Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama (Diaries, Letters and Essays)

by David Mamet (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.46

  An elegantly packaged collection of theatre essays from America's most popular playwright Renowned playwright, screenwriter, poet and essayist David Mamet explains the necessity, purpose and demands of drama. A celebration of the ties that bind art to life, Three Uses of the Knife will enthral anyone who has sat anxiously waiting for the lights to go up on Act 1. In three tightly woven essays of characteristic force and resonance, Mamet speaks about the connection of art to life, language to power, imagination to survival, public spectacle ot private script. Self-assured and filled with autobiographical touches Three Uses of the Knife is a call to art and arms, a manifesto that reminds us of the singular power of the theatre to keep us sane, whole and human. Mamet's writing is tight, spare, and as accurate and ruthless as a scalpel Sunday Times

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.46

  A paperback edition of award-winning dramatist David Mamet's acclaimed collection of theatre essays. Renowned playwright, screenwriter, poet and essayist David Mamet explains the necessity, purpose and demands of drama. A celebration of the ties that bind art to life, Three Uses of the Knife will enthral anyone who has sat anxiously waiting for the lights to go up on Act 1. In three tightly woven essays of characteristic force and resonance, Mamet speaks about the connection of art to life, language to power, imagination to survival, public spectacle to private script. Self-assured and filled with autobiographical touches Three Uses of the Knife is a call to art and arms, a manifesto that reminds us of the singular power of the theatre to keep us sane, whole and human. 'Mamet's writing is tight, spare, and as accurate and ruthless as a scalpel' Sunday Times

• New

  Paperback
  2000

  $14.63

• New

  Hardcover
  1997

  $33.83

  What makes good drama? How does drama matter in our lives? In Three Uses of the Knife, one of America's most respected writers reminds us of the secret powers of the play. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, poet, essayist, and director, David Mamet celebrates the absolute necessity of drama-and the experience of great plays-in our lurching attempts to make sense of ourselves and our world. In three tightly woven essays of characteristic force and resonance, Mamet speaks about the connection of art to life, language to power, imagination to survival, the public spectacle to the private script. It is our fundamental nature to dramatize everything. As Mamet says, Our understanding of our life, of our drama...resolves itself into thirds: Once Upon a Time...Years Passed...And Then One Day. We inhabit a drama of daily life-waiting for a bus, describing a day's work, facing decisions, making choices, finding meaning. The essays in the book are an eloquent reminder of how life is filled with the small scenes of tragedy and comedy that can be described only as drama. First-rate theater, Mamet writes, satisfies the human hunger for ordering the world into cause-effect-conclusion. A good play calls for the protagonist To create, in front of us, on the stage, his or her own character, the strength to continue. It is her striving to understand, to correctly assess, to face her own character (in her choice of battles) that inspires us-and gives the drama power to cleanse and enrich our own character. Drama works, in the end, when it supplies the meaning and wholeness once offered by magic and religion-an embodied journey from lie to truth, arrogance to wisdom. Mamet also writes of bad theater; of what it takes to write a play, and the often impossibly difficult progression from act to act; the nature of soliloquy; the contentless drama and empty theatrics of politics and popular entertainment; the ubiquity of stage and literary conventions in the most ordinary of lives; and the uselessness, finally, of drama-or any art-as ideology or propaganda.