Debra Winger

It’s a bad time for the playwright David Mamet right now. His new play, The Anarchist, starring Debra Winger and Patti LuPone will close on December 16, 2012, it has been announced. The play opened at the John Golden Theatre on December 2, to largely negative reviews and the effect of those reviews means that the play will only run for its 23 previews and 17 performances, The Wrap has reported. A bitter disappointment, no doubt, for the Pulitzer Prize winning writer, who is more accustomed to being on the receiving end of endless praise, rather than such harsh criticisms as he has received for The Anarchist.

The New York Times review was particularly harsh, saying that the play “is not lurid, spark filled or even expletive laden” and Mark Kennedy of Associated Press was equally dismissive of Mamet’s efforts, writing that “The Anarchist starts in second gear and never really speeds up or slows down, just becomes wave after wave of staccato dialogue that is more pleasant on the page than spoken.” The play had originally been scheduled to run for 14 weeks until February 17, 2013 but it now looks as though the reviews have had a disastrous impact on the play’s fortunes.

To further add to Mamet’s misery, a revival of his 1984 Pulitzer-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross has been pushed back to open this Saturday (December 8, 2012) after originally being planned for November. Let’s hope Mamet’s confidence can weather the storm and we see a return to form from him soon.

David Mamet's new play The Anarchist opened at the Golden Theatre in New York City on Sunday (December 2, 2012), though the majority of critics panned the show that tells the story of two actresses playing a verbal game of cat-and-mouse.

Patti LuPone plays Cathy, a middle-aged prison inmate who got an indeterminate sentence behind bars after a deadly armored truck robbery. After 35 years in prison and a conversion to Christianity, Cathy begins to plead for clemency with the warden Ann, played by Debra Winger. The Associated Press' drama critic Mark Kennedy opened his scathing review with, "David Mamet's new play "The Anarchist" contains - shock! - not a single swear word. But some are certain to be used by theatregoers walking out after the show." Echoing the New York Times' devastating review of Guy Fieri's new restaurant, Kennedy picks apart the play piece-by-piece, saying, "Running an intermissionless 70 minutes, "The Anarchist" starts in second gear and never really speeds up or slows down, just becomes wave after wave of staccato dialogue that is more pleasant on the page than spoken." Kennedy delivers the killer blow in his final couple of lines, writing, "It fails to connect to the heart or the mind. But at least it's mercifully short. No sooner have you arrived at the theater than you are back in the street, puffing in the cold air - and maybe sending out an expletive, too."

Mamet - a revered playwright and essayist - is the winner of a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for the classic 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).

Continue reading: Critic Pans David Mamet's The Anarchist: "Theatregoers Will Walk Out"