Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 2005. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 32 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 32).

Abstract The purpose of this study is to create a believable, multiple dimension character portrayal of Jack Lawson in David Mamet’s Race. Documentation of the process will include: an explanation of the acting technique and analysis used to create the backstory and portrayal of the character; insight into the background and beliefs of playwright, David Mamet; and a personal review of my growth and performance.

Akademisk avhandling--Humanistiska fakulteten--Åbo, 1993. / Bibliogr. p. 218-233.

David Mamet is best known as a playwright, but he also has a thriving film career, both as screenwriter and as director. He has taken very seriously each of these roles, formulating theories that, he suggests, account for the creative choices he makes. Though Mamet sometimes contradicts himself, as when he suggests that viewers should have the satisfaction of constructing their own meaning of a work, but at the same time is devoted to montage, which works by juxtaposing images that lead to a single interpretation, he clearly sees the story as a critical avenue into the spectator's unconscious, where he hopes it will resonate with a truth that speaks directly to the individual. His films House of Games, Things Change, and Homicide clearly reflect his ideas on the best ways of conveying a story on film. In House of Games, Mamet draws on Bruno Bettelheim's theories to construct a fairy tale designed to act on adult viewers in the same way that fairy tales act on the child. In Things Change, he creates a fable that explores issues of friendship and honor within the milieu of the gangster genre. And in Homicide, Mamet uses the expectations viewers bring to the theatre in anticipation of a genre film to explore themes of loyalty and identity. In Oleanna, however, Mamet relies heavily on exposition and dialogue, rather than the visual elements that separate the film from drama, which renders the film the antithesis of his long-held philosophy of film narrative. Mamet's best film work, in House of Games and Homicide, has been innovative and thought-provoking, bringing depth to the new noir and redefining the cop film. His work in Oleanna, though it may prove to be an anomaly, may suggest a surrender of his principles of filmmaking or a reformulation of them to fit some new vision.

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Esta dissertação propõe analisar os diálogos da peça Glengarry Glen Ross, de David Mamet, um dos principais dramaturgos do teatro norte-americano contemporâneo. A hipótese sugerida é que esses diálogos substituem a ação dramática e representam o substrato social que serviu de ponto de referência para a criação do enredo. São neles que as \"relações venais\" e o jogo de poder entre os personagens se concretizam, numa linguagem ilusória e ambígua, na qual valores individuais e comunitários, como a confiança, a amizade, a afeição, a lealdade e a verdade se subverteram, diante da necessidade de sobrevivência ou do sucesso a qualquer preço, ditados pelas práticas comerciais, pelas relações de poder, por uma mentalidade de negócios predatória e se transformaram em mercadoria, lucro e roubo. Glengarry Glen Ross (1983) faz parte da chamada \"trilogia do poder\", que abarca ainda American Buffalo (1975) e Speed-the-Plow (1985). As personagens dessas peças ou vivem à margem da sociedade capitalista norteamericana, como o triângulo masculino em American Buffalo, ou são representantes da baixa classe média, como os corretores de imóveis de Glengary Glen Ross, submetidos a uma competição feroz imposta pela direção da firma, onde os vencedores são promovidos e os perdedores, demitidos. Nessas circunstâncias, o contato humano entre eles foi corrompido pela ganância, pelo dinheiro, pela necessidade de sobrevivência. Essas peças são um exercício de crítica ao darwinismo social. / This dissertation aims to analyze the speeches in Glengarry Glen Ross, a play by David Mamet, one of the leading playwrights of the contemporary American theatre. The hypotheses suggested are that these speeches replace the dramatic action and that they represent the social stratum which has served as reference point for the creation of the plot. They also make the \'venal relations\' and the power game between the characters concrete, but they do so through the use of a deceptive and ambiguous language, in which individual and communal values, such as trust, friendship, affection, loyalty and truth, are subverted, in face of the need for survival or success at any cost, determined by commercial practices, power relations, predatory business mindset, and are turned into commodities, profit and theft. Glengarry Glen Ross (1983) is part of the \"power trilogy\", which also comprises American Buffalo (1975) and Speed-the-Plow (1985). The characters in these plays either live on the margins of the American capitalist society, as the ones in the masculine triangle in American Buffalo, or are representatives of the lowermiddle- class, such as the realtors in Glengarry Glen Ross, subjected to a cutthroat competition by the corporation owners, in which the winners are promoted and the losers are fired. In these circumstances, genuine human contact among them is corrupted by greed, money, and the need for survival. These plays are an exercise of criticism of social Darwinism.

