{"product_id":"three-uses-of-the-knife-on-the-nature-and-purpose-of-drama-9780375704239","title":"Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe purpose of theater, like magic, like religion . . . is to inspire cleansing awe\u003c\/i\u003e. What makes good drama? And why does drama matter in an age that is awash in information and entertainment? David Mamet, one of our greatest living playwrights, tackles these questions with bracing directness and aphoristic authority. He believes that the tendency to dramatize is essential to human nature, that we create drama out of everything from today's weather to next year's elections. But the highest expression of this drive remains the theater.\u003cbr\u003e With a cultural range that encompasses Shakespeare, Bretcht, and Ibsen, \u003ci\u003eDeath of a Salesman \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eBad Day at Black Rock\u003c\/i\u003e, Mamet shows us how to distinguish true drama from its false variants. He considers the impossibly difficult progression between one act and the next and the mysterious function of the soliloquy. The result, in \u003ci\u003eThree Uses of the Knife\u003c\/i\u003e, is an electrifying treatise on the playwright's art that is also a strikingly original work of moral and aesthetic philosophy. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDavid Mamet is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, as well as a director, novelist, poet, and essayist. He has written the screenplays for more than twenty films, including \u003ci\u003eHeist, Spartan, House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, The Winslow Boy, Wag the Dog, \u003c\/i\u003eand the Oscar-nominated \u003ci\u003eThe Verdict\u003c\/i\u003e. His more than twenty plays include \u003ci\u003eOleanna, The Cryptogram, Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, \u003c\/i\u003eand the Pulitzer Prizewinning \u003ci\u003eGlengarry Glen Ross\u003c\/i\u003e. Born in Chicago in 1947, Mamet has taught at the Yale School of Drama, New York University, and Goddard College, and is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50410798842130,"sku":"9780375704239","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_f36fc38f-9515-4ff9-a7e4-2df6069f21cd.jpg?v=1729307568","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/three-uses-of-the-knife-on-the-nature-and-purpose-of-drama-9780375704239","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}