HOUSE OF DAVID
from page 65
dealt directly only once with a Jewish
character in his work. That was in the
film Homicide, about a Jewish cop.
Last year he returned to his roots and
wrote a well received play, The Old
Neighborhood, about a late-thirtyish
Jewish man trying to make sense of
his past during a visit home.
His religious background formed
the basis for the newly released book
Bar Mitzvah (Little, Brown & Co.,
$26.95). The exquisitely illustrated
story addresses what it means to be a
Jew, as told to a young boy on the
brink of adulthood. Mamet's tale
juxtaposes the inner workings of a
watch with the struggle of the Jews
during the Holocaust. A hand-
ful of the books were signed,
silk-screened by hand, and
released in numbered special
editions, complete with 22-carat
gold leaf drawings. The original
artwork, by Donald Sultan, is
currently on display at the
Jewish Museum in New York
City.
The Winslow Boy, which
Mamet adapted from British
dramatist Terence Rattigan's cel-
ebrated play, is set in 1910 and
based on a real-life story of a 13-
year-old naval cadet who is
accused of stealing a five-shilling
postal order. Convinced of the
boy's innocence, the Winslow fami-
ly, including father (Nigel
Hawthorne), mother (Gemma
Jones) and sister (Mamet's wife,
Rebecca Pidgeon), persuade the
country's leading lawyer, Sir Robert
Morton (Jeremy Northam), to take
on the defense. As the case pro-
ceeds, it challenges many long-
accepted legal notions and sets off a
national frenzy — and exacts a
heavy price on the family.
"As a dramatist myself, I admire
Rattigan, and I tried to do The
Winslow Boy as a Broadway play for
many years," Mamet has said. "It
occurred to me that it was probably
easier to make a movie of it, which
turned out to be true." (In an unusual
twist for a writer associated with the
use of obscenities in his work,
Mamet's latest film has a "G" rating.)
Mamet currently divides his time
between homes in Cambridge, Mass.,
and Vermont, which he shares with
Pidgeon and their daughter, Clara. He
has two other daughters, Willa and
Zosia, from his previous marriage to
Philip Berk is a Los Angeles-based
freelance writer. Gail Zimmerman and
Dina Fuchs contributed to this article.
5/28
1999
A I
the actress Lindsay Crouse.
He was recently in Los Angeles to
talk about his latest project and the
impact his religion has on his work.
JN: Your latest work, The Winslow
Boy, has many biblical references.
One of the central ideas of the play
questions to what degree we pursue
the truth, and at what cost.
DM: It's a question that keeps getting
repeated throughout human history.
It's the story of Queen Esther. Queen
Esther doesn't want to speak up against
the king because the king doesn't know
she's Jewish. It is Mordecai, her adviser,
who tells her, "How do you know this
said, "This is what I want you to do."
But one doesn't get that card when
one is put to the test.
JN: In the movie, Sir Robert Morton,
a respected attorney, agrees to defend
a boy who's been accused of stealing.
Well into the proceedings, he is
advised to drop the case, but instead
invokes the Book of Proverbs, which
tells him not to side with the great
against the powerless.
DM: The prophet Micah was asked,
"What must we do?" And he replied,
"There are only three things you have
to do: Do justice, love mercy and walk
humbly with God." The boy's father
almost sacrifices
everything to see
that justice is done.
Paradoxically, many
times when we find
ourselves enthused
with the spirit of
righteousness, we're
probably doing
wrong
.
JN: What inspired
your liberalism?
DM: I guess my
background has
something to do
with it. My father
Avove: Rebecca Pidgeon as
Catherine Winslow in "The
Winslow Boy" The wife of
David Mamet, Pidgeon convert-
ed to Judaism, and studied to
become a bat mitzvah. "Because
my husband is Jewish. , I wanted
to have coherence in our family,"
she said "We happen to have a
great rabbi whom I adore —
who's very inspiring for us —
and its a good way of life for us."
JN: What inspires you to write?
DM: Oleanna came out of the years I
spent working in fairly high-ticket
universities as an adjunct professor, a
visiting lecturer, or something like
that. As I've said in a lot of my essays,
it was like being in a petting zoo —
they would bring me to the university,
and the students would get to pet me
and feed me peanuts.
I was really stunned by the state of
higher learning. I was given an office
almost on the grounds of Harvard
University. I always refer ro it as the
epicenter of world ignorance. I was
amazed at what went on there.
American Buffalo began 25 years
ago, when I had a theater company
with [the actor, William H.] Macy
(Fargo). I was driving a cab to make
some money. Bill was working as a
bartender. We were both very poor,
working on our theater company at
night. Neither of us had any money. I
went over to his apartment one night
and opened the refrigerator looking
for something to eat.
There was a slab of American
cheese that looked like building mate-
rial, and I cut a very thick piece
because I was hungry. And he looked
at me and he said, "Help yourselE"
I was so hurt by his attitude that I
started writing this play with its 15-
minute monologue about a character,
[Peach], who wanted to take a piece of
toast off a friend's plate and the friend
said, "Help yourself" And he's furious.
JN: What is a typical day like for you?
DM: I suppose I get out of the house in
the morning, and try to waste as much
time as possible. Just before I have to go
home, having written nothing, I say to
myself, "You really want to go home at
night having wasted this day?" So I say,
"OK, I'm going to write something."
Right: Nigel Hawthorne as
Arthur Winslow and Guy
Edwards, as his son, Ronnie.
isn't what you were born for? If [perse-
cution of the Jews] is going to happen
to everyone else, eventually it's going
to happen to you. This is exactly why
you were born."
The same with Emile Zola, who
wasn't even Jewish. Why is he stand-
ing up for Dreyfus? And then there's
Theodore Herzl, a completely assimi-
lated Jew who was covering the
Dreyfus trial for his paper in Vienna.
All of a sudden, his life changes and
he becomes the founder of the State of
Israel? It N,vould be easy to suffer if
God or someone gave you a card and
DM: It hasn't yet, but it will because
the language is so magnificent, so
magnificently simple, so blunt and
simple and straightforward.
— may he rest in peace — was a labor
lawyer. He worked his whole life for
the rights of working people. I was
exposed at a very young age to these
traditions of social justice.
JN: How is Judaism a part of your
daily life?
DM: I always read the Bible. I used to
read it in English. Now I'm learning to
read the Torah in Hebrew. I can get
through it with the help of a dictionary
JN: Has your Bible study had an
influence in your writing?
JN: Have you ever visited Israel?
DM: My wife and I were there a few
years ago. We took our movie
Homicide to the Jerusalem Film
Festival. We spent a couple of months
over there. I'd love to go back. II
1 The Winslow Boy, rated G, opens
Friday, June 4, exclusively at the
Main Theatre, II8 N. Main, in
Royal Oak. (248) 542-0180.