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David Mamet’s amusing soufflé “Keep Your Pantheon,” about the misfortunes of a desperate acting troupe, would be right at home with “historical” farces put on by Renaissance Faire troupes like Sound & Fury. Granted, this new short play by a playwright who needs no introduction is not quite so blatantly bawdy or low-flying as, say, “Testaclese and Ye Sack of Rome,” but the overall silly spirit of mirth and merriment is comparable, as is the discernible lack of any goal other than to make the audience laugh. Mamet throws enough jokes that most of them stick. Bonnie Grisan and director Neil Pepe stack the deck in the audience’s favour by casting actors of proven comic worth – David Payner and Ed O’Neill – alongside worthy co-performers. It’s ye olde-tyme comedy of errors, indeed; funny if inconsequential, with a deliberately old-fashioned theatricality that includes big, mouthy, quasi-stentorian dialogue.
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Michael Lerner, left, and Harold Gould in ‘The Duck Variations.’ Photo by Craig Schwartz
Fortunately, “Keep Your Pantheon” is accompanied by an earlier Mamet piece, “The Duck Variations,” whose wistful meditation on the meaning of life proves a substantive companion. Two old men sit on a park bench, discussing the life and times of ducks whose tribulations, of course, serve as stand-ins for human aspirations and troubles. The series of short dialogues are sequenced in decreasing order of apparent triviality. At first, it’s a question of savouring the cadence of Mamet’s dialogue and taking in the characters’ charming eccentricity. Then, the characters’ feelings and insecurities, hopes and fears, gradually take over and a piece that is at times very funny also becomes poignant. Actors Harold Gould and Michael Lerner play well on their own and off of each other, point and counterpoint, hand in hand. Everymen, yes, but with enough personna to be more than bearers of metaphor. Body language fills in the biographical lacunae unaddressed directly by Mamet’s text; audience willingness to listen between the lines does the rest.
It was unquestionably a good idea for the Kirk Douglas Theatre to bring in the artillery after the bloody bloody misfire that was “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.” As the story goes, the Center Theatre Group intended to present David Mamet’s musical “A Waitress in Yellowstone.” However, that didn’t pan out, and we got, instead, a marvelous double-dram of David that provides for an evening of theatre that really hits the spot. It even compensates, to some extent, for the Kirk Douglas Theatre’s irritating and persistent inability to start on time.
“Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet – The Duck Variations and Keep Your Pantheon.” Directed by Neil Pepe. Starring Harold Gould, Michael Lerner, Jeffrey Addiss, Michael Cassidy, Steven Goldstein, Vincent Guastaferro, Dominic Hoffman, J.J. Johnston, Rod McLachlan, Ed O’Neill, David Paymer, Jonathan Rossetti and Jack Wallace. On stage through June 8. Tickets: 213. 628.2772 or online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org/
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