Esta dissertação propõe analisar os diálogos da peça Glengarry Glen Ross, de David Mamet, um dos principais dramaturgos do teatro norte-americano contemporâneo. A hipótese sugerida é que esses diálogos substituem a ação dramática e representam o substrato social que serviu de ponto de referência para a criação do enredo. São neles que as \"relações venais\" e o jogo de poder entre os personagens se concretizam, numa linguagem ilusória e ambígua, na qual valores individuais e comunitários, como a confiança, a amizade, a afeição, a lealdade e a verdade se subverteram, diante da necessidade de sobrevivência ou do sucesso a qualquer preço, ditados pelas práticas comerciais, pelas relações de poder, por uma mentalidade de negócios predatória e se transformaram em mercadoria, lucro e roubo. Glengarry Glen Ross (1983) faz parte da chamada \"trilogia do poder\", que abarca ainda American Buffalo (1975) e Speed-the-Plow (1985). As personagens dessas peças ou vivem à margem da sociedade capitalista norteamericana, como o triângulo masculino em American Buffalo, ou são representantes da baixa classe média, como os corretores de imóveis de Glengary Glen Ross, submetidos a uma competição feroz imposta pela direção da firma, onde os vencedores são promovidos e os perdedores, demitidos. Nessas circunstâncias, o contato humano entre eles foi corrompido pela ganância, pelo dinheiro, pela necessidade de sobrevivência. Essas peças são um exercício de crítica ao darwinismo social. / This dissertation aims to analyze the speeches in Glengarry Glen Ross, a play by David Mamet, one of the leading playwrights of the contemporary American theatre. The hypotheses suggested are that these speeches replace the dramatic action and that they represent the social stratum which has served as reference point for the creation of the plot. They also make the \'venal relations\' and the power game between the characters concrete, but they do so through the use of a deceptive and ambiguous language, in which individual and communal values, such as trust, friendship, affection, loyalty and truth, are subverted, in face of the need for survival or success at any cost, determined by commercial practices, power relations, predatory business mindset, and are turned into commodities, profit and theft. Glengarry Glen Ross (1983) is part of the \"power trilogy\", which also comprises American Buffalo (1975) and Speed-the-Plow (1985). The characters in these plays either live on the margins of the American capitalist society, as the ones in the masculine triangle in American Buffalo, or are representatives of the lowermiddle- class, such as the realtors in Glengarry Glen Ross, subjected to a cutthroat competition by the corporation owners, in which the winners are promoted and the losers are fired. In these circumstances, genuine human contact among them is corrupted by greed, money, and the need for survival. These plays are an exercise of criticism of social Darwinism.

1 Thesis Abstract The present thesis explores six plays written by three (post)modern American playwrights - David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Oleanna, Sam Shepard's Buried Child and True West, and Suzan-Lori Parksʼ The America Play and Topdog/Underdog in order to define and analyze the functions of performative storytelling in the dramatic texts as well as its effects on the characters' identity. In Reading Narrative, J. Hillis Miller analyzes performative storytelling as a human shaped process that people use in order to translate events into meaning and meaning into shared information. Moreover, in Narrative as Performance, Marie Maclean demonstrates the importance of this device in recalibrating human memory and communication and in enriching the traditional mimetic process used in theatre. These ideas are closely followed in the aforementioned American plays through the lenses of the most prominent themes of the end of the twentieth century American theatre. Each of the three American writers uses performative storytelling to delineate socio-political themes. David Mamet comments on the artificiality of the American self, Sam Shepard speaks about the importance of familial past and relationships, whereas Suzan-Lori Parks describes the impact of major national narratives on the...

abstract: This dissertation uses constructivist pedagogy to teach acting via Practical Aesthetics, a system of actor training created in the mid/&ndash1980s; by David Mamet and his college acting students. Primarily taught at the Atlantic Theatre Acting School in New York City, Practical Aesthetics has been the focus of little academic research. The same lack of research regarding constructivist pedagogy exists in academic theatre scholarship. The author takes a step toward rectifying this situation. Using an action research methodology, based on approximately thirteen years of teaching experience, the author suggests that Practical Aesthetics and his accompanying voice and movement exercises can be effective in training novice actors. The author melds theory and practice into the educational approach called Praxis to create specific detailed lesson plans which can be used to implement Practical Aesthetics. These lessons constitute primary research on this topic. Compatible voice and movement exercises are also included to provide a comprehensive semester length digest. The first chapter is an introduction, the second outlines Practical Aesthetics, the third focuses on constructivism, the fourth discusses teaching acting using Constructivist Learning Design, the fifth provides narrative lessons that can be used in the classroom, and the closure provides a review as well as suggestions for further research. An intriguing point made in the closure is a call for studies that might determine Practical Aesthetics' applicability and usability in other fields such as law, business, politics, public speaking, and even non-profit work. Although the primary audience for this dissertation is secondary school and college acting instructors, any scholar studying acting theory or constructivist pedagogy may find value in its contents. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Theatre 2014