Drama
Speed-the-Plow
Manoel Theatre

With so many reality-competition shows out there, from the Italian Amici, the UK’s Britain’s Got Talent to So You think You Can Dance?, X Factor and Pop Idol, the culture of show-business is firmly entrenched in contemporary consciousness.

David Mamet’s 1989 play, Speed-the-Plow, put up by Maleth Theatre Company in the last weekend of November, deals precisely with what goes on in the background of a multi-million dollar industry like the Hollywood film industry, and takes a wry, satiric look at what goes on behind the scenes in production companies before the audience ever sees the finished feature film. Many times, we tend to forget that glitz and glamour we take for granted are actually held up by a much more mundane backstage scenario.

So why the rather odd title? In an interview in The Chicago Tribune, Mamet explained it by saying that he “remembered the saying that you see on a lot of old plates and mugs: ‘Industry produces wealth, God speed the plow.’ This, I knew, was a play about work and about the end of the world, so Speed-the-Plow was perfect because not only did it mean work, it meant having to plow under and start over again.”

Manuel Cauchi played Bobby Gould to Mikhail Basmadjian’s Charles Fox – two Hollywood producers whose fast-talking, smart-aleck attitude towards script writers and their desire for power and money lead them to choose plots which are guaranteed to gross as much revenue as possible and appeal to the public by pandering to clichés rather than films which actually have a message to put across.

Mr Cauchi shone as Gould, a newly appointed executive, who dreams of the benefits that he and Fox, a grade below him, will reap if the movie they have on their hands makes it to the top and gets their boss’s approval – possibly gaining them credits as producers. The entire play is fast-paced and industry-oriented in its outlook and this is what brings the sexual element into the picture.

Mr Basmadjian’s excellent Fox, as sly as the animal he gets his name from, bets Gould to seduce Karen, the new, temporary secretary, after telling him that she’d only be interested in his power and position at the company rather than for his own worth. Gould agrees and asks Karen to review a book that would be completely inappropriate for a blockbuster movie. When he goes to her place that night, he tries to seduce her, but she has already been seduced by the book, about which she waxes lyrical. Turns out that she ends up seducing him instead, even though he doesn’t realise it until later that following morning, when he informs the infuriated Fox of his decision to drop the blockbuster film in favour of the one based on the book Karen has convinced him to make.

Almog Pail’s portrayal of Karen was very well executed and deserved the applause she received at the end of the show – hers was a part that showcased every subtle nuance of the blend of doe-eyed naïveté and manipulative strength that make Karen’s character such a complex one to interpret.

Indeed, director Lino Farrugia’s choice in casting this piece was laudable. Mr Basmadjian’s energy and quick-fire delivery was fitted the character of Fox very well and together with Mr Cauchi’s self-assured Gould and Ms Pail’s charms, succeeded in exposing this hilarious satire of Hollywood being a culture as corrupt as the society it claims to reflect.

Leaving the audience pondering the very appropriate meaning of the refrain to Michael Buble’s latest hit, Hollywood – “So don’t fly higher for your fire, Put it in your head, Baby Hollywood is dead, You can find it in yourself, Keep on loving what is true, And the world will come to you.”