New Releases by David Mamet

Bobby Gold is a smooth-talking Jewish homicide detective. He is annoyed when he becoems involved in a routine investigation into the murder of an elderly Jewish woman in a black ghetto. He is more interested in a high-profile murder case that he nd his partner are on the verge of breaking. But the old woman''s murder draws him into a world of anti-Semitism and Jewish terrorism, where his loyalties are blurred, and he is forced to confront his own attitudes about being Jewish.

Olga, Masha and Irina are left stranded in a provincial backwater after the death of their father, an army general. While tension mounts between the sisters and Natalya, their sister-in-law, the women focus their dreams on returning to Moscow, a city remembered through the eyes of childhood as a place where happiness is possible. | Adaptation of: Tri sestry.

"Bob, a vicious killer, cheats the electric chair by shooting his way out of the penitentiary, forcing two reluctant convicts to come along. Desperately dodging the cops, Ned and Jim reach a river that runs along the Canadian border. The bridge across it becomes their only hope of reaching safety, but a checkpoint guards the crossing."--Back cover.

Five unique short plays for television by one of America''s most celebrated playwrights. A ''Waitress in Yellowstone'' (or: ''Always Tell the Truth'') is a parable about an honest waitress and a corrupt congressman. In Bradford, a new police chief arriving in a small New England town is plunged into the midst of its cozy secrets and uncovers the truth behind his predeces-sor''s mysterious fatal hunting accident. The Museum of Science and Industry Story is a fantasy about the adventures of a man locked in a museum overnight. A Wasted Weekend is a 1987 episode of Hill Street Blues focusing on four cops and their ill-fated hunting trip. In We Will Take You There, Danny and Mike, partners in an unusual "taxi service to the wilds," offer themselves as guides to the most remote areas of the world. Displaying Mamet''s characteristic ear for language and unsettling moral vision, these plays are among his darkest, funniest, and most entertaining. Includes: ''A Waitress in Yellowstone'' (or: ''Always Tell the Truth'') ''Bradford'' ''The Museum of Science and Industry Story'' ''A Wasted Weekend'' ''We Will Take You There''

Charlie Fox has a terrific vehicle for a hot male movie star, and he has brought it to his friend Bobby Gould, head of production for a major film company. Both see the script as a ticket to the really big table where the power is. The star wants to do it; all they have to do is pitch it to their boss in the morning. Meanwhile, Bobby bets Charlie that he can seduce the secretary temp. As a ruse, he has given her a novel "by some Eastern sissy writer" that he is supposed to read before saying "thanks but no thanks." She is determined that the novel, not the trite vehicle, should be the company''s next project. When she does sleep with Bobby, he finds the experience is so transmogrifying that Charlie must plead with Bobby not to pitch the sissy film. - Publisher''s note.

So, what happens in Uncle Vanya? Not much; just life, played out over four acts. There are rich people, and there are people who work for the rich people, whom the rich people don''t really care about. There is a gun fired in anger and desperation, but there aren''t any bodies to carry off stage. There are men making fools of themselves over women. There are those who accept their fates and wait for their rewards in heaven, and there are others who don''t care one way or another. Chekhov''s play moves so languidly that, without a vibrant cast, an understanding director, and a lively translation, it stands the chance of passing under the radar of the average audience. The reworking of the script aims at accessibility, replacing the "outdated colloquialisms" and "brittle prose" of earlier translations.

"Essays in direct line from Stanislavsky, Chekhov, Shaw, and Brecht" —Mike Nichols A collection of essays from Pulitzer Prize winning playwright David Mamet adressing many issues in contemporary American theater Temporarily putting aside his role as playwright, director, and screen-writer, David Mamet digs deep and delivers thirty outrageously diverse vignettes. On subjects ranging from the vanishing American pool hall, family vacations, and the art of being a bitch, to the role of today''s actor, his celebrated contemporaries and predecessors, and his undying commitment to the theater, David Mamet''s concise style, lean dialogue, and gut-wrenching honesty give us a unique view of the world as he sees it.

Lakeboat is a comic play about a grad student who takes a summer job on a Great Lakes freighter and sees life through the eyes of his low-brow crew members.

House of Games is a psychological thriller in which a young woman psychiatrist falls prey to an elaborate and ingenious con game by one of her patients who entraps her in a series of criminal escapades. Ties in with movie to be released in September. 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.

A smalltime mystic is out to bilk a bereaved woman of her inheritance.

From the Pulitzer Prize- winning author of Glengarry Glen Ross, here is a collection of thirty-two one-act plays and short dramatic pieces that David Mamet himself considers to be some of the best writing he has ever done.

These seven imaginative short theatre pieces by one of America''s most inventive and highly regarded playwrights range widely in content, mood and style. The plays offer a stimulating challenge in terms of selecting, arranging, and mounting the diverse com

In a Chicago junk shop three small-time crooks plot to rob a man of his coin collection, the showpiece of which is a valuable "Buffalo nickel". These high-minded grifters fancy themselves businessmen pursuing legitmate free enterprise. But the reality of the three--Donny, the oafish junk shop owner; Bobby, a young junkie Donny has taken under his wing; and "Teach"; a violently paranoid braggart--is that they are merely pawns caught up in their own game of last-chance, dead-end, empty pipe dreams.