The Landing Theatre Company's American Buffalo

American Buffalo by David Mamet
produced by The Landing Theatre Company
O'Kane Theatre, University of Houston-Downtown
August 18, 2011

As a new employee at the University of Houston-Downtown, I've been making some effort to get to know something of the arts communities on campus.

Tonight was my first taste of the theater on campus. The Landing Theatre Company is not a student company, but was created as the "professional component" for the UHD theater program. As such, I figured I might see what the department aspires to be.

Judging from tonight's performance, UHD couldn't ask for a better ambassador for its arts program.

I won't talk about Mamet's script. Either you're familiar with it or you're not. Either you enjoy his foul-mouthed version of reality or you don't. Either you're into this brand of American realism or you're not.

Set all that aside, yes or no, and go see this show.

The three-man cast---Steve Irish as Donny, Matt Hune as Bobby, and Drake Simpson as Teach---inhabits this play with all its quirks and tensions and makes it live. At intermission, I overheard an audience member say it was like looking in someone's window and watching real life. As a theatrically trained person, I like to argue with those sorts of statements, aware of the theatrical conventions as I am, but she wasn't far off. Mamet's script has plenty of ambiguities, moral and otherwise, and it would be easy, tempting even, to simplify the complexities, but none of the men retreated from the challenge. The shifting loyalties and suspicions played by the men managed to evoke laughter as well as shoulder-aching tension. I can't say enough good things about the surprising choices each actor made throughout the performance, always keeping in character yet never becoming predictable.

I seldom come right home and write a blog like this, but the people behind this production are doing some fine, fine work and deserve an audience. I've focused on the acting, but the sets and costumes (by Frank Vela and Pat Covington, respectively) are also spot on.

If you were on the fence about checking out this new company in this little campus theater, let this blog post be the thing that pushes you over the edge and into an audience seat. This is good theater, very well played.

(Performances through August 28th--Visit the LTC website for details and tickets.)