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is pleased to announce the

$395
LUNCH
SPECIALS

Served Mon.-Sat. from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm

your choice of:
• Soup and Salad
• Sandwich and Cup of Soup
• Sandwich and Salad

for $395
Banquet Facilities Available
Saturday Afternoons, Nights and Sundays.
Whether a wedding, shower,
BarlBat Mitzvah, Anniversary
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The Sheik would love to serve you.

Open for Lund?, anO Dinner 7 -Days

4189: OrdwA Cape goao

Orcbaro C.ake

4/24
1998
1111

248-865-0000 \

David Mamet's
"The Spanish Prisoner"
centers on an elaborate
con fir ence game.

soul, even though his boss is played by
that veteran sneak and snake, Ben
Gazzara).
Very soon, a hustling smoothie
is too bad that the late John
shows
up, Jimmy Dell, played with
Houseman never made a film
fine
threads
and a whiff of hip spin on
with David Mamet. Had he
Mamet
speech
patterns by Steve Mar-
unleashed the power of his Pro-
tin (he warmed up for this guy with io
fessor Kingsfield voice on a Mamet
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels).
script, the imperious drill parade of
Dell lures gullible Joe into his confi-
pronouncements could have nailed
dence, gives him a prized book, and
our ears right to the center of our
later (in New York) blithely provides
skulls.
him with a Swiss bank account and a
In Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner,
swank club 'membership —
the actors are once again cali-
Joe
is nettled, but more flat-
brated machines for his enuncia- Campbell Scott
tered.
tory style (Mamet's Affected
is Joe Ross, the
This being the terrain of
Method of Elocutionary Tech-
patsy at the
big money and power — 40
nique).
center of the .
the Manhattan sites include
His usual crew of connivers
con game.
turf near the Guggenheim
and scam artists makes do, this
Museum — everyone is
time, without the usual Mamet
extremely
aware
of the style of the
profanity. But they have his dry, punc-
game.
There's
so
much sobering taste
tilious diction (he's Henry Higgins
and
"good
form"
that people seem to
with the spirit of Zoltan Karpathy, the
be
in
a
ghostly
dance,
as if projected
Hungarian sharpie).
from a 17th-century court.
In the Mamet way, a con game is
The plot, a rewiring of Hitchcock's
conspiring. The patsy at the center is
innocent-man-in-quicksand thrillers,
Joe Ross (Campbell Scott), who has
also involves a woman new to the office
devised an arcane formula for a
(played by Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet's
process that can mean billions to the
wife).
She throws herself at Joe, who is
company — if "the Japanese" don't get
too
puzzled
by his problems to guess
it (the references to them are not flat-
she
might
be
another scamster.
tering).
Dubious FBI agents and lawyers turn
At a secretive meeting in the
up, each more briskly patronizing than
Caribbean, Joe begins to sense that
the last, and Joe slips down the mystery
with so much at stake, his own piece
chute, his life flummoxed by fakery.
of the action is iffy (he's a trusting

DAVID ELLIOTT
Special to The Jewish News

I