Mathilde Dratwa on New Play Confronting David Mamet, Harvey Weinstein

In A Play About David Mamet Writing About Harvey Weinstein, a fictional David Mamet is poisoned, castrated and murdered along with his personal playwriting award.

The piece, written by playwright Mathilde Dratwa, takes intention at Mamet and his performs, which embody American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna, and have maintained a spot in theater canon, whilst Dratwa factors to their swaggering male characters, crude language, derogatory therapy of girls and extra. In 2019, Mamet premiered the play Bitter Wheat, which was impressed by Weinstein and follows a fictional movie mogul who’s introduced down by his personal sexual malfeasance. This gave Dratwa the inspiration for her piece.

Her play additionally makes observe of the establishments which have held Mamet up and expands its goal to incorporate a sung-through listing of well-known sexual predators, earlier than pausing and analyzing the carnage. 

Characters embody an indignant playwright overseeing scenes between her bolder alter-ego, a millennial actress auditioning for a job and “some previous white dudes named David.” Abbi Jacobson, Heléne Yorke, Tony Award winner Kara Younger and Billy Eichner will tackle these roles July 21, in a one-night studying of the play directed by The Acolyte’s Leslye Headland. George Strus and Rachel Sussman are producing. 

The studying, which is able to happen on the Off-Broadway theater Playwrights Horizons as a profit for the New York Civil Liberties Union, marks the play’s greatest manufacturing but. Tickets shortly bought out for the studying, which Dratwa, whose different works have been produced Off-Broadway and elsewhere, notes as a optimistic signal, whilst she’s uncertain about how the trade will react. 

Dratwa spoke with The Hollywood Reporter forward of the efficiency about her nerves about presenting these concepts, the politics of the theater trade and the nuance she discovered within the piece. 

Why do you need to write this play? 

The genesis for the play occurred after I learn a tiny little blurb that [Mamet] was writing about Harvey Weinstein and that the play would get produced in London. It made me absurdly indignant. I couldn’t actually work out why, after which I noticed, Wait, maintain on, this play’s being produced. There’s no script but. He hasn’t began writing it. His Broadway producer got here to him and was like, “You must write about this.” And he did. And now he has a theater lined up in London, and he’s writing about this. Why? Why this playwright? It was one thing so absurd. And I simply thought, if Mamet will get to put in writing about Weinstein, then I get to put in writing about Mamet. 

His play, Bitter Wheat, did ultimately premiere in London in 2019. Had been you continue to working in your play when that occurred? 

Sure. And the play advanced. After I first discovered about it, it was the peak of #MeToo, and all these items was happening. After which by the point Bitter Wheat occurred, the world had shifted slightly. And I noticed when the anger had died down, what I used to be really actually interested by was extra of a dissection than a takedown. And it was much less about David Mamet is doing this terrible factor, and the way dare he when he writes this sort of play. And it turned extra about who will get to put in writing what performs and what’s my complicity?

And it additionally turned that manner because it went from enjoyable vignettes that I used to be simply getting my buddies to learn to an precise play. I wrote it for my buddies for monologue nights. After which weirdly, the play began having a lifetime of its personal. In the course of the pandemic, individuals had been apparently passing it round. A pal of mine was like, “Oh, I went to somebody’s front room and we learn it out loud.” One other pal was like, “We had been passing it round within the within the dressing room.” And but nobody needs to supply it, for apparent causes. 

Nobody has wished to supply it? 

I imply, to this point. I received’t say that that’s due to the subject material, it may very well be for a wide range of causes, however it’s definitely true that two of my different performs have had productions, and the third one is having a workshop manufacturing. And so that is the final of the 4 that I’ve written, and it’s simply attention-grabbing to me that that’s the one which hasn’t obtained that type of consideration but.

How are you feeling about doing this high-profile studying of it now? 

I really feel tremendous excited. I additionally really feel actually apprehensive, as a result of I do know [David Mamet’s] very litigious, and I do know that inside the theater neighborhood, there are Mamet die-hards, and I’m simply curious who’s going to indicate up and the way it’s going to be obtained. I’m tremendous excited concerning the caliber of the actors that we had been capable of entice, and I feel that’s a testomony to the producers and to Leslye, but additionally curious the way it’s going to land.

Along with the Mamet content material, you additionally deliver up a number of statements concerning the theater trade that I haven’t heard mentioned so publicly. For instance, one in all your characters talks concerning the rumored all-female Glengarry manufacturing saying, “That’s feminism in 2025: an all-female almost-production of Glengarry Glen Ross. Making a girl say the road, ‘you fuck little ladies, so be it.’ That’s about as enlightened as Broadway will get.” Are you nervous about how these statements shall be obtained by the trade? 

