Twentieth Century American Drama : David Mamet as a Social Critic

Art has always been associated with moral purpose. More particularly, theatre makes us understand consciousness and bring some order into the chaos of existence. In fact, the twentieth century American drama has become symbolic of the human struggle for survival and David Mamet’s plays come to grips with the isolation and existential loneliness of individual human beings. Mamet is a writer of the present, hence his dominant concern with social situations offers a very strong critique on society and on the conditions which overwhelm the individual consciousness. This is what makes his plays universally acceptable. In all his major plays, the thrust is on competitiveness of urban life, of the surrender of the individual to the social pressures, to the desensitizing influence of industrialization which has now become a global problem. The basic assumption in the present work has been to view drama as a social phenomenon. While focussing on Mamet as a social playwright, the study tries to explore the thematic pattern, the concept of character and structuring constructs in Mamet’s plays. Hence the book shall be of equal interest to the students of literature and drama and will be useful in providing insight into major social concerns and issues of 20 century American drama, revealing the areas of darkness, conflict and tension in modern life and consciousness through the spoken idiom.