ABSTRACT
In many, perhaps the majority, of Mamet’s works the behavior of his protagonists may seem “criminal” in that it is cruel or exploitative, a clear violation of personal obligations or an attack on values that sustain human communities. Plays such as Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974), The Water Engine (1977), The Woods (1977), Speed-the-Plow (1988), or Oleanna (1993) contain numerous personal betrayals, invasions of privacy, and violations of conventional ethics; yet, they stop short of criminal punishable offenses. The young couple who assault each other physically in The Woods are more clearly co-conspirators than, say, the female student who is physically attacked by her professor in the final scene of Oleanna. In both cases, however, audiences are made uncomfortable by their unwitting participation in socially unacceptable violence, often surprised to learn they can drop their civilized masks and enjoy the physical retaliation that erupts as a result of verbal sparring. In other plays, the line is crossed between ethically repugnant but legal actions and overly antisocial, prosecutable acts.
