Strollers Theatre's Romance: Mamet one-ups himself, for what it's worth

David Mamet was already well-versed in zigzagging by the time he wrote Romance, a farce Strollers Theatre is performing through Sept. 5 at the Bartell Theatre: The little boy in