The Canadian Dramatist, Volume Two: Playwrights of Collective Creation by Diane Bessai (review)

Book Reviews 421 added dimension through which to examine Marnel's work as well as his creative process . Mosher says, " ... one of the things that characterizes David - what makes David David - are his contradictions. He is many times the most courtly, gentlemanly guy you could imagine; other times he's terrifying. You see raw strength coming out of him. It's not that one of them is him, and the other is an act or a mask. They are both him" (242). And Mantegna adds, "What's so great about this guy, is that he puts it on the line every year, every day. There are some guys who build careers on one thing. David's pumping it out. so it's like full speed ahead, here I go" (263). The shrewd perceptions from these two colleagues/friends of Marnel nicely round out Kane's casebook , making it an accessible document suitable for classroom use or private research. In David Mamer and Film, Gay Brewer presents a carefully articulated and meticulously analyzed text centered on what he sees as Mamet's shift from theater to mm, particularly directing. Brewer sees this shift as coming about for three reasons: film proved more receptive to multiple productions each year; "film offered Mamet new challenges and a vastly larger audience" (31), and film gave Marnel "the great degree of control enjoyed by the film director" (31). Brewer draws an analogy between directing film and the "can" that is an integral part of Marnel's canon and reminds the reader that in Marnet's work, "the world depicted is predominantly male and operates outside the law" (65), a suggestion that Mamet is extending his male community from stage to film.In doing so, he is also extending his expertise from language, for which he has been so noted, to manipulating the audience into his somber vision through film images. According to Brewer, "Film has given Mamet a much larger playground - in terms of finance, audience. medium, style - in which to Jet his hucksters roam. and it has more fully implicated Mamet. as director, in manipulations inherent in his method, means, and purpose of control" (6). Brewer analyzes Things Change, The Shawl, and Speed-the-Plow, thoroughly documenting Mamet's metamorphosis to. film, then moves to an extensive discussion of Homicide, Mamel's recent film starring Joe Mantegna. He teUs us, "Mamet's allegiance to the art form which now occupies the majority of his attention is conclusive; it is a grim vision, however, which charts film's most valuable effect as record of man 's inevitable self-destruction" (162). All in all, Brewer's view of Marnet's canon is unalleviated grimness and a despairing search for family. Brewer's book includes extensive notes to each chapter, provocative pictures from each film discussed, a valuable bibliography, and a filmography. Despite its grimness, the book's scrupulous detail makes it desirable in a collection of Marnet criticism. LANEI.LE DANIEL, NORTHWEST COLLEGE, POWELL, WYOMING DIANE BBSSAI. The Canadian Dramatist, Volume Two: Playwrights oj Collective Creation . Toronto: Simon & Pierre 1992. Pp. 292. illustrated. $29.95 (PB). This book is part of a growing body of work to emerge in recent years which celebrates the influence of Paul Thompson and Theatre Passe Muraille. Denis Johnston dealt pri- 422 Book Reviews marily with the history and evolution of the company in the broader context of alternate theatres in Toronto in Up the Mainstream (1991), and Judith Rudakoff compiled four previously unpublished plays and documented the company's "first era" in Dangerous Traditions: A Passe Muraille Anthology (1992). What Bessai offers, that these others do not. is an examination of the plays/productions themselves. Playwrights a/Collective Creation traces the impact of Paul Thompson's working methods, in the context of Theatre Passe Muraille, on a number orfigures who were involved with the company at various points in its history, and who went on to write plays themselves. Bessai suggests that even though "collective theatre" is not a "writer's theatre," "part of its wider influence ... concerns the growth of individual playwrights who developed their craft at various alternate theatres" (43). She outlines significant patterns of development in the...