The Old Neighborhood (The Disappearance of the Jews; Jolly; Deeny)

In The Old Neighborhood David Mamet confirms his stature as a master of the American stage, a writer who can turn the most innocuous phrase into a lit fuse and a family reunion into a perfectly orchestrated firestorm of sympathy, yearning, and blistering authentic rage. In these three short plays, a middle-aged Bobby Gould returns to the old-neighborhood in a series of encounters with his past that, however briefly, open windows on his present. In ''The Disappearance of the Jews,'' Bobby and an old buddy fantasize about finding themselves in a nostalgic shtetl paradise while revealing how lost they are in their own families. In the comfort of her kitchen, Bobby's sister ''Jolly'' unscrolls a list of childhood grievances that is at nice painful and hilarious. And the old girlfriend in ''Deeny,'' faced with a man she once loved, finds herself obsessively free-associating on gardening, sex, and subatomic particles. Swerving from comedy to terror, from tenderness to anguishwith a swiftness that unsettles even as it strikes home The Old Neighborhood is classic Mamet. Review Searingheart-piercinghaunting and original[Mamet's] most emotionally accessible drama to date, The New York Times Elegant and beautifulDavid Mamet's autobiographical play is full of laughter and lament. The New Yorker [Mamet's] most personal, haunted and haunting play. Newsday Riveting luminousbeautifully rendereda significant development in Mamet's career. San Francisco Examiner About the Author David Mamet is a world-leading author, playwright and screenwriter, whose many awards include the Pulitzer Prize, Joseph Jefferson Award, Obie Award, New York Drama Critics Circle Award and Tony Award. Many of his plays are considered modern classics and include Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, Edmond, The Cryptogram and Speed the Plow.