{"product_id":"three-uses-of-the-knife-on-the-nature-and-purpose-of-drama-hardcover","title":"Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eDavid Mamet\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat makes good drama? How does drama matter in our lives? In \u003ci\u003eThree Uses of the Knife, \u003c\/i\u003e one of America's most respected writers reminds us of the secret powers of the play. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, poet, essayist, and director, David Mamet celebrates the absolute necessity of drama--and the experience of great plays--in our lurching attempts to make sense of ourselves and our world. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn three tightly woven essays of characteristic force and resonance, Mamet speaks about the connection of art to life, language to power, imagination to survival, the public spectacle to the private script. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is our fundamental nature to dramatize everything. As Mamet says, \"Our understanding of our life, of our drama.... resolves itself into thirds: Once Upon a Time.... Years Passed.... And Then One Day.\" We inhabit a drama of daily life--waiting for a bus, describing a day's work, facing decisions, making choices, finding meaning. The essays in the book are an eloquent reminder of how life is filled with the small scenes of tragedy and comedy that can be described only as drama. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFirst-rate theater, Mamet writes, satisfies the human hunger for ordering the world into cause-effect-conclusion. A good play calls for the protagonist \"To create, in front of us, on the stage, his or her own character, the strength to continue. It is her striving to understand, to correctly assess, to face her own character (in her choice of battles) that inspires us--and gives the drama power to cleanse and enrich our own character.\" Drama works, in the end, when it supplies the meaning and wholeness once offered by magic and religion--an embodied journey from lie to truth, arrogance to wisdom. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMamet also writes of bad theater; of what it takes to write a play, and the often impossibly difficult progression from act to act; the nature of soliloquy; the contentless drama and empty theatrics of politics and popular entertainment; the ubiquity of stage and literary conventions in the most ordinary of lives; and the uselessness, finally, of drama--or any art--as ideology or propaganda.\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003ePulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, poet, essayist, and director, David Mamet celebrates the absolute necessity of drama - and the experience of great plays - in our lurching attempts to make sense of ourselves and our world. In three tightly woven essays of characteristic force and resonance, Mamet speaks about the connection of art to life, language to power, imagination to survival, the public spectacle to the private script. The essays in the book are an eloquent reminder of how life is filled with the small scenes of tragedy and comedy that can be described only as drama. Mamet also writes of bad theater; of what it takes to write a play, and the often impossibly difficult progression from act to act; the nature of soliloquy; the contentless drama and empty theatrics of politics and popular entertainment; the ubiquity of stage and literary conventions in the most ordinary of lives; and the uselessness, finally, of drama - or any art - as ideology or propaganda. Self-assured, filled with autobiographical touches, and attentive to the challenges to theater presented by a media world of simulacra, this book is a bracing call to art and to arms, a manifesto that reminds us of the singular power of the theater to keep us sane, whole, and human.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eDavid Mamet is the author of the plays \u003ci\u003eOleanna; Glengarry Glen Ross, \u003c\/i\u003e for which he won a Pulitzer Prize and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award; \u003ci\u003eSpeed the Plow;\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSexual Perversity in Chicago, \u003c\/i\u003e among others. His films include, as screenwriter, \u003ci\u003eThe Postman Always Rings Twice, The Verdict, The Untouchables, The Edge, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWag of the Dog, \u003c\/i\u003e and as writer\/director, \u003ci\u003eHouse of Games, Homicide, Things Change, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Spanish Prisoner.\u003c\/i\u003e He is also the author of children's books and four books of essays, \u003ci\u003eWriting in Restaurants, Some Freaks, The Cabin, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMake Believe Town;\u003c\/i\u003e two novels, \u003ci\u003eThe Village\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Old Religion\u003c\/i\u003e and a book on acting, \u003ci\u003eTrue and False.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 96\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.73 x 7.29 x 5.29 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e January 20, 1998\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45301971877990,"sku":"9780231110884","price":51.93,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0599\/7255\/0758\/files\/WnJmTzBGUXE1ajUzc0IxcVd6Tm0rQT09.webp?v=1773982233","url":"https:\/\/infinitylightwa.com\/products\/three-uses-of-the-knife-on-the-nature-and-purpose-of-drama-hardcover","provider":"Infinity Light","version":"1.0","type":"link"}