Death Defying Acts
"Laughing in the face of tragedy is a Death Defying Act"...
3 edgy comedies by 3 edgy writers: David Mamet
Elaine May "Hotline"), and Woody Allen ("Central Park West")
 

DAVID MAMET - "DEATH DEFYING ACTS"

    Born on November 30, 1947 in Flossmoor, Illinois, David Mamet studied at

 Goddard College in Vermont and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater

 in New York before venturing into the professional world of the Theatre. He began

 his career as an actor and director before achieving success in 1976 with three

Off Broadway plays, The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and

 American Buffalo.  The most recognized element of Mamet's style is his sparse,

 clipped dialogue. Although reminiscent of such playwrights as Harold Pinter and

 Samuel Beckett, Mamet's dialogue is so unique that it has become known as

 "Mametspeak". His language is not so much "naturalistic" as it is a poetic

impression  of streetwise jargon. Other signature elements of Mamet's style include

minimalism  and a lack of stage directions.

     Noted for his strong male characters, Mamet's plays often deal with the decline

of  morality in a world which has become an emotional and spiritual wasteland. In

1984, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross which recreated

the  atmosphere of a gritty Chicago real estate office in which Levine, an aging

salesman, is about to be sacked. He followed up in 1988 with Speed the Plow

which exposes the dirty underside of another undustry--show business.
 
      Mamet has taught at Goddard College, the Yale Drama School and New York

 University. His awards include the Joseph Jefferson Award, 1974; Obie Award,

 1976, 1983; New York Drama Critics Circle Award, 1977, 1984; Outer Circle

 Award, 1978; Society of West End Theatre Award, 1983; Pulitzer Prize, 1984;

 Dramatists Guild Hall-Warriner Award, 1984; American Academy Award, 1986;

 Tony Award, 1987.

     David Mamet's An Interview is an oblique, mystifying interrogation. A sleazy

 lawyer  is forced to answer difficult questions and to admit the truth about his life

 and  career.  Click on David Mamet's pic above for more information from

Wikipedia.
 

ELAINE MAY - "HOTLINE"

     Screenwriter Elaine May has enjoyed a multifaceted career as a highly

regardedwriter, director, and performer. She was honored with an Academy Award

nomination for Best Screenplay for the comedy Heaven Can Wait, which she

cowrote with the film's star Warren Beatty, and her adaptation of Joe Klein's book

Primary Colors. She made her feature film directorial debut on A New Leaf, which

she also scripted. She wrote and directed Mikey and Nicky and Ishtar and directed

The Heartbreak Kid from a screenplay by Neil Simon, a film that earned a Best

Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her daughter, Jeannie Berlin.

     Plays May has written for the stage include Adaptation, Not Enough Rope, Mr.

Gogol and Mr. Preen, and the one-act play Hot Line, presented as part of the 1995

Off-Broadway hit Death Defying Acts. She also directed the Off-Broadway

production of Terrence McNally's Adaptation/Next.

     In "Hotline" by Elaine May a neurotic woman with enough urban angst to fill a

neighborhood calls a suicide crisis hotline late one night.  Click on Elain May's pic

above for more information from Wikipedia.

WOODY ALLEN - "CENTRAL PARK WEST"

     Allen's on-screen persona is well known: a comical and brainy New Yorker in

nebbishy black glasses, nervous about sex, death and modern times. Once a writer

for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, later a stand-up comic, Allen came into his

own in the 1970s as triple-threat writer, actor and director in movie comedies like

Bananas (1971) and Sleeper (1973). He won a Best Picture Oscar for his ode to

modern love in New York, Annie Hall (1977, with frequent co-star and then-girlfriend

Diane Keaton in the title role). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he averaged one

movie a year, including serious films like Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and

Husbands and Wives (1992) and lighthearted tales like Zelig (1983) and Bullets

Over Broadway (1994).  His most recent films include, Hollywood Ending, Sweet

and Lowdown, Deconstructing Harry, Small Town Crooks, and Match Point.

     His plays include Play It Again, Sam, Death, Don't Drink the Water, The Floating

Light Bulb, and God.

     A well to do psychiatrist has just discovered that her best friend is having an

affair with her husband in Woody Allen's wildly comic, Central Park West.