The 1980s romantic drama About
Last Night, which stars Rob Lowe and Demi Moore as a twentysomething
couple, is based on a David Mamet play called Sexual Perversity in
Chicago. The producers changed the name. They didn't think the
movie-going public would go to a movie called Sexual Perversity in
Chicago. Sounds too much like a porno.
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The stage version of Sexual Perversity has only four characters. Danny and Deborah are the couple in love. Bernie is Danny's co-worker. Joan is Deborah's roommate who may or may not be a lesbian. Bernie and Joan do their darnedest to keep the happy twosome apart.
Sexual Perversity in Chicago is a tragedy. It opens with Bernie regaling Danny with a story of a sexual conquest (that's probably not true.) It ends with Danny and Bernie lusting after women as they sit on a beach. Between those two scenes, Danny meets Deborah, falls in love with her, moves in with her, falls out of love with her, and moves out. He comes full circle. He's back at square one. He threw his love away so he could be what? A lone wolf howling at the moon.
This is tragic. In his four-star review of the film, Roger Ebert writes that "when a big new relationship comes into your life, it requires an adjustment of all the other relationships, and a certain amount of discomfort and pain." Perhaps it's the tragedy of our times that few people are willing to accept that.
I have alienated my friends by refusing to accept it. When my best friend got married and moved in with his wife, I was too stubborn (or too stupid) to accept that he was - to borrow a Biblical metaphor - one flesh with his wife. No longer could he go to a movie with me on a whim. I had to call ahead, make plans, see if the wife wanted to come too. The wife wound up resenting me, then hating me. She probably would have torn a strip off me had I not come to my senses and offered her a full-fledged apology.
So few of us are able to deal with change.
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About Last Night may be a good movie but it's not a good adaptation of Mamet's play and I wouldn't blame him for disowning it. The play ends in tragedy but the film ends on a hopeful note. Deborah and Danny, estranged after a year, bump into each other at a baseball game. The next thing you know, they're running off together. Cue the happy 80s music. Cue the feel good "awwwws." Let's go get wasted.
The moral of Sexual Perversity in Chicago is "Grow up!" The moral of About Last Night is "Love conquers all."
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This one time in Campbellford, Ontario, I was talking to Brenda Finley, a Canadian actress who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and, for a while, was the news anchor for CFAC Television in Calgary. She was in Campbellford because she was doing a one-woman performance of A Christmas Carol at the Westben Theatre, which was owned by her brother, Brian.
I asked Ms. Finley what her favourite stage role was. She said there were two. I can't remember the first but the second was Sexual Perversity in Chicago.
"Were you Deborah?" I asked.
"No, I was the lesbian," she said.
"Is Joan a lesbian?"
"Traditionally, she's portrayed as one."
And we talked about David Mamet for a while.
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When I first read Sexual Perversity in Chicago, it looked familiar. That's because I'd read Bernie's opening speech years earlier in a book of monologues. That monologue describes an encounter Bernie has with a kinky nymphomaniac who wants him to make love to her while she wears a World War I flak suit (whatever that is.)
I tried performing the monologue but it just didn't work. I was 17. I didn't think anyone would believe me when I told them I was having sex with a girl in a hotel room that was on fire. When I was 17, I was a virgin.
Two years later, I'd star in my first Mamet play.
-
The stage version of Sexual Perversity has only four characters. Danny and Deborah are the couple in love. Bernie is Danny's co-worker. Joan is Deborah's roommate who may or may not be a lesbian. Bernie and Joan do their darnedest to keep the happy twosome apart.
Sexual Perversity in Chicago is a tragedy. It opens with Bernie regaling Danny with a story of a sexual conquest (that's probably not true.) It ends with Danny and Bernie lusting after women as they sit on a beach. Between those two scenes, Danny meets Deborah, falls in love with her, moves in with her, falls out of love with her, and moves out. He comes full circle. He's back at square one. He threw his love away so he could be what? A lone wolf howling at the moon.
This is tragic. In his four-star review of the film, Roger Ebert writes that "when a big new relationship comes into your life, it requires an adjustment of all the other relationships, and a certain amount of discomfort and pain." Perhaps it's the tragedy of our times that few people are willing to accept that.
I have alienated my friends by refusing to accept it. When my best friend got married and moved in with his wife, I was too stubborn (or too stupid) to accept that he was - to borrow a Biblical metaphor - one flesh with his wife. No longer could he go to a movie with me on a whim. I had to call ahead, make plans, see if the wife wanted to come too. The wife wound up resenting me, then hating me. She probably would have torn a strip off me had I not come to my senses and offered her a full-fledged apology.
So few of us are able to deal with change.
-
About Last Night may be a good movie but it's not a good adaptation of Mamet's play and I wouldn't blame him for disowning it. The play ends in tragedy but the film ends on a hopeful note. Deborah and Danny, estranged after a year, bump into each other at a baseball game. The next thing you know, they're running off together. Cue the happy 80s music. Cue the feel good "awwwws." Let's go get wasted.
The moral of Sexual Perversity in Chicago is "Grow up!" The moral of About Last Night is "Love conquers all."
-
This one time in Campbellford, Ontario, I was talking to Brenda Finley, a Canadian actress who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and, for a while, was the news anchor for CFAC Television in Calgary. She was in Campbellford because she was doing a one-woman performance of A Christmas Carol at the Westben Theatre, which was owned by her brother, Brian.
I asked Ms. Finley what her favourite stage role was. She said there were two. I can't remember the first but the second was Sexual Perversity in Chicago.
"Were you Deborah?" I asked.
"No, I was the lesbian," she said.
"Is Joan a lesbian?"
"Traditionally, she's portrayed as one."
And we talked about David Mamet for a while.
-
When I first read Sexual Perversity in Chicago, it looked familiar. That's because I'd read Bernie's opening speech years earlier in a book of monologues. That monologue describes an encounter Bernie has with a kinky nymphomaniac who wants him to make love to her while she wears a World War I flak suit (whatever that is.)
I tried performing the monologue but it just didn't work. I was 17. I didn't think anyone would believe me when I told them I was having sex with a girl in a hotel room that was on fire. When I was 17, I was a virgin.
Two years later, I'd star in my first Mamet play.
