Now this is over-reaching authorial control...

[dramamama611]

Posted: 5/24/17 at 11:22pm

http://www.onstageblog.com/columns/2017/5/24/david-mamet-doesnt-want-you-to-talk-about-david-mamet-after-seeing-a-david-mamet-play

 

Wow.  I'm beyond shocked by this info....and I can't see how this is within his rights. I'd be curious if it would actually hold up in court, if anyone chose to challenge it.

Updated On: 5/25/17 at 11:22 PM

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 5/24/17 at 11:27pm

If it was in the contract to begin with and they signed it I'd have no problem with it but 4 hours before the opening is messed up. 

I've stayed for a few talk backs and usually find them rather interesting. 

[A Director]

Posted: 5/24/17 at 11:50pm

David Mamet hasn't been an interesting playwright for years!  What an ass!

[BroadwayRox3588]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 1:05am

Hey David. China Doll was garbage.

[devonian.t]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 3:49am

So that does that mean audiences aren't allowed to talk to each other as they walk out the theatre?  

I'd be tempted to shout "That was sh*te!  Now fine me!"

Writers should absolutely be entitled to protect their material, but have absolutely no control over the way the world responds to it!

[newintown]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 7:47am

I wonder - does anyone else feel that talkbacks often tend to be little more than opportunities for lonely/unbalanced people to listen to themselves talk at length?

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 8:04am

^ That just brings to mind this exchange from The Producers, though I can't exactly tell if that's who you mean:

"Actors aren't animals; they're human beings!"
"They are, huh? You ever eat with one?"

[newintown]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 8:14am

I think that's the best line from that movie, too.

But I was referring to nutjobs from the audience - the ones who get up to ask "four-part questions" that end up being lengthy statements/opinions with no questions at all.

[AC126748]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 8:15am

newintown said: "I wonder - does anyone else feel that talkbacks often tend to be little more than opportunities for lonely/unbalanced people to listen to themselves talk at length?

 

"

I don't disagree with this view of talkbacks. I have never willingly stayed for one. And when I moderated one a few years back, my experience was exactly this. 

Still, Mamet and reality parted company several years ago, and this just seems like one more example of it.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 8:19am

Once again, the pertinent focus is on the contract between the playwright and the theatre, nothing more and nothing less. No matter how unwise a license condition might be, it is enforceable. And the other lesson here is that a license is revocable. 

P.S. While Mamet's talent as a playwright fell off a cliff about 20 years ago, Oleanna was and is a great play.

@newintown yes

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 10:30am

HogansHero said: "Once again, the pertinent focus is on the contract between the playwright and the theatre, nothing more and nothing less. No matter how unwise a license condition might be, it is enforceable. And the other lesson here is that a license is revocable."

 

I sort of wish that this had happened to a bigger company that could have afforded to challenge this. Yes, the focus is on the contract, and a license is revocable, but the original contract, which both parties had already agreed to and signed, was not being broken. 

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 10:34am

The legality of it aside, Mamet has been an ass for years now, so this isn't really a surprise. 

As for talkbacks, generally I don't find them interesting, but the brief one after Indecent last week was quite good. I'd imagine it helped that Paula Vogel is a professor and therefore very good at answering questions like that. 

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 10:43am

Mamet's views on theatre are inherently primal and anti-intellectual: didn't he say actors shouldn't really have to act, just say the words and let the writing do the work?

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 10:50am

HogansHero, with the first contract signed was the company obligated to sign the second contract stating that a talk-back could not happen? Can one party say, "I know we had a deal and signed on it, but here are my NEW terms; take it or leave it."

It seems to me that if something wasn't stipulated in the first contract then Mamet and his representatives should have had to chalk this up as a lesson learned, and add it to all future contracts.

On a side note, I saw a production of Oleanna several years ago at Indiana State University, and it was followed by a very insightful Q&A session.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 10:50am

darquegk said: "Mamet's views on theatre are inherently primal and anti-intellectual: didn't he say actors shouldn't really have to act, just say the words and let the writing do the work?"

