Characters As Actions

David Mamet is an outstanding playwright for his unique and minimalistic dramaturgy.Scholarship has recognised Mamet’s dramatic language and style as phenomenal,but has not yet related them to the dramatist’s intention.Mamet is important as a playwright not for his singularly minimalistic deployment but for the uncompromising way he utilises his dramatic style to smite his audiences who sit complacently observing,reveals for them the unknown knowledge and invites them to face and address it.This thesis attempts to relate the language and style of Mamet’s plays to the concept of action that encapsulates the author’s understandings of the nature and the fundamental function of drama(that is,exploring the unconscious).To achieve this end,this thesis makes arguments as follow:Chapter I clarifies the concept of action as understood by Mamet.A character is an embodiment of an action(in having his/her desires realised)developed to the end,and a play is about the action of the protagonist.The action embodied by the protagonist functions as the through-line that structures the whole play,which is exemplified by Mamet’s episodic plays composed of fragmented scenes.The endings of a play are the build-ups of every bit related to the main action while everything irrelevant to the action should be dropped.Crazy for sales benefits,the salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross in their respective ways fulfil the mission of unfolding this notion of action.The four combine into the protagonist of the play whose action in obtaining the leads connects Act One and Act Two.Chapter II delves into the foreign nature of characters’ actions.In the light of Lacanian psychoanalysis,this chapter shows that there is always an Other looming behind characters’ desires.Their actions of pursuing what they desire are prompted by the Other’s desire and the fulfillments of such actions will not bring about the expected satisfaction.This foreign quality is witnessed in Mamet’s buddy plays which portray characters manipulated by the idea of business.In Mamet’s tragedy American Buffalo,three perplexed characters forming a buddy group cannot achieve anything.The plight they are in displays that they have little knowledge of,and the autonomy over,the task they plot to undertake,but are driven unconsciously by the Other’s desire.Chapter III subordinates dialogues in Mamet’s plays to action,and points out the author’s intention lies in helping audiences realise and explore the unconscious.The so-called Mametspeak is related to Mamet’s action which entails the language of con.Characters’ dialogues are in the service of the development of action.Con assists characters to achieve what they want by tricking others,and in this way enables the action to be the through-line,connecting parts of a play by tricking the audience.Ungarnished and linearly minimalistic action,and syncopated dialogues beckon the audience to identify with characters and even to be characters(that is,to be doers of actions)to round off what is left to do.In this manner,Mamet conducts a collective psychoanalysis for the audience to study the unconscious.This is typically shown in the case of Oleanna,a play that proceeds blandly to an unforeseen upshot,reaping widespread identification with characters from audiences who are deranged by the development of this play.