Synopsis Harvard-educated psychoanalyst Margaret Ford is celebrated for her bestselling book ‘Driven! Compulsion and Obsession in Every Day Life’. Helping one of her patients settle his gambling debts, she compromises her professional reputation and is drawn into the seedy underworld of the House of Games poker club. Seduced by charismatic hustler Mike, Margaret convinces herself that she can make an academic study of the con-artist. Before she realises it, Margaret is entangled in a fast-paced thriller.
Only a few months after staging Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly, the Almeida theatre has again turned to the big screen for its latest production, Richard Bean’s adaptation of David Mamet’s 1987 film House of Games.
The play, which premiered last week (15 September 2010, previews from 9 September) stars Nancy Carroll as psychoanalyst 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 thriller starred Joe Mantegna as Mike and Mamet’s own wife, Lindsay Crouse, as Margaret.
Directed by Lindsay Posner, who is well known for his previous work with Mamet plays, House of Games continues until 6 November.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (four stars) – "David Mamet’s 1987 movie House of Games is one of the modern cinema’s psychological thriller greats. It’s also mysterious and sometimes impenetrable. Richard Bean’s new stage adaptation is true but different, gripping but transparent, and full of genuine stage thrills ... Lindsay Posner’s production, on a superb split-level design by Peter McKintosh, with a Ry Cooder-ish spooky guitar score by Django Bates, mixes Mamet’s aggressive swagger with Bean’s satirical cheek ... The central, sexually charged, sting between Nancy Carroll’s sensual, sucked-in psychologist Margaret Ford and Michael Landes’s charismatic Mike has a wonderful new twist on it, though the set-up with Al Weaver’s needy dope head is the same."
Michael Billington in the Guardian (two stars) – "The Almeida seems obsessed with making plays out of movies ... But Richard Bean's version of House of Games, a flawless 1987 film written and directed by David Mamet, is a pointless exercise ... Mamet's movie depended on mystery and the spectator's willingness to see things from Margaret's point of view: we were as fascinated as she was by this murky milieu. But Bean's play is radically different. We view the heroine and the con men objectively, and are asked to find the latter faintly comic ... Nancy Carroll is plausible as the analyst forced to confront her compulsions, Michael Landes invests Mike with sinister charm, and Al Weaver is suitably wild as the patient whose predicament lures the heroine into new territory ... What I'm saying is blindingly obvious: that plays and movies operate in different ways ... Why go and see House of Games when you can rent the video?"
Libby Purves in The Times (four stars) – "Never having seen the original Mamet film, I was innocent of the fiendish switchback of deceptions to come. But even if I had expected the second twist, the third, the reverse con and the black-hearted retrospective emotional foldback, the pleasure of this non-stop hundred-minute ride would still be intense ... Making a film into a play may seem a redundant exercise, but the immediacy of theatre adds an edge: we watch in real time as actors - pretending - play the part of people pretending to be pretending , or possibly not. The layers of deceit convey a pleasing giddiness; Django Bates’s dirty, twangingly distorted electric guitar riffs add to the lowlife glamour, and the script is sharp as a shoeful of tacks."
Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard (three stars) – "As Margaret’s fortunes fluctuate, director Lindsay Posner maintains a keen pace, and Peter McKintosh’s design creates a suitably dense atmosphere. Bean preserves Mamet’s fine sense of the tricksters’ bristling patter. But he has taken considerable liberties with the original screenplay ... The trouble is, we lose the intensity and clinical storytelling of Mamet’s film. Events are framed too prosaically, and plausibility is stretched. Why is Margaret’s office so modest, and would she really carry a cheque book around with her? Are con artists, once they’ve completed their con, quite so crass when divvying up their spoils? The performances are assured, with some nice work in the smaller roles by Peter De Jersey, Amanda Drew and Trevor Cooper ... It’s Nancy Carroll, though, who has to dominate as Margaret ... But for all her qualities, she doesn’t feel right for the role, and this is symptomatic of a production that contains good things yet never exerts a strong grip."
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph (four stars) – This is the second film adaptation the Almeida has presented this year, following a stage version of Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly, and part of me regards the practice as something of a cop-out on the part of its director Michael Attenborough, who surely ought to be commissioning new plays rather than reviving old movies. Resistance, however, proves futile, for Richard Bean’s adaptation and Lindsay Posner’s gripping, superbly acted production prove far better value than the original picture ... Nancy Carroll is much more compelling in the role, while Richard Bean proves far more generous with the jokes than Mamet without sacrificing the required edge of menace ... Even if you have seen the film, this theatrical House of Games will keep you hooked."
David Mamet’s 1987 movie House of Games is one of the modern cinema’s psychological thriller greats. It’s also mysterious and sometimes impenetrable. Richard Bean’s new stage adaptation is true but different, gripping but transparent, and full of genuine stage thrills.
It works, in fact, as a sort of black farce, and is given a new tone of absurdity that is purely theatrical. It’s a genuine adaptation, whereas the Almeida’s Ingmar Bergman show, Through a Glass Darkly, earlier this year, was a pointless, un-theatrical re-mix.
Lindsay Posner’s production, on a superb split-level design by Peter McKintosh, with a Ry Cooder-ish spooky guitar score by Django Bates, mixes Mamet’s aggressive swagger with Bean’s satirical cheek.
There’s a new character, a tattooed goon played by John Marquez, in the seedy bar-room poker school, and a tantalising, unintended red herring in Amanda Drew’s doubling of an out-of-town gambler with a Florida literary agent.
The central, sexually charged, sting between Nancy Carroll’s sensual, sucked-in psychologist Margaret Ford and Michael Landes’s charismatic Mike has a wonderful new twist on it, though the set-up with Al Weaver’s needy dope head is the same.
It’s a great show, very funny, and a neat complement (or, if you like, antidote) to the more artificial spoof thriller Deathtrap. Marvellous performances, too, from Peter De Jersey as the insurance “mark,” Trevor Cooper as fat George and Dermot Crowley as the old-timer Joey.
This is the third attempted posting and I'm getting pretty fed up with the problems on this site.
After an absolutely horrific journey to Islington thanks to the tube workers holding London to ransom, House of Games had to be good. It was - but only just. The scenes in the House of Games itself are directed with great vigour by Lindsay Posner and mamet's snappy dialogue is given full justice by a very sharp cast containing only one America. Richard Bean's adaptation is amusing rather than laugh out loud funny and it's difficult to overcome the problem that when it's clear that the whole play is based on a series of con tricks the main deception becomes blindingly obvious. The mini twist st the end is clever though and House of games works well as an essentially shallow entertainment rather than a great drama. - David Baxter
04 Nov 10
Gripping and clever but I didn't understand the change to the ending - it fell flat. However, the lead is much sexier than Joe Mantegna which helped. - addicted to theatre
12 Oct 10
Great show. - coral
01 Oct 10
I really wanted to give it 3.5, but given the talent involved I feel 3 is a bit mean! This is an adaptation, by the prolific Richard Bean (whose new play The Big Fellah also opens this week), of David Mamet’s excellent film about con men. It’s staged at the Almeida on a clever two-tier set by Peter McKintosh in an interval free 100-minute production with atmospheric electric guitar music by Django Bates played live. Lindsay Posner’s production is well paced. There are eight good performances, with Nancy Carroll and Amanda Drew particularly effective (the latter in two roles). I enjoyed the evening and I admired the skills of all involved, but I can’t really see how staging it adds anything to the film, so I’m left with the question ‘why?’. - Gareth James
21 Sep 10
This is a very clever play, a box of tricks that keeps one guessing to the end. - Richard Lansdown
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