 

So that's what Debra Winger was doing in The Anarchist!

[dramamama611]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 10:52am

Yes, sometimes that is what happens,  but I don't think I've ever stayed for one that didn't offer something I appreciated.  

 

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 11:44am

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."

[Kad]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 11:49am

I've certainly sat through my share of excruciating talkbacks- a cringe-comedy moment of an older patron asking Lucas Hnath, "May I tell you how I thought the play should have ended?" at a talkback after The Christians comes to mind- but I have also sat through really wonderful ones, too. A talkback after John was very insightful (the long running time probably weeded out the people looking for a soapbox).

Even though they are hit-or-miss, and whatever you think of them, I think controlling whether or not they happen should not be within the power of a playwright. But when I saw the headline, I was like, "This has to be Mamet." And lo and behold, it was! Who else would it be?

[HogansHero]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 11:54am

Re the contract, we don't know what it said but I would assume there was some pretext for revocation. I agree that if this were tried with a larger company there may well have been push back. The whole thing reflects poorly on Mamet, if that is still possible. 

Not to mix metaphors, but I recall Albee saying (at a talk back), when asked what he hoped people were talking about after seeing the show (I think it was The Play About the Baby),"anything except where the car is parked."

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 1:40pm

Sounds like he slapped them with a rider to the contract at the last minute.  This article from 2014 details the rider.  This is all about his ego and control.  I would love to hear what he considers his "damages" would be from a talkback occurring within two hours of the end of the performance hosted ANYWHERE by the theatre company, and how he arrived at the sum of $25,000 per instance.  To me, it just looks like bullying, using money as his weapon of choice.  I'd be interested to see the contract 1) to see how it addresses riders in connection with the contract (language that insists upon licensee signing any rider or addendum after the execution of the contract should be a HUGE red flag) and 2) to see what is considered a breach of contract by either party and the penalties involved.  Mamet and Samuel French know these small theatre companies (and most large ones, even) don't have the money to pay penalties or to sue if they get slapped with talkback penalties.  Personally, I've always hated his work.  There are millions of other plays by millions of other playwrights.  Don't sign the contract cuz he ain't that special to tell theatres what they are allowed to discuss post-performance with an audience.  

I would also be curious how "Licensee" is defined in the contract.  If the Licensee doesn't "authorize or conduct" the talkback, then someone else can.  There's a legal loophole to be investigated if a maverick theatre company is that desperate to produce one of his shows.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 1:46pm

Not to mix metaphors, but I recall Albee saying (at a talk back), when asked what he hoped people were talking about after seeing the show (I think it was The Play About the Baby),"anything except where the car is parked."

HA!  I actually have a working draft of the play for a class I took at his university.  I really enjoyed hanging out and chatting with him.  He was hilarious.

This reminds me of years before I was attending the university when I took my mother to see Albee's The Marriage Play and we both hated it.  About a month later, we went to see Albee's The Lorca Play and were chatting about it in the lobby during intermission.  My mother was saying something about how it wasn't great, but nowhere near as bad as The Marriage Play and then launched into a scathing review of the latter.  As she's talking about it and laughing, I notice Albee standing behind her, fixated on everything she's saying, so I nudged her and whispered, "He's right behind you and listening".  She exclaimed, "GOOD!  HE NEEDS TO HEAR THIS!"  Albee smiled and walked away.  LOL

Updated On: 5/25/17 at 01:46 PM

[HogansHero]

Posted: 5/25/17 at 2:04pm

Mister Matt said: "Sounds like he slapped them with a rider to the contract at the last minute.  This article from 2014 details the rider.  "

This makes me wonder if the blog's source was accurate or if, in fact, the rider had been there the entire time. (I have no clue, but this seems a bit more plausible, if just as absurd.)