Mark Amory on John Lahr

JOHN LAHR must be bored of having it pointed out that he is the son of Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz and a Broadway star. He has also been the theatre critic of the New Yorker and devised shows with, adapted plays for and written biographies of a string of famous names: Tennessee Williams, Elaine Stritch, Woody Allen, Joe Orton, Frank Sinatra – the list goes on. The point is that he is an accomplished writer, steeped in theatre. The pieces collected

here are impressively researched, perceptive and smoothly written, mostly about playwrights, sometimes on directors, less often on particular productions. So what, as they say, is not to enjoy?

Well, I discovered something I had not quite realised before about myself, that what I like about such books is recalling memories, agreeing or disagreeing with verdicts as well as, much less, being informed. I am essentially a West End theatre-goer with little experience of Broadway. Some names were only just known to me (David Rabe, Sarah Ruhl, Susan Stroman), others were familiar almost entirely through films – Ingmar Bergman, Mike Nichols, Neil Labute. This will be true for most people in Britain. I conscientiously read (almost) every word but over here this is a book to browse and skip, pouncing on favourites.

Lahr reveres Arthur Miller. He tells us how Miller built himself a cabin (where Lahr interviewed him) and, with only the idea that it would be about a travelling salesman who died at the end and the exchange ‘Willy?’ ‘It’s all right. I came back’ in his mind, sat down and wrote in one day the first act of the most successful play of the 20th century (eleven million copies sold). Americans tend to admire Miller less than we do, but they admire

Death of a Salesman more. Lahr explains how it caught the mood of booming postwar America, an explosion of energy and ambition. The can-do approach is admirable in its way, but has little time for those that can’t actually. For Willy Loman not to succeed is unbearable. Americans understand the pressure on him better than we do.

Lahr is as informative and interesting on Harold Pinter and in particular on

The Homecoming, a major work, peculiarly British, which is both fascinating and repulsive. ‘ The Homecoming changed my life. Before the play I thought words were just vessels of meaning; after it, I saw them as weapons of defence.’ Also, he observes that earlier playwrights had been telling the audience what to think, putting forward their version. T S Eliot, another who began with poetry and succeeded in the theatre, consciously wrote in the manner of the West End so tactfully that many do not notice that the plays are in verse. With Pinter you discuss afterwards not so much issues raised as who was lying, who was mistaken, what really happened, yet come to no definite conclusion.

Best of all is the essay on David Mamet: ‘Anger defines him ... he’s a coiled snake.’ Mamet sent Pinter a copy of Glengarry Glen Ross with a note saying ‘There is something wrong with this play. What is it?’ Pinter replied immediately: ‘There is nothing wrong with this play,’ and got it put on at the National. Mamet is Pinter’s artistic godson, most noticeably in the aggressive dialogue. His reply to an actor who asked about motivation, ‘There is no character. There are only lines upon a page,’ echoes what Pinter said on many occasions. I would very much like to know the details of Pinter’s (and Tom Stoppard’s for that matter) dealings with Hollywood but would not expect to find them as blunt as Mamet’s. When asked if he had adapted American Buf

falo for the screen, he replied ‘Have I fucking what? I am going to adapt it right now for you.’ He then crossed out ‘A play by David Mamet’ and wrote ‘A screenplay by David Mamet’ and handed the script back. When he was passed a note on another script saying ‘Chronology. Clarity. Character (alliteration unintended)’, he replied: ‘Tell him to suck my dick (alliteration unintended).’ A coiled snake indeed.