David Mamet, WHO is CHINA DOLL?
In the smart new Mamet play, who (or what) does the title refer to? A great question! Unless I’m mistaken, the words “china doll” are not spoken. I took it that the title refers to the girlfriend Francine Pearson. Or, more precisely, Mickey Ross’s perception of her. How Ms. Pearson “appears” in his psyche. How he has fashioned her in his mind.
In the first act of the play, Ross lays it out in simplistic terms. Francine didn’t marry him for looks or for youth. She married him for money. He never factors in that there are subtle factors for which a person might marry. He tells Carson that a beautiful woman will always be able to entertain many offers and she will simply choose the best offer. Ross beholds Francine as a beautiful and brittle object. She is a figurine needing his protection, a valuable chess piece for him to move around his psychic game board.
In Beckett’s important work Endgame, Hamm’s first words are “Me . . . to play.” In CHINA DOLL, Mamet dramatizes the final moves of Mickey Ross, the play’s Machiavellian anti-hero.
Fool (Richard O’Callaghan) and Lear (Tim Pigott Smith in The West Yorkshire Playhouse’s KING LEAR. In CHINA DOLL by David Mamet, Ross is Lear-like for his rage and folly.
Hamm (George Roth) and Clov (Terrence Cranendonk) in Endgame produced by the Cleveland Museum of Art (2011), photo by Peter Jennings. Beckett’s Endgame is the absurdist model for CHINA DOLL by David Mamet
Ross and Carson ( Al Pacino and Christopher Denham) in CHINA DOLL by David Mamet at the Schoenfeld Theater (Photo by Jeremy Daniel)
AKA Ann Black, in this Mamet Play, Chess Piece? Conspirator? Spy?
And because his fiancé doesn’t appear in the play, we are invited to imagine her at the end of a phone call. An Aphrodite of our minds. Even there, her imagined presence offers more than Mickey’s picture. The false name that she uses in the hotel in Toronto, Ann Black, is telling. Miss Pearson is more than she appears.
“Black” may refer to her chess piece color and hint at darkness and subterfuge, a hidden agenda. She doesn’t explain why she used a false name when he asks her. Ross doesn’t press her for an answer even when it becomes clear that his legal problems may have nothing to do with tax evasion.
CHINA DOLL by MAMET: A THINK TWICE DRAMA REVIEW
CHINA DOLL Passengers: We Are Experiencing Turbulence
It began with the announcement that Al Pacino would appear in CHINA DOLL, an original play by David Mamet on Broadway. Fans who will go see Pacino on the big stage no matter what, whether it’s Shake-speare’s Merchant of Venice or Mamet’s American Buffalo—snatched up tickets for the fifteen week run that began at the Schoenfeld Theater in October this year.
That was the pro-Pacino buzz.
And as if from some law of drama physics, a counter-buzz met the pro-buzz with comparable force. This buzz was generated by speculation that the legendary-but-aged Pacino (75) couldn’t remember his lines. Rumors fixated on technical prompting devices that gave his memory assistance. Deriders of CHINA DOLL didn’t have to see the play to form an opinion. They’d heard all they need to know. The anti-Pacino buzz.
Finally, after two months of previews, CHINA DOLL opened in early December. Finally we’ve gotten past the glare of the lead actor’s stardom and honed in on Mamet’s play. Finally we won’t have to listen anymore to the vultures and boo-birds who get off on rooting for someone to fail. The critics have considered the play and set things right. Right? Hmmm. Wrong.
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