One of America's most provocative dramatists conquers new territory with this droll comedy of errors set in a Victorian drawing room.

Anna and Claire are two bantering, scheming "women of fashion" who live together on the fringes of society.  Anna has just become the mistress of a wealthy man, from whom she has received an enormous emerald.  Claire, meanwhile, is infatuated with a young girl and wants to enlist the jealous Anna's help for an assignation.  As the two women exchange barbs and taunt their hapless maid, Claire's inamorata arrives and sets off a crisis that puts both the valuable emerald and the women's future at risk.  Mamet brings his trademark tart dialogue and impeccable plotting, spiced with Wildean wit, to this wickedly funny comedy.
"One of Mamet's most satisfying and accomplished plays, and one of the funniest American comedies in years."  -New York Post

"[Mamet's characters] are at each other's throats with a wit akin to characters out of Wilde and a vengence not unlike those from Pinter, Edward Albee, or Mamet himself."  -The Boston Globe

"Devastatingly funny...exceptionally clever."  -The New York Times
DAVID MAMET is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, as well as a director, novelist, poet, and essayist. He has written the screenplays for more than twenty films, including Heist, Spartan, House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, The Winslow Boy, Wag the Dog, and the Oscar-nominated The Verdict. His more than twenty plays include Oleanna, The Cryptogram, Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and the Pulitzer Prizewinning Glengarry Glen Ross. Born in Chicago in 1947, Mamet has taught at the Yale School of Drama, New York University, and Goddard College, and is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company. View titles by David Mamet

About

One of America's most provocative dramatists conquers new territory with this droll comedy of errors set in a Victorian drawing room.

Anna and Claire are two bantering, scheming "women of fashion" who live together on the fringes of society.  Anna has just become the mistress of a wealthy man, from whom she has received an enormous emerald.  Claire, meanwhile, is infatuated with a young girl and wants to enlist the jealous Anna's help for an assignation.  As the two women exchange barbs and taunt their hapless maid, Claire's inamorata arrives and sets off a crisis that puts both the valuable emerald and the women's future at risk.  Mamet brings his trademark tart dialogue and impeccable plotting, spiced with Wildean wit, to this wickedly funny comedy.

Reviews

"One of Mamet's most satisfying and accomplished plays, and one of the funniest American comedies in years."  -New York Post

"[Mamet's characters] are at each other's throats with a wit akin to characters out of Wilde and a vengence not unlike those from Pinter, Edward Albee, or Mamet himself."  -The Boston Globe

"Devastatingly funny...exceptionally clever."  -The New York Times

Author

DAVID MAMET is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, as well as a director, novelist, poet, and essayist. He has written the screenplays for more than twenty films, including Heist, Spartan, House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, The Winslow Boy, Wag the Dog, and the Oscar-nominated The Verdict. His more than twenty plays include Oleanna, The Cryptogram, Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and the Pulitzer Prizewinning Glengarry Glen Ross. Born in Chicago in 1947, Mamet has taught at the Yale School of Drama, New York University, and Goddard College, and is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company. View titles by David Mamet