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DAVID MAMET AND AMERICAN MACHO. By Arthur Holmberg. Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012; pp. 322.
Arthur Holmberg's book is an ambitious ex- amination of themes of masculinity and masculine malaise in the works of David Mamet. Holmberg, both an academic and the literary director at the American Repertory Theater, offers critical perspec- tives on Mamet's dramatic characters and scenarios. Instead of presenting a linear, historical approach to Mamet's career, each of the book's five chapters features a cross-section of Mamet's films, plays, and essays in a consideration of the writer 's treatment of the male condition, and supplements insightful analyses with interviews, Mamet's biography, and compelling accounts of Mamet as director. Care- fully placing titles by Mamet on a continuum with other iconic works of American theatre, Holmberg contextualizes his influence on the culture of mas- culinity on the American stage and screen in ways that will be of value in a range of fields.
Holmberg argues that Mamet both celebrates and critiques the dominant mode of masculinity, what Holmberg dubs "American macho" (9)-a rugged, violent stereotype that he traces to the late nine- teenth century in response to Gilded Age capitalism, first-wave feminism, and the ideal of the genteel patriarch. Mamet depicts various modes of Ameri- can macho through characters that both deconstruct the stability of the stereotype and uphold its influ- ence. This truly interdisciplinary study approaches Mamet's works in each chapter through a variety of methods, including anthropology, sociolinguistics, and historiography. The first chapter articulates the construct of American macho through analyses of Hoffa, The Untouchables, American Buffalo, and The Voysey Inheritance....