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Mamet's language refuses to hide, 'American Buffalo' director says of Albuquerque play
If you go
What: "American Buffalo," a play by David Mamet.
When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays, today through Nov. 4.
Where: Vortex Theater, 2004 Central Ave. S.E. (on Buena Vista Drive, just south of Central).
How much: $12. Call 247-8600.
What else: Pay-what-you-can performance is this Sunday. There will be a talk-back session with cast and crew after the Oct. 21 performance.
Note: The play contains strong language and brief violence.
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What Frank Melcori likes best about David Mamet's 1970s play "American Buffalo" is its punch-to-the-gut directness.
Melcori said there's no scheming behind curtains or chess-match strategies in Mamet's tale of three men planning a robbery.
"There is lying but no hiding," Melcori said. "It's not an internal game. The characters don't spend a lot of time on the reasons for things. Things happen or they don't."
Melcori, 63, who teaches theater at Central New Mexico Community College, is directing the play, which opens today at the Vortex Theater.
He said everything actors need to know about "American Buffalo" is in Mamet's text and everything the audience needs to know happens on stage in front of it.
"It puts things in basic terms about human behavior," Melcori said. "It is sort of a morality tale."
In "Buffalo," three small-time thieves go after their slice of the American pie the best way they know how - by planning to steal a coin collection.
"As I get older, the people in the play seem as much a part of the population as you or I," Melcori said during a phone interview this week. "Even though they turn out to be scumbags, they express in their own way the same things that we want.
"Besides, there is more robbery going on by people wearing suits and ties than by people wearing khakis and T-shirts."
Mamet is a Chicago playwright, and Melcori lived in Chicago for 30 years, acting and writing there, before moving to Albuquerque in 1999.
He says "Buffalo," with its urban sensibility and idiosyncratic dialogue, is one of Mamet's most Chicago-flavored works.
"It's dialogue that doesn't involve a lot of complete sentences," he said. "It's stop-and-go dialogue that serves to heighten the tension."
Even though "American Buffalo" is made up mostly of talk, Melcori said it can be considered an action play because the language moves the characters.
"We've rehearsed this for six weeks, and it never gets boring," he said. "You may not like this play, but you won't be bored by it.
"It's like watching an unseemly family fight."
