TEHRAN – American playwright and filmmaker David Mamet’s 1988 play “Speed-the-Plow” that is a satirical dissection of the American movie business has been published in Persian. 

Lega Press is the publisher of the play translated by Puyan Mokri.

As stated in “The Producer’s Perspective”, “this is a theme Mamet would revisit in his later films ‘Wag the Dog’ and ‘State and Main’.” 

As quoted in “The Producer’s Perspective”, Jack Kroll of Newsweek described “Speed-the-Plow” as “another tone poem by our nation’s foremost master of the language of moral epilepsy.”

The play sets its context with an epigraph (not to be recited in performance) by William Makepeace Thackeray, from his novel “Pendennis”, contained in a frontispiece. 

It starts, “Which is the most reasonable, and does his duty best: he who stands aloof from the struggle of life, calmly contemplating it, or he who descends to the ground, and takes his part in the contest?” 

The character of Bobby Gould finds himself on both sides of this dilemma, and at times in the play he “stands aloof,” and at other times he “takes part” in life’s contest, with its moral strictures.

Mamet is also an author, essayist and screenwriter. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity.

As a playwright, he received Tony nominations for “Glengarry Glen Ross” in 1984 and “Speed-the-Plow”. As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for “The Verdict” in 1982 and “Wag the Dog” in 1997.

Photo: Front cover of the Persian translation of David Mamet’s play “Speed-the-Plow”.

MMS/YAW