I’m, and I’m additionally conscious that a couple of years in the past, the Lillys [which tallies non-profit productions by gender and race] had been like, “For the primary time ever, we now have parity by way of gender illustration on stage.” And this 12 months, dismal. So clearly, when you don’t have that type of fixed vigilance and push that, it doesn’t proceed. And this specific 12 months, quite a lot of theaters have introduced seasons with nearly no girls, or one girl in a co-creator function.

It’s not finger pointing in any respect, however it feels slightly bit harmful in a manner that I don’t know that it will have a couple of years in the past, earlier than the election. I really feel like, “Oh, we’re again to a spot the place it is a provocative factor and folks really feel singled out.” And creative administrators of Roundabout and Williamstown and all these locations that failed girls slightly bit this 12 months [in terms of their programming] are going to really feel focused. And in addition what’s happening politically within the broader manner. Now we have somebody within the White Home who mentioned, “Seize her by the pussy.” There was a time after I wrote it, after I assume there was like this wave, and I’d have felt very very like, “Have a look at my righteous anger.” And now it simply feels slightly bit completely different, and just a bit extra really harmful. 

Why do you assume members of the theater trade have been hesitant to say issues like this publicly? 

I feel that theater is a world the place you’ve bought lots of people who actually, actually, actually need to work, and the ability dynamic is so sophisticated. It’s its personal particular taste of the identical factor, however it’s like what occurred with Weinstein too, proper? What do you do when somebody has extra energy and another person is so hungry, and you’re in a profession that could be a vocation that you simply love, and the place you are feeling like all alternative is definitely taken away? And I feel that there’s one thing round that fragility that makes individuals actually, actually cautious. 

What’s your relationship with David Mamet performs? 

After I was finding out performing and in drama faculty, these performs are the place academics go for materials. So it was launched to me at a really impressionable age, and I actually cherished it, and the man I used to be relationship mentioned that he was his favourite playwright. For lots of people, I feel he introduced a sure vernacular to the stage, and he had an irreverence, and I used to be swept up in that. And it took me some time to query the content material of what I used to be really being requested to make use of for scene research class and monologues.

What do you consider his performs nonetheless being produced on Broadway? The revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, with Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk and Invoice Burr simply completed its run, and American Buffalo was revived a couple of years in the past. 

It’s attention-grabbing, proper? Bitter Wheat bought panned, however it bought produced and it bought a slot earlier than it had a script. He has one other few that didn’t accomplish that nicely on Broadway, however when you’ve reached a sure stage, you may fail loads and nonetheless be round in a manner that I don’t know is true of up-and-coming feminine playwrights.

Are you able to speak about your determination to maneuver from violence right into a extra nuanced tackle Mamet within the play? You let him defend himself, in a manner, and likewise flip the magnifying glass on your self as a playwright. 

To start with, I don’t really consider violence is the reply. And secondly, what are we attempting to say? Are we attempting actually to simply cancel everyone? I don’t assume that that’s the reply both. I feel the reply is extra expansive and beneficiant. It’s not a pushover reply, however it has to experience that line of we’re not going to face down and we’re not going to show into pushovers, however we additionally don’t really advocate for violence, and we additionally don’t know that we now have to forestall any of those individuals from being staged ever once more. I don’t assume that’s the top objective. So what’s it? After which it turned extra private, as a result of some of what’s within the script, too, round race and stuff like that, got here from actual errors I made, and actual conversations that I had with actresses of coloration who felt very strongly about their function on this play after they got here to learn for Zoe [the millennial actress]. 

At one level within the play, you appear to counsel that the answer is producing extra feminine and new playwrights. Is that the reply? 

Yeah, I feel feminine and non-binary and playwrights with disabilities. I feel that there’s an expansiveness to what’s attainable within the theater. And lots of people which might be drawn to the theater had been people who had been ostracized or forged out indirectly in highschool, and located their solution to a spot the place they might go on. And I simply actually need to consider within the theater as a spot the place we are able to all belong. And so I don’t assume it’s about, let’s not produce this playwright. It’s extra about all these names, who’re they? The place are they? Let’s produce all of those individuals and extra. 

Is your hope to get a extra full-scale manufacturing of this play? 

I really actually love the thought of a pop-up on another person’s set that may very well be achieved for not some huge cash. You utilize the sunshine plot that’s accessible. Doubtlessly, it may additionally even tour like an evening at Playwrights, an evening on the Roundabout. 

I feel theater could be extra issues and various things, and theater will also be extra reactive. I want this play had this sort of consideration 4 years in the past. The issues that we’re seeing on stage are slightly bit behind. Until you’re David Mamet, you get a theater on the West Finish to comply with do your play earlier than it’s written. However when you’re not that, you must wait for therefore lengthy that by the point it’s achieved … So we’re taught to put in writing timeless performs with out a shelf life. And I feel why isn’t the theater a significant a part of holding up a mirror to society? And wouldn’t it’s actually cool if we may write performs with shelf lives, however see them pop up shortly?

This interview has been edited for size and readability.