The Cryptogram. (Acting Edition for Theater Productions)

David Mamet; David Mamet

ISBN 10: 0822214954 / ISBN 13: 9780822214953

Published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc., UNITED STATES, 1998

About this Item

THE SCRIPT! Useful ACTING EDITION SCRIPT. Some shelf wear to the covers. Former actor name. Good binding and the dialogue flows nicely. Enjoy this Acting Script reliable for your dramatic needs.

Seller Inventory # 937086140191087

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Cryptogram. (Acting Edition for Theater Productions)
• Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc., UNITED STATES
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822214954
• ISBN 13: 9780822214953
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • SPRING2019SCRIPT

About this title

Synopsis

"I suspect that in time, The Cryptogram will take its place among Mamet's major works" John Lahr "Mamet's play suggests that deception is an endless spiralling process that eventually corrodes the soul. But it also harps on a theme that runs right throughout Mamet's work: the notion that we use words as a destructive social camouflage to lie to others and ourselves...And here through all the repetitions, half sentences and echoing encounter of one question with another, you feel the characters devalue experience through their use of language. As Del cries in desperation at the end, 'If we could speak the truth for one instant, then we would be free.' Mamet's point is that we are held spiritually captive by our bluster and evasions." (Michael Billington, The Guardian)"Dense with thought, feeling and hard psychological insight...There is no spare flesh on this text: words, objects, images interlock in mutual dependence which is both natural and superbly contrived." (John Peter Sunday Times)

From the Back Cover

In this gripping short play, David Mamet combines mercurial intelligence with genuinely Hitchcockian menace. The Cryptogram is a journey back into childhood and the moment of its vanishing - the moment when the sheltering world is suddenly revealed as a place full of danger. On a night in 1959 a boy is waiting to go on a camping trip with his father. His mother wants him to go to sleep. A family friend is trying to entertain them - or perhaps distract them. Because in the dark corners of this domestic scene, there are rustlings that none of the players want to hear. And out of things as innocuous as a shattered teapot and a ripped blanket, Mamet re-creates a child's terrifying discovery that the grownups are speaking in code, and that that code may never be breakable.