Donmar Warehouse London

Is there a living playwright whose plays pose such problems of style and interpretation to actors as David Mamet? Sometimes I think the tension between what they say and how they say it is the most extraordinary since Racine. Almost invariably using American vernacular, he habitually has his characters take sentences, break them down and reassemble them, or take words, phrases, clauses, and repeat them, all to a strict rhythm. As with Gertrude Stein, the effect is often to irritate but also to get under the skin and way into the nervous system.