This is my first opportunity to write this column, taking over as there was slight missed communication between the former President and the Editor of the Review, and publication lapsed. I am trying to take over both functions simultaneously in putting together this issue. Fortunately, all the contributors submitted their work to the editors, and so I have been able to reconstruct what we should have received some time ago.

One might wonder what is the point of doing such work for a small audience of two hundred scholars in a backwater field like American Drama—rarely taught any more in American Literature programs if my experience interviewing candidates in that field is any indication. American Literature seems to consist primarily of fiction, and so American Drama as a significant genre is out of fashion. The one survey textbook of American Drama went out of print briefly, and has been revived as a private imprint. But fashions change.

Thus one function for the David Mamet Review is to be a record of productions on stage and film, and scholarship concerning  David Mamet by contemporary, informed, scholars. The ideal is that our reviews will be timely in the sense of giving an intelligent and immediate appreciation of the work. No one in future times, we hope, will know of the horror and terrible impact of September 11—or for the unending conflict in Iraq which ensued. Taking into account more than an immediate sensation, our reviews have a different kind of validity, reflecting a larger vision, from those of the overnight press—but one that still reflects the times.

We could not have chosen a more relevant author, either, nor one more prolific. As a writer of plays and films, primarily, as well as essayist, poet, and novelist, Mamet is a central and pivotal reflector of our times through a very refined consciousness. In my view, his work is largely satirical—others depict him as a realist. But under either guise, he is an ardent and impassioned critic of his society. This is immediately evident in his films which directly seem to comment on events. But his plays take more time to appreciate, as it wasn’t until this century that we began to notice the connection of American Buffalo to Watergate, or the way the view of money and ethics reflected the Reagan years in Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow. Oleanna was the most immediate reflector of its times, but the breakup of the nuclear family in The Cryptogram and Old Neighborhood has yet to be fully explored as a 1990s phenomenon.

I have every confidence, however, that Mamet will come to be appreciated as a central reflector of his times, as well as a writer who rooted himself in the literary heritage of Chicago very deeply and deliberately. Our job as scholars, then, is to continue to attempt to find terms in which to make evident to our colleagues why and how writer who primarily demonstrates his excellence as a playwright might best be understood as a writer of his time, as well as of significance for later time.

The advantage of this journal and this society, therefore, is that it brings to bear two hundred scholarly minds on a quite restricted field of inquiry, and creates a dialogue among us. As Leslie Kane first construed the David Mamet Society, both in the programs she sponsored and in the Review, this work has been positioned in the ground between literature and performance. She invited speakers to MLA sessions like Mike Nussbaum for the 25th anniversary of American Buffalo in Chicago, and Debra Eisenstadt right after her appearance in the film of Oleanna.

As one can see from the program announcement for 2004’s Second International David Mamet Conference in London, she has scheduled two key directors of Mamet’s work in London, as well as Jack Shepherd who starred as Roma in the original production of Glengarry Glen Ross (and the first British production of American Buffalo as well). One might forget that contemporary American playwrights rarely did well in London until these two groundbreaking Mamet productions. As a result, however, Director Lindsay Posner has made a recent career out of directing Mamet for the West End, with this year’s star-filled cast of Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and future productions—Oleanna next summer with Julia Stile, and the following year Life in the Theatre with Patrick Stewart.

Having actors and directors address the scholars allows an interdisciplinary dialogue that very rarely takes place in the academic world. But the combination of theory and practice is reflected in the Review itself which takes note of contemporary performances as well as of scholarly books and publications. This interdisciplinary work of the Society will continue, I hope, with my presidency—and I plan to continue the direction forged and created by the originators of our group, Leslie Kane and Chris Hudgins. 
            David K. Sauer
            Altmayer Chair of Literature
            Spring Hill College