The
Oakland Tribune, June
14, 1993
Laird Harrison
"For
American Buffalo, playwright David Mamet put culture on a burner.
He boiled away all the social nicety, all elegance and pretension to obtain
a distillation of human nature.
Three men in a junk shop, over the course of 90 minutes, run through the
gamut of conflicting greed and anger, love and compassion that define
most relationships.
You get that much from the new production of Mamet's 1977 play by Berkeley's
Shotgun Players. The actors strike the right rhythm and style for Mamet's
gritty dialogue. Unfortunately, they rush through it at such breakneck
speed that the show never becomes truly absorbing.
...In this production, George Killingworth plays Don as sly and cautious.
His gray-bearded smile gives him an air of experienced cool, but gradually
we become aware of his constant nervous fidgeting.
Ray Halliday relies mostly on vacant stares in his simplistic but effective
portrayal of Bobby. You can almost see through the poor boy's empty head.
From the moment he appears on stage, Patrick Dooley powers through the
role of Teach, his skinny figure radiating tension through his leather
jacket and worn-out shoes as he paces, curses and wheels around the junk
shop floor. But Dooley looks a little young for the role of a weathered
thief, and his long-in-front hairstyle is too contemporary.
Director Trick Redman needs to slow this show down. Dooley sometimes speaks
too fast to be understood, and he shows so much violence from the outset
that he doesn't leave room for a bang at the climax.
Killingworth gets so rushes in making telephone calls that he forgets
to listen for a ring and a 'hello' before he starts talking.
At least that's how it happened on opening night. Maybe these players
will settle down in their next few performances and give their audience
a chance to sink into the seamy, beautiful world of Mamet's junk shop."
East
Bay Express,
July
23, 1993
Steve
Hayes-Pollard
"Barely catching
a breath, this vigorous young company has rolled from two Mamet one-acts
into his two-act slice of lowlife about three junkstore bad boys. And
while this is a vigorous show, the haste shows. Mamet at his best can
make Pinter sound literal-minded. It's not what's said, but what's not
said, or, even trickier, what's thought. While George Killingworth as
Don, Patrick Dooley as Teach, and Ray Halliday as Bobby all bring a definite
liveliness to their roles, too often what they say goes unpunctuated,
uninflected by those tiny but vital signs of inner life. What's significant
has no significance beyond itself, and Mamet is reduced to being a purveyor
of curiously attractive, remarkably verisimilar, unquestionably repugnant
misogyny. Though only persuaded of it lately, I for one believe him to
be of more significance than that. But then, why not decide for yourself?
This is a lively production, and Mamet's work can be as compelling as
it is repellent."
|