About the Book
How Good is David Mamet, Anyway? is the best of John Heilpern's theatre writings. The players are many: Vanessa Redgrave and Ralph Fiennes, Helen Mirren and George C. Wolfe, Fiona Shaw and Savion Glover, Karen Finley and David Mamet, and dozens of others. There's also an important essay on the differences between the British and American theatre scenes, profiles of such legends as Noel Coward, Alec Guinness, and Michael Bennett, engaging pieces on such figures as Peter Brook and Robert Brustein, review essays on dozens of great, good, and awful plays, as well as contrary opinions on some of our most widely admired playwrights. There are comic turns too: 'The Year of the Penis' and 'The Art of Falling Asleep at the Theatre.' Serious or witty, John Heilpern's criticism persuades us that theatre matters, after all. For anyone who loves the stage and its timeless mystery and fun, How Good is David Mamet, Anyway? is a chocolate box of a book.
Table of Contents:
Introduction, John Heilpern; Chapter 1 Empire of the Stage, John Heilpern; Chapter 2 Lunch with Gielgud and Richardson, John Heilpern; Chapter 3 Noël Coward at Seventy, John Heilpern; Chapter 4 Tranquil in Connecticut with Arthur Miller, John Heilpern; Chapter 5 England’s Great Clown, John Heilpern; Chapter 6 His Name Escapes Him, John Heilpern; Chapter 7 In Memoriam Michael Bennett, John Heilpern; Chapter 8 Peter Brook, Barbra Streisand, and Me, John Heilpern; Chapter 9 Angels in America Part s 1 and 2, John Heilpern; Chapter 10 Janet McTeer-Up-the-Stage, John Heilpern; Chapter 11 Hurry Up Please It’s Time, John Heilpern; Chapter 12 The Great Gambon, John Heilpern; Chapter 13 Mr. Brantley’s Torsos, John Heilpern; Chapter 14 The Ralph Fiennes Hamlet, John Heilpern; Chapter 15 We Like It a Lot, John Heilpern; Chapter 16 The Mayfair Medea, John Heilpern; Chapter 17 Who Was the Jew Shakespeare Knew?, John Heilpern; Chapter 18 Anything Goes with the Professor, John Heilpern; Chapter 19 Art Is Good for You, John Heilpern; Chapter 20 A Helluva Musical, John Heilpern; Chapter 21 It’s Big! It’s Safe! It’s Full of Generic Symbolism!, John Heilpern; Chapter 22 Whatever Happened to Class?, John Heilpern; Chapter 23 Farewell, Carousel, John Heilpern; Chapter 24 My Blood Brother and Me, John Heilpern; Chapter 25 Sleeping at the Theater, John Heilpern; Chapter 26 The Killing of Wonderful Tennessee, John Heilpern; Chapter 27 How to Murder Your Mother, John Heilpern; Chapter 28 Brave New World, John Heilpern; Chapter 29 Safe Pedophilia, John Heilpern; Chapter 30 The Sad Tale of Jack the Cat, John Heilpern; Chapter 31 Brilliant Blues, John Heilpern; Chapter 32 Holocaust Denial, John Heilpern; Chapter 33 The Amazing Vanessa Redgrave, John Heilpern; Chapter 34 The Still Subversive Joe Orton, John Heilpern; Chapter 35 Theater Thingie of the Year, John Heilpern; Chapter 36 Slumming with Sam Shepard, John Heilpern; Chapter 37 No Tony for Julie, John Heilpern; Chapter 38 What Is the Sound of One Hand Acting?, John Heilpern; Chapter 39 Country Matters, John Heilpern; Chapter 40 Oscar Wilde’s Brilliant Lunatics, John Heilpern; Chapter 41 A-Plotz for David Ives, John Heilpern; Chapter 42 No. 1 Dance Hall Chicken Inna New York City, John Heilpern; Chapter 43 Lost in Suburbia, John Heilpern; Chapter 44 Voltaire-Shmoltaire, John Heilpern; Chapter 45 The Asterisk Problem: Sho**ing and Fucking, John Heilpern; Chapter 46 Et In Arcadia Ego, John Heilpern; Chapter 47 The America Play, John Heilpern; Chapter 48 How America Was Lost, John Heilpern; Chapter 49 These Gentle Artists, John Heilpern; Chapter 50 The Jerry Stiller Three Sisters, John Heilpern; Chapter 51 Needles and Opium, John Heilpern; Chapter 52 The Three Ages of Woman, John Heilpern; Chapter 53 The God of Lies, John Heilpern; Chapter 54 Mametspeak, John Heilpern; Chapter 55 How Good Is David Mamet, Anyway?, John Heilpern; Chapter 56 Beckettscape, John Heilpern; Chapter 57 Robert Brustein’s Unfortunate Dance Lesson, John Heilpern; Chapter 58 Everything Is Beautiful, John Heilpern; Chapter 59 Pimp Fop Flop, John Heilpern; Chapter 60 Hakuna Matata!, John Heilpern; Chapter 61 Don’t Shoot the Composer, John Heilpern; Chapter 62 A Great Electra, John Heilpern; Chapter 63 Nicole Kidman, Live Naked Movie Star, John Heilpern; Chapter 64 Judi! Judi! Judi!, John Heilpern; Chapter 65 Harv the Marv, John Heilpern; Chapter 66 Amazing Grace, John Heilpern; Chapter 67 The Anglophile New York Times, John Heilpern; Chapter 68 Iceman Cometh, John Heilpern; Chapter 69 Act of Love, John Heilpern; Chapter 70 Arthur Miller Comes Home, John Heilpern;
Review :
"A new collection of [John Heilpern's] essays and reviews showcases the wit, intelligence, compassion, and range of one of theatre's premier critics. Whether he's being a fly-on-the-wall during an amusing luncheon with Sir Ralph Richardson and Sir John Gielgud or praising or damning the acting of Ralph Fiennes and Diana Rigg, Heilpern's prose always suggests a man who is passionately in love with the theatre... In a brilliant opening essay, Heilpern analyzes the differences between American and British theatre and each country's actors... This is a book you can read in small doses if you like-most of the reviews and essays are relatively short-but more likely you'll have a hard time putting it down." -- Dramatics
"[H]e is really quite good. He dispenses an easy, readable, lighthearted prose that reveals a congenital love for the art-form and a tendency to shrug, sneer, and occasionally fulminate without becoming vulgar or bitchy or losing his verbal elegance. And he has the courage, lacking in many other theatre-critics, to firmly rap the knuckles of other critics with whom he disagrees." -- Charles Marowitz, American Book Review
"To describe a play he likes, John Heilpern says it was 'mindbogglingly entertaining.' He could be referring to his own joyful book. In the great tradition of English theatre criticism, his writing hides its deep seriousness behind a glitter of fun." -- Peter Brook
"John Heilpern is truly rare, his reviews are generous, openhearted and smart, without being effusive--tough and incisive without being mean. And ever present is his love for the theater and respect for the people who make it." -- George C. Wolfe
"John Heilpern is one of the smartest, most literate, most decent critics this country's theater has had. He writes beautifully, he's wonderfully funny, he's incisive and insightful. Even when one disagrees with him (I would, for instance, answer that I think David Mamet is very, very good, great even), one finds in the disagreement the pleasure to be had from intelligent argument about art. Most importantly, Heilpern cheers for the difficult and daring in theater. As much as he shows himself here to be a great chronicler of our theater's past, Heilpern is one of our most important and articulate champions of its future." -- Tony Kushner
"Brilliantly witty and provocative, John Heilpern's writing is based on a passionate and profound appreciation of vibrant, living theater." -- Natasha Richardson
