Review: Al Pacino and Christopher Denham Deliver The Goods in David Mamet's CHINA DOLL

Hello, elephant in the room. Let's talk about you.

Anyone with more than a passing interest in the goings-on about Broadway these days has either heard the buzz or witnessed the situation first-hand.

It seems that during previews... you know, previews? That period of time during which a Broadway production works on fixing its problems. Yes, well it seems that during previews of David Mamet's CHINA DOLL, the production's 75-year-old leading man was having some troubles remembering the lines of a brand new play, one that may very well have been going through revisions, that requires him to be on stage talking near continuously for the entire length of its two acts.

That was previews. As it stands now, or at least how it stood on Wednesday night, Al Pacino seems perfectly secure and in control of everything he's saying and doing on stage at the Schoenfeld. And even if that Bluetooth device that's stuck in his ear for most of the night has someone cueing him for every line, even if the two on-stage laptop computers are flashing every word at him in big red letters, Pacino's not letting on. He's detailed, committed and always interesting to watch.

The play itself is pretty meat-and-potatoes Mamet with the star playing a standard Mametian patriarchal, alpha male son of a slime ball. He goes by the name of Mickey Ross this time and the guy's pretty damn loaded. Set designer Derek McLane has him on display in a sleek, glass-walled high rise that's so high you can't see a skyline, just sky.

Old, foul and disheveled, Mickey's still, in his own way, a sap for romance, and doesn't think there's anything unusual about his having a beautiful young fiancée. In his world, beautiful women require rich men who can use money to protect them from getting hit on by creeps every minute.

His bride-to-be has been flying to Toronto on his newly acquired private jet, purchased in Switzerland. By avoiding the vehicle's contact with American soil he's avoiding paying $5 million in taxes. But an emergency stateside landing, and a young upstart governor who won't play ball, results in a series of headaches that are handled with a myriad of phone calls attempting to get a hold of his fiancée, keep his plane from being impounded and get back at the idiots whose screw-ups created the situation.

Juggling the communications is Mickey's even-tempered and efficient assistant Carson, who wants to learn about business from the most ruthless. While Pacino's Mickey is erratic and caustic, speaking in an unpredictable cadence and tone, Christopher Denham's Carson is soft and unobtrusively in control of every potential crisis. Though onstage for nearly the entire play, he spends much of it quietly handling matters in the background, while Mickey is bullying his way through an unseen cast of supporting characters ("I'm not saying it's your fault. It's your problem."), but the balance he adds to the play is invaluable and the most effective asset of director Pam MacKinnon's production. He's the straight man in the act and it doesn't work without his unswerving acceptance of his boss' every demand.

As one would expect in a two-person play of this nature, there is a shift of power that results in violence. If CHINA DOLL doesn't set off the sparks of a SPEED-THE-PLOW or an OLEANNA, it does provide enough of the old Mamet tension and cynicism that makes decent people feel disgust for the world we live in. And sometimes that's enough to send you out of the theatre with a smile on your face.

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