Sexual Perversity in Chicago / The Duck Variations

by David Mamet

David Mamet is one of America's most celebrated playwrights. The author of plays, screenplays, poetry, essays, and children's books, he has won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross.

The Obie award-winning Sexual Perversity in Chicago is about two male office workers, Danny and Bernie, on the make in the swinging singles scene of the early 1970's. Danny meets Deborah in a library and soon they are not only lovers but roommates, and their story quickly evolves into a modern romance in all its sticky details. The Duck Variations is a dialogue between two old men sitting on a park bench. The conversation turns to the mating habits of ducks, but soon begins to reveal their feelings about natural law, friendship, and death. New York magazine has called The Duck Variations “a gorgeously written, wonderfully observant piece, whose timing and atmosphere are close to flawless”.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, American, School, Own

125 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

David Alan Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity.

As a playwright, he received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997).

Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, an acerbic commentary on the movie business.

Reviews

[صان · Rating 3 out of 5]

داستان خیلی ساده و بدون پیچش خاصی بود. ینی می‌شد حدس زد که قراره چه اتفاقی بیفته. اما لحن پر بود از فوش و فوشکاری و خیلی لخت تمام کلماتو به‌کار برده بود :))
یه جا مونولوگی داره با این مضمون که دختری می‌ره پیش مامانش و می‌گه من شیرینی می‌خوام. مامانه فک می‌کنه گفته بغل می‌خوام و بغلش می‌کنه. دختره جواب می‌ده من از اول شیرینی نمی‌خواستم.
موضوع نمایش هم درباره همینه. ادمایی که نمی‌دونن چی‌میخوان و خودشونو با چیزای الکی سرگرم می‌کنن و هیچ‌ تلاشی هم نمی‌کنن که ببینن چی میخوان. البته اذیت هم نمی‌شن. چیزی که اینجا برعکس داستان های دیگه‌س همینه. تو داستان‌های دیگه با این مضمون، شخصیت‌ها مشکل رو می‌دونن و می‌خوان حلش کنن و شاید نتونن، اما اینجا اصن متوجه نمی‌شن که این فرمونی که دارن باهاش جلو می‌رن غلطه و اونا شاید «بغل» می‌خوان فقط.
خلاصه ادماش همینطور می‌رن و ازاخر هم همونن که اولش بودن.

[Lila · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was, for some unknown reason, moved by and sort of obsessed with the film "About Last Night" when I was a kid. For better or worse (probably worse), this flawed but still unique and underrated Brat-Packer film, set in 80's Chicago - shaped my ideas of adult sexuality. The way Demi Moore (flat as an IRONING BOARD in her many nude scenes, by the way) and Rob Lowe (oh-so teen-vampire-hot in this era, even tho in this movie he doesn't wear the little dangly cross earring from "St. Elmo's Fire") fall in love and fuck and fight about Tampax wrappers and HAAAATE each other's best friends (their best friends are played by Elizabeth Perkins and James Belushi, and retrospectively, these characters and performances are still BRILLIANT, the best part of the movie)and break up and get
back together - i thought that's how it would really go down when I fell in love. Of course, that's what I thought about "Singles," too.

Anyway, so I finally got around to reading the promisingly-titled David Mamet play that "About Last Night" was based on: "Sexual Perversity in Chicago." Now, my issue with the movie was that the main character, Dan and Debbie, aren't REAL enough. They have no sense of humor and anything "zingy" they say - usually remnants from the Mamet play's dialogue - sounds hollow, like Moore and Lowe are ACTING smart, when they're not; they're just empty-headed, goodlooking Brat-Packers. Plus, the movie is really earnest and NOT snarky, it's hopeful: there's like three different relationship montages set to three different Sheena Easton songs.

