“Everybody’s a dreamer/Everybody’s a star/And everybody’s in show biz/It doesn’t matter who you are.”

                                     The Kinks : Celluloid Heroes

David Mamet sets his play – the obscurely titled  “SPEED-THE-PLOW” in Los Angeles in the late 1980s.  

The Kinks lyrics are a truism that most certainly applies in Los Angeles. Everybody in LA is part of Tinsel Town, no matter whether they fit  into the glam and glitz or are Hollywood  misfits.

There are just three characters in this play, Bobby Gould (Damon Herriman), head of production at a Hollywood movie studio, his colleague and subordinate Charlie Fox (Lachy Hulme), and Bobby’s new temporary secretary Karen (Rose Byrne).

The play has three  succinct scenes. The first scene takes place in Gould’s austere  office and involves all three characters. As the action unfolded, Karen’s character was subtlety exposed. The  feeling was that she was going to be the protagonist- she was going to drive the action, and this is how it played out.

Rose Byrne is compelling as  Karen. Karen comes across as just another attractive secretary, starting a new job, eager to please. As we watch her there’s just that question mark about her that just gets bigger- has she taken on the job  as a way of getting into the industry and if so, how ambitious is she, and what level will she go to, to stake her claim?!

Damon Herriman is well cast as the hard edged Gould, eager to make his mark in his new executive position. As is Lachy Hulme as the high spirited Charlie who has found a prison movie that will just be perfect for them, and he has already snared famous actor Doug Brown to play the lead role.

The repartee between the two men in Gould’s office is classic Mamet – vulgar, frank,and scathing. One would imagine a meeting in a Hollywood producers office would be coarse and typical of this. There were of-course the requisite dismissive comments that Hollywood filmmaking had anything to whatsoever to do with artistic integrity.    

Andrew Upton’s tight production speeds along – not unlike speeding the plow – to the play’s emphatic conclusion with a running time of just over ninety minutes straight through.

The play features two sets by designer David Fleisher – Gould’s rather run down, mediocre, soulless office, and then the slick and minimalist living room in his modern apartment.

Recommended, this latest revival of David Mamet’s SPEED-THE-PLOW is playing the Roslyn Packer Theatre until December 17.