Edmond (play)
| Edmond | |
|---|---|
| Written by | David Mamet |
| Date premiered | June 4, 1982 |
| Place premiered | Goodman Theater, Chicago |
| Original language | English |
| Setting | New York City |
Edmond is a one-act play written by David Mamet. It premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, on June 4, 1982. The first New York production was October 27 of the same year, at the Provincetown Playhouse. The play consists of twenty-three short scenes. In the original production, each of the actors took on multiple roles, save the two playing Edmond and his wife. Kenneth Branagh starred as Edmond in a production of the play in London in 2003.
A movie based upon the play, starring William H. Macy and Julia Stiles, has been shown at some film festivals in the U.S. and Europe, and underwent limited U.S. release on July 14, 2006.
The plot, which has a certain fable-like quality, revolves around the titular character, Edmond Burke, a white-collar worker in New York City. After a visit to a fortune teller, he decides to leave his wife and embarks on an odyssey through New York's seedy underbelly, which takes him to two bars, a bordello, and a peep show. When he accuses a three-card monte dealer of running a crooked game, the dealer and his shills beat Edmond to the ground. Increasingly convinced of the ugliness and difficulty of human existence, Edmond buys a knife from a pawnshop. He threatens a woman on a subway platform, then beats an African-American pimp who is trying to rob him, while calling him racial slurs.
Invigorated by the act of violence, he goes to a coffeehouse and propositions his waitress, Glenna. At her apartment, he tells her how alive beating the pimp has made him feel in a highly racialized speech. Glenna compares the feeling to the one she gets when she is acting. Edmond claims she is not a real actress because she only takes acting classes and does not actually perform for a paying audience. Edmond encourages her to be honest with herself, and to say that she is not an actress but a waitress. Glenna begins to find his odd behavior disturbing and asks him to leave. An argument escalates, and Edmond kills her with the knife he has bought.
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