Bean Adapts Mamet House of Games for Almeida???
Date: 6 November 2009
David Mamet made his screen directorial debut in 1987 with a film called House of Games, which he also co-wrote. More than 20 years later, the piece is set to receive its stage premiere – though not at the hands of Mamet, whose many original stage plays include Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow and American Buffalo.
Instead, ever-busy British playwright Richard Bean has been given the task of adapting House of Games for the stage, in a premiere production directed by Lindsay Posner that’s expected to open at London’s Almeida Theatre next September. Posner is no stranger to Mamet, having helmed recent high-profile West End revivals of the American dramatist’s Oleanna (starring Julia Stiles and Aaron Eckhart), A Life in the Theatre (Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson) and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Matthew Perry and Minnie Driver).
A conspiracy thriller, House of Games revolves around renowned psychiatrist Margaret Ford, who attempts to cure her patient Mike of his gambling addiction by accompanying him to a game in a bar. The original low-budget film starred Joe Mantegna as Mike and Mamet’s own wife, Lindsay Crouse, as Margaret.
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