WHEN Hollywood meets Broadway, sparks fly and Tinseltown’s incinerated – especially if the flamethrower is David Mamet.
So it is with “Speed-the-Plow.” Now, 20 years after its premiere – in which Madonna took much of the initial limelight – the beautifully played revival that opened last night establishes the play as a modern classic.
The cast – Jeremy Piven as a freshly anointed Hollywood producer, Bobby Gould; Raul Esparza as Charlie Fox, Bobby’s best friend, mailroom buddy and underling; and Elisabeth Moss, Bobby’s new temp – are all superb, but this time around, it’s Neil Pepe’s smooth-as-silk direction and the play itself that hold the stage.
Charlie has been offered a “buddy” movie complete with a superstar lead and brings it, like a friendly terrier, to Bobby. The two plan a future full of riches based on selling surefire schlock.
Enter Karen, Bobby’s new secretary, all wide-eyed freshness and, as she herself points out, naivete.
She fascinates Bobby, who gives her a book – a rather pompous one on radiation, God and death – and invites her to report on it later that night, at his house. She does. The next morning, it’s the radiation film Bobby plans to green-light, rather than Charlie’s sure thing.
Not surprisingly, Charlie – who sees his big break disappear – goes berserk, and a newly tougher Karen enters the fray.
Pepe’s direction and Scott Pask’s set, abetted by Brian MacDevitt’s lighting, are spot-on slick for Mamet, holding up the mirror at just the right angle to a twisted society.
The performances catch the play on the wind. Piven (of TV’s “Entourage”) finds the burnt-out hollows beneath an overpromoted hack executive, while the always amazing Esparza is the pushy underdog, all rapid-fire action and virtuosic language.
Finally, there’s the elegant Moss (the sveltely conniving Peggy Olson from “Mad Men”), slithering through the play’s undergrowth like a grass snake.
Twenty years ago, I thought no cast could match the original trio of Joe Mantegna, Ron Silver and (what a surprise she could stand still, let alone act) Madonna.
I was wrong. For its acting alone, this new “Speed-the-Plow” is a must-see.
SPEED-THE-PLOW
Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St.; 212-239-6200.