Hallmarks of David Mamet | How to Write Like David Mamet

david mamet is a highly influential american playwright with an idiosyncratic style and but when you look at his plays you can see a few threads that tie them all together and we're gonna look at five of those right now welcome to derek sings poorly the channel for theater kids of all ages and the people who tolerate them i am the titular derrick inviting you right now to like and subscribe to this video uh before william h macy comes by and yells at you because life is so easy right now i decided that i would take on the dozen daring dramas challenge this is a play writing initiative in which a writer attempts to finish 12 scripts one each month set to a certain challenge you can actually follow my progress and read my work uh down in my patreon you'll even have chances for people to help influence decisions in different plays moving forward but this particular challenge that i'm talking about today involves emulating the style of a famous playwright and because i like a challenge i chose mr mamet and so i've been reading in a lot of his plays and watching a lot of performances and here are five things that i've discovered that really make his work tick and these are what i'm going to be trying to emulate in my project again that you can follow in the patreon the first thing you notice is that a memplay really has a simple plot with complex incidents it is plot light and incident rich what i mean by this is that when you really break down a mammoth play there's a very clear a to b path it's generally a downward path as we'll talk in a moment here but uh so glenn glory glenn ross is the plot is people want to sell real estate uh olianna the plot is a woman wants to blackmail her professor where a screenplay is a wag the dog the plot itself is simple it is uh they're producing a fake war and so what you remember from from a mammoth production is not plot points or twists but rather it's the incidents along the way that tie into that central plot it's a simple through line with little curves along the way a densely plotted play has lots of deep character interactions and subplots twists and turns you can sort of tell an amendment play where it's going and it's just the cringe of wondering who's going to get hurt along the way because secondly in a mammoth show there aren't really happy endings the main character is usually experiencing some sort of downfall or even if it does come away unscathed has to sacrifice something usually morally or ethically lose something uh of themselves in the film state in maine philip seymour hoffman technically gets to have a somewhat happy ending that is mammoth's only straight comedy so he lightened up a little bit makes has to make a lot of concessions both morally and artistically to uh to get to the end of the film in one piece but no character really escapes amendment play some black mark on their soul in some way the third hallmark of a mammoth play is competition it's really about the striving for somebody to overcome somebody else usually through blackmail or coercion he deals a lot with con men and with sales people and with people that have ulterior motives in their conversations he's really interested at exploring how people overcome one another and gain a leg up again usually at the expense of themselves the fourth element of amendment play is generally some sort of transgression he has touched on sexual assault on racism crimes and and sexual proclivities um but they're not often deployed for for shock value it's more of that they simply are a part of the world that he's building again coming back to my first point that these aren't plot heavy shows but rather incident heavy shows there simply are incidents of transgressive elements that just sort of happen and then fade into the background they don't serve as a huge turning point as you would in a plot heavy play but the most distinct development of a mammoth production is obviously going to be the dialogue and first thing you notice is that when it's very profane uh he is not one to shy away from uh from any curse word especially one that can be used as a noun but the real part of a mammoth dialogue that makes it distinctive is the circular cyclical nature characters come back to the same phrases very very often usually some sort of form of question or or statement that they you know they're fixated on and a mammoth character really talks more in a monologue that other characters momentarily interrupt you know it's a big chunk of text with interjections in between but if you remove those it is simply a character mostly talking for themselves trying to work out something in their own mind he deals a lot with two-handers two characters interacting at a time and the conversations again are keep on rotating around each other they're abstract they don't come to a complete conclusion because both characters are working through their own agenda and sort of intersecting but not really coming to any conclusion together so those are the five most distinct elements of a david mamet stage play a simple plot without a happy ending based on competition with a little bit of transgression and very distinctive cycling repetitive dialogue now if you want to see how well i do at recreating that and using that as an inspiration for a new piece again you can follow my patreon the link is in the comments anyone who follows that page can have access to the to the pieces i'm going to make it all tiers will have access to the work in progress and to the to the finished pieces the highest tier will get a a nice non-watermarked more professional looking version but everyone who follows the patreon will get to to see how well i do at the 12 different plays this year so so if that feels interesting to you then i highly recommend and would appreciate uh your your support i look forward to being back on this channel to talk more craft with you very soon peace and all good you

Channel: Born a Playwright

Views: 678

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: playwriting 101, derek sings poorly, theatre, Dramatic Writing, David Mamet Writing, of david mamet's, David Mamet, david mamet oleanna analysis, david mamet writing style, Understand and recognize drama, using david mamet's, glengarry glen ross david mamet analysis, of david mamet's play, writing style david mamet, mametspeak, mamet speak, how to write mamet speak, mamet dialogue, elements of david mamet, hallmarks of david mamet, writing like david mamet, dozen daring dramas

Id: 7DEd4Xgak7A

Length: 7min 50sec (470 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/tjsd93]

very helpful, thanks!