American Buffalo at Steppenwolf

Hey, we live in Chicago. We should be seeing some Mamet right? With Tracy Letts? Even better? And a really, really terrific turn by Housian Patrick Andrews.

From Chris Jones's review: "Trapped behind a computer, writing Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, Tracy Letts clearly has accumulated some pent-up aggression. Clad in polyester and revealing a few cheesy chest hairs, the actor-writer unleashes some of that energy as Teach , the most colorful of the three messed-up characters in the Lincoln Avenue junk store that holds David Mamet’s “American Buffalo.” ...

Morton has created a very credible world. Thanks also to Kevin Depinet’s very clever set, you feel like this place, and the people who hang out there, could really exist (I’ve always imagined Mamet was writing about somewhere near the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Byron Street in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood).

You do see in Patrick Andrews, though, a hugely promising actor who knows how to inhabit a lonely character, living on the edge. Bob is perhaps one of Mamet’s most autobiographically revealing characters. He looks for a family, a community and finds only Chicago hustlers, who seem to care but don’t know how. The more of his pain we feel, the better.