taking loads of stimulants and sitting in the corner of a Hollywood producer's office as he is first offered a chance at a movie with a big name that he just can't pass up before I jump ship and follow the producer and his temporary assistant to his house where she persuades and seduces this fellow to be a better man and produce an "artsy" adaptation of a book concerning radiation and its effects on humanity before being snapped awake and sent back to aforementioned producer's office where he tries to pick between a good friend and an obvious money maker or the experimental movie that seems to now mean something to him--amidst all this I laughed at the typical stupidity and their self-aware debasement of culture as if I'd not seen or read it before, and somehow with the razor-sharp dialogue and the absurd characters I found I didn't mind the familiarity of this, on the surface, anti-Hollywood play because the characters drew me in and I never minded going along with them even if my heart felt as if it might explode from the sheer frantic energy going back and forth every second of this story. A good companion piece, that I've always felt was underrated, is David Mamet's movie "State and Main" that has in it the master, Philip Seymour Hoffman.