Ghost Stories: The Shawl and Prairie du Chien
write by David Mamet
directed by Scott Zigler
Atlantic Theatre Company
June 19, 2015

Production website     💉💉 out of 5.

David Mamet without the yelling and foul language? What has happened? Both one acts give the audience a taste of radio theatre where little is happening on stage but much is happening in the quite story-telling.s “Prairie du Chien”, the first of the stories, is a quite murder mystery that is primarily told as a way of passing time on a moving train. One man telling the story and another listening. At first I wandered what was the function of the other less important characters playing cards, serving pages, and tapping their fingers.. Then I closed my eyes and found out how much they were contributing to the rhythm and mood of the story. They became the musical background for the Ghost Story.

The second story, “The Shawl”, is a simple tale of a desperate woman possibly being taken advantage of by a clairvoyant(?) and his accomplice. Who is taking advantage of who becomes the central game. I was less involved in this story. Perhaps I was just expecting more of the rough and tumble world of Mamet – rather then a simple parlor game of deceit. I like my Mamet with teeth!