So I was thinking that all the sappy flaws of the movie
that stand out to me when I watch it as an adult would be corrected in the Mamet version. I mean, this is David Mamet. His writing is filthy and mean, you know? And the play's characters certainly are strikingly different from their movie counterparts. For instance, Demi Moore's character Debbie, in the movie, has no sense of humor and is kind of a wet blanket. But in the play, she's a castrating bitch just like her best friend Joan. Problem is, in the play she's got personality, but it's not GOOD personality! It's abrasive and makes you dislike her (there's not really anyone to like in the play, while in the movie you like Joan, played by Elizabeth Perkins, and you find Bernie, played by Jim Belushi, funny) So while I was reading this harsh, painfully real, vulgar play, I kept thinking, "I wish this part were more like the movie...." Like, a little more love and a little less "tits!!! ass!!! broads!!"

But I guess that's David Mamet for you. And Brat-Packer movies. The grass is always greener....

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Portraits of male friendship at very different times of life. SPIC is youth, sex, bluster, toxicity. TDV is older, death, reticence, loneliness.

[Tung · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve read two other Mamet works (Oleanna & Glengarry Glen Ross) and thought they were terrific (especially Oleanna). So I was excited to read this book, which contains two plays. The first is an examination of modern relationships, and despite the title, it’s not really about sex; although it is framed through modern views about sex and discusses the impact sex has on relationships. The play focuses on four characters: Bernie (a slimy lothario), his friend Dan, Deborah (whom Dan begins dating), and Joan (Deborah’s friend). The play consists of a number of short scenes that alternate between the men by themselves and women by themselves discussing modern sex (fetishes, likes & dislikes) and relationships, and scenes tracing Dan’s and Deborah’s relationship (from meet-up to break-up). Mamet’s point about relationships and their difficulty – whether the sex is fetishized or otherwise – is none too subtle. The second play stretches across fourteen short scenes where two old men sit on a park bench. The majority of their conversations revolve around the ducks they are watching, with a subtext of how the duck behaviors also speak to human behaviors (leadership, friendship, death, etc). Overall, I found both plays to be underwhelming, especially given my prior experiences with Mamet’s works. There is no subtlety in Mamet’s messages, and I felt both plays lacked depth (because of both content and length). This is a pass for me.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

The opening sequence of Sexual Perversity in Chicago is quite hilarious, but after that nothing else really is (in either play). Nothing else is really all that good either. Sexual Perversity feels extremely tired out and predictable. It's about two guys and two gals who are in various relationships (sometimes with each other). The guys talk about sex and their feelings (definitely in that order), and the gals talk about their feelings. The show is just very male. Hey, no problem, but, no, there is a problem, because the piece is just completely dull and simplistic.

In The Duck Variations, two men watch ducks and see them as a metaphor for just about everything. The more I read, the more I became a duck who did not want to read anymore.

However this is not going to discourage me from reading some of his better known, more highly acclaimed plays. I'm still intrigued and hoping this was just a bad egg.

[Zi · Rating 5 out of 5]

JOAN: . . . and, of course, there exists the very real possibility that the whole thing is nothing other than a mistake of rather large magnitude, and that it never was supposed to work out.
DEBORAH: Do you really believe that?

JOAN: I don't know. I really don't know. I think I do. Well, look at your divorce rate. Look at the incidence of homosexuality . . . the number of violent, sex-connected crimes (this dressing is for shit) . . . all the antisocial behavior that chooses sex as its form of expression. Eh?

DEBORAH: I don't know.

JOAN: . . . physical and mental mutilations we perpetrate on each other, day in, day out . . . trying to fit ourselves to a pattern we can neither understand (although we pretend to) nor truly afford to investigate (although we pretend to). (Pause.) Come on, disagree with me.
DEBORAH: I disagree with you.

[Elliot Chalom · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one - literally no one - writes dialogue as well as Mamet, and these two plays prove it again. I know that Sexual Perversity in Chicago is the one of the two that is more well-known, had a movie based on it, is edgier and maybe richer in some ways, and I certainly enjoyed it. It’s dark and perverse and challenges the reader/audience. But for me, the Duck Variations is the star of the show. This is Mamet at his finest. Two old men, sitting in a park, talking about ducks … and it’s just brilliant. Made me laugh out loud. Made me smile. Made me think. And just so real. I can see George and Emil talking in my mind’s eye; I can feel them. This is vintage Mamet.

[Peter Fogtdal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I directed this play in college. I was a theatre major and the title alone pulled the audience in. Sexual Perversity is from before Mamet got famous. Back then he was just another playwright with Harold Pinter in his blood. But God, what dialogue that man writes. And he's also a pretty good director. Go see State and Main or The Spanish Prisoner. Or read this "perverse" play from the seventies.

[Jennifer Juniper · Rating 2 out of 5]

One star for Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Three stars for The Duck Variations. That equals two stars. All I have to add is I sure do not get why this guy’s plays are highly acclaimed. Perhaps it is a defect on my part.

[Sofija · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.70
I just hate all characters ...

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of hated reading these and don’t think I’d enjoy either much more staged

[Declan Rhodes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pushing myself to get back into reading more plays! With Mamet’s first play, “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” while parts of it did feel a little dated there are still nuggets of truth in the dialogue that feel like a lot of men I know today. I’d be interested to see a contemporary version of it and see if it translates better. The men seem more inclined to talk about sex and their feelings (yes, in that order) while the women talk more about their feelings and then sex.

Mamet’s second play in this book, “The Duck Variations” follows George and Emil as they literally sit on a bench and watch ducks and compare them to practically every facet that life has to offer. Life, death, disease, prey, predator, love, sex, companionship, etc. While the premise is on the simpler side, I did find their analysis and comparison between regular ducks and the constant balance of excitement and monotony of the human experience very interesting. They get somewhat philosophical and introspective as they come to terms with their own mortality and human limits by viewing the ducks as themselves. Nice little read indeed!

[Gabriele Perine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sexual Perversity in Chicago has very little purpose and is full of misogyny. It presents itself as a "fresh commentary" on modern relationships (in 1974) but basically amounts to "wow. men and women are so different." which was a very tired perspective even then. I have also heard Mamet praised for his naturalistic dialogue, but I don't think that's accurate to either play, especially The Duck Variations. Genuinely, I don't understand how either of these have the acclaim they do.

[Sydney · Rating 3 out of 5]

For every fluffy romcom I read I have to ready two plays. New rule 😡 anyway these were okay. I’m not a Mamet girl... but who is a Mamet girl🤭🤨

[Alexa]

Feeling female rage

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this play when I read it in high school. That we were able to read something that was this edgy was something we teenagers liked a lot. This also was a nice follow-up to Mamet's American Buffalo, which I had read previously (of course, Mamet wrote it after).

A few years later the Brat Pack starred in something that was based on this play, but it was a shell of this wonderful work.

[Aaron France · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sexual Perversity is hilarious, strongly worded (duh), and scathing in it's own way. The Duck Variations is not the best Mamet play but it is still readable. Perhaps if the plays were presented in opposite order...

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Kahmal Sealey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sexual Perversity in Chicago

I’m not sure how I feel about this play.

On the one hand, the characters do feel extremely real, you can instantly gauge what type of people they are – Bernie a chauvinist, Danny extremely naive and suggestible, Deb a romantic type, and Joan extremely pessimistic towards love/men; so it’s really enjoyable to see their tactics and how they deal with life.

The story, whether intentionally or not, takes place with Bernie as the central point. Danny listens, reacts to and reinforces his stories. Joan was at the bar and the recipient of his ire. Deborah is the one who threatens to take Danny away as he starts to fall for her.

What happens with this approach though, is other characters' identities and motivations don’t feel as well-rounded and you miss a chance to explore the different themes or truths of others.

An example would be Danny, who struggles with intimacy issues (a fact I found after reading a summary of the play) and one we know to be true by his quote: “Everything was good until you wanted to get ‘closer’ to be ‘better’”.

Danny when with Bernie is very passive and reinforces nearly everything he says. When with Deborah however he is a gentleman; asking her if she’d like to stay over, asking her if she’s having a good time, and making her feel secure. In reference to his passivity with Bernie, you’d conclude that Danny is playing a role with Bernie but behind closed doors he is really a kind person however Danny is also quick to anger. As soon as they move in he starts becoming impatient with her; he tells Joan, her housemate, to shove a lamp up her ass and in another argument calls Deborah a cunt and blames her for their issues but then apologises.

In isolation, you can see how he is just pushing back at her it times he feels vulnerable or out of his depth emotionally (when she requires him to step into the emotional support role side of their relationship). However because earlier in these scenes, Bernie tells Danny to keep a woman you have to ‘treat them mean to keep em keen’, it’s difficult to discern where Danny’s actions and opinions are his own, versus which have been coloured by Bernie. His outbursts and then apology feel like he tried to follow Bernie's advice and then realised he wasn’t that type of person, however Bernie doesn’t factor into the equation at all and this is the issue.

His emotional intimacy issues aren't picked up as his actions are viewed as things ‘in relation to Bernie’, instead of him being given the space to develop his own unique issues and problems. W didn't get to see him express this issue in enough ways that would've justified it or separated it as its own issue which makes his outbursts feel unjustified and random

It’s a good problem to have, it means Bernie was written so well however he overshadows the other characters in his view I feel.

The Duck Variations

I thought this was a brilliant little play.

Annoyingly I’ve forgotten the name of the play that also does this so well, but I really enjoy the alternate realities/various iterations of the same scene.

Flowers are deserved here for not making the various iterations feel ‘forced’, every conversation felt like a natural offset of the last as opposed to a deliberate change.

[Nick Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two early plays by David Mamet. I’ve never seen a production of a Mamet play, but I’ve seen a number of his films. I recognize a Mamet style of dialogue (in films it comes over as highly stylized, working against the general sense of naturalism) and certain thematic concerns, notable the interest in manipulations and confidence trickery. I am tempted to call these two plays ‘apprentice work’, but I will have to read more of Mamet’s output to have a clearer picture of how they fit into his career. The earlier one, Duck Variations, is a series of dialogues – or one dialogue cut into 14 sections – between two men in a park. The conversation drifts, but the thorny subject of ducks always emerges. The conversations are distinctive, amusing – they show Mamet is a playwright with a unique voice, but I’m unsure whether Duck Variations is anything more: perhaps it is about ‘communication’, but that’s probably too vague to mean anything. And maybe it doesn’t have to be anything more: to be amusing, a variation on a vaudeville routine, is maybe enough. Sexual Perversity in Chicago is, in many ways, very similar. A series of dialogues, each centred on two characters (there is one scene with three), but now the reoccurring subject is sex, not ducks. It is a more ambitious work, a step forward, more interesting, perhaps less successful. There are four characters and a story: Danny and Deborah meet, move in with each other, spilt up. Deborah’s flatmate Joan is a caustic, sour voice, distrustful of men. The most dynamic character is Danny’s friend Bernie: a bragging Don Juan, who talks of women with contempt and as little more than objects of sexual conquest. He is truly obnoxious, but I wonder if he seems more obnoxious today than in 1974: his attitudes might have been more normal 40 years ago: he might have seemed a jerk rather than monstrous. Notably the time we seem him chatting to a woman rather than bragging to Danny, he is a disaster. If Deborah and Danny’s relationship holds a certain potential, the play is pessimistic: Deborah falls back into Joan’s cynicism, Danny takes solace in Bernie’s misogyny. It can all be taken as a sick joke or a very bleak view of 1970s American sexual politics.

[Elizabeth Friesen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll be blunt: I dislike David Mamet. Yes, his dialogue is natural, catchy, and true to the time period in which in was written. It's also dated, very annoying, and extremely misogynistic.

I will take each of the two plays separately because they are very different.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago is a pick-up artist's wet dream, rife with stereotypes and oozing misogyny. It was cringeworthy for me to read, as a woman, especially in the #MeToo era. I found it repulsive. It shows us just how vile some men can be and just how stupid the women are who try to appease and relate to them. I don't care if men talk that way. It's disgusting and unacceptable. It always was and it always will be. We can, and should, do better. I would give this play 0 stars, if I could. It made me want to barf.

The Duck Variations, on the other hand, is charming. It reminds me of the old men I see down by the waterfront, sitting, watching, laughing, crying, sharing stories, reminiscing, talking about everything and nothing. It takes me back to dinners with my father, a World War II veteran. We would talk about the most innocuous subjects (i.e. the weather, the neighbour's dog, the garden) but never about anything more serious. Occasionally, he would give us a hint about what his life was like before (and during) the war but there wasn't any real conversation about it, just glimpses into a past that was too painful to remember. As with this play, much was said in subtext. I would give this play 4 stars.

So, I'm averaging out my two ratings and giving this 2-play collection 2 stars. Don't like that? Too bad. Write your own review.

[S. Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My very first exposure to David Mamet's work was About Last Night, the 1986 film adaptation of Sexual Perversity in Chicago, which I saw during a weekday summer double feature in 1986 - in hindsight, a very inappropriate choice for a twelve-year-old.

Since that fateful summer, I have been far more familiar with Mamet through his cinematic contributions than his published plays, so reading the source of one of his film adaptations is a literary treat for me. Whether it's a screenplay or a stage play, Mamet's main strength in my view is his dialogue. Stylized yet earthy, the characters in Mamet's works tend to wax philosophically at random about life, love, business, ducks, or whatever it is they are into at that moment, and often do so quite ineloquently. While the dialogue is rarely realistic, it manages to reflect the reality of the character, which to me is real the true focus of Mamet's art.

Of the two plays presented in this collection, I would lean towards Sexual Perversity in Chicago as the better of the two, if only for the fact that it is more of a full-circle story about modern day relationships, whereas Duck Variations, while charming and engaging, is little more that a collection of short dialogues. Having not read the entirety of Mamet's literary output (or even a large percentage of it), I can't speak to where these two plays stand as representative of his work as a whole, but I found them to be both entertaining and engaging, and together a contrasting examination of the passion of youth, and the reflection of age.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, sex and relationships in Chicago in the '80's (although "SP" was first produced in '74). Lived there, but passed by Rush Street. Just read "Sexual Perversity".
Did not know that F Murray Abraham and Peter Reiger played the lead parts in the Off-Broadway premiere. In that staging Jane Anderson played Deborah (she went on to more reknown as a TV writer and director, doing some better quality material, including "Olive Kittredge" recently) and Gina Rogers (not much, but a Second City grad, and has done stand-up comedy in her career).
It has not aged well, although it was shocking at the time. And given Mamet's move to the far right, one has to wonder how much of what Brian has to say Mamet actually agrees with (although Brian is obviously full of shit - proudly talking of his time in Korea, 10 years after the war ghere had ended).
OTOH, the staging is something else - one of the first plays to be based on quick-hitting vigenettes. Some of which would have been quite difficult to stage, especially quickly. And, Brian's opening story of sex with a girl/woman who picks him up in a pancake house attached to a hotel is so over the top hilariious.
It is interesting to see Mamet's opinionated book on the NYT's Best Seller list right now, especially since he has not done a play or movie of any importance in over 20 years. Just rather irrelevant any longer.
"Fun" snapshot of a certain side of Chicago in the '70's and '80's.

[David Knapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

My wife Kathy and I were walking our English Cream Golden Retrievers (Athena and Apollo) the other day when something happened that made me think of "The Duck Variations." So, I dug out this script and reread it and "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" for the first time in decades.

It was fascinating to reread these two one-acts after such a long time. I still enjoyed both of them, but I have to say that "Sexual Perversity..." has not aged well (hence only three stars). In fact, it's hard for me to imagine anyone producing the play after the "Me Too" movement. Bernie Litko is just such a misogynist that I can't see a director wanting to deal with the backlash of a production.

On the other hand, I found "Duck Variations" as funny and touching as I remembered it to be. Emil and George's musings as they sit on a park bench watching ducks have easily stood the test of time and would be well received by current audiences. I'm just not sure what you'd pair with it if you didn't also run "Sexual Perversity..."

Anyway...this was a fun little stroll down memory lane. Rereading these one-acts took me back to my graduate school days at Emerson College in Boston in the mid-1980s. And savoring those memories for a while made this reread more than worthwhile.

[Downward · Rating 2 out of 5]

sexual perversity in chicago is just an awful play; mamet uses his considerable rhythmic powers of dialogue to offer us an insipid misogynist (in the name of criticism? i dont think so, really) take on the battle of the sexes. this is proto labute, meanness for the sake of hating women dressed up as social commentary: fuck that this play was ever a success and fuck david mamet for writing it. it gets zero stars. the only reason this collection is getting two stars is,

the duck variations is, i think (im not gonna look it up!) mamet's first play, and a touch more experimental than his later stuff (though still dialogue driven), it uses two guys on a park bench (theatrical parallels abound) watching ducks on a pond to contemplate the meaning of life. there's still and angry young man's perspective here, but it journeys occasionally intoma tenderness of spirit and genuine insight that mamet loses as he ages and retreats into a deeper and deeper cave of fuck you anger.

[Mark Valentine · Rating 2 out of 5]

What makes the first one-act play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, so perverse in my view is the degrading, objectified way in which the two male characters attack the two women. About sex. I found it an ugly, horrifying play. I suppose Mamet was being bold and trying to make an artistic statement about sexual themes being such a major stage event but I found the hate and dehumanizing language thoroughly repulsive. Sexuality should not have two men giving it such a terrible name.

The second one-act play, it was a tone poem for the stage, or something like Mussorgsky's, "Pictures at an Exhibition," on with two actors. The word play was articulate and the concepts modern, but in my old-fashioned preferences, I like theater that has a plot, or development. It was like doing a duck crossword puzzle all afternoon--a game, but filler all the same. Mental skipping. The warm-ups before the contest should not be the contest itself.

[Todd Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play was first performed in 1974, so when readers encounter it today, it's easy to pretend that's what twenty-somethings were like then, but things today have changed. And it's true; many things have changed: #MeToo, Gay marriages, pandemics that closed watering holes. So, treat this scathing play as a piece of unenlightened, unwoke perversity if you like, or really listen to the words. Were they foretelling the inherent difficulties men and women must overcome to enjoy a true relationship? Has anything gotten easier, or are there just as many landmines, just different ones. Thank goodness for perceptive playwrights like this author, who confronts us with these questions.

BTW, this play was the starting point for a movie named "About Last Night." The characters' names were consistent and the setting was Chicago, but otherwise I can't recommend it. It creates its own issues never raised in the play (for example, Joan's new boyfriend goes back to his wife--never in the play.)

Quick read and laugh-out-loud funny in many places. Sometimes it hurts with its incisiveness. Well worth an afternoon's perusal.

Also finished the play, The Duck Variations, a one-act play about two sixty-something men observing life, boats, the environment, and of course, ducks, in a hilarious slice of life. It's broken it 14 variations all beginning with an observation about ducks. Lots of word play and silliness. Very funny.

[Danny Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

These two plays are unique and they are interesting, but they don't quite stick the landing. The dialogue is snappy and out there, but the plotting and storytelling are messy. One play is about the sexual lives of young people living in Chicago while the other is a play about two old men talking about ducks and life among other things. Both seem incomplete, despite their bright moments and I wish I remembered them at all, but I found myself just forgetting about them the moment I finished them.

[Ebrahim Barzegar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well... the first play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, may have been a hit then, but not now! I guess the time is over. I see nothing so special in it now. And about the second play, The Duck Variations, I guess there is more to it. It is allegorical in sense and stay longer in mind in comparison with the youngsters' perversity which indicate a huge crisis of human being in modern day. All in all, it didn't catch me enough to please me as a reader.

[Aaron Berlau · Rating 2 out of 5]

oh mamet…
sexual perversity was straight up a bad play. did not need to hear awful straight men giving their boring opinions on sex and women. dull characters dull story, predictable. nothing to offer really
duck variations was ok but also it was very fake deep. didnt really offer anything moving on life or relationships or ducks honestly. if you want an interesting play about two men sitting at a park bench, read zoo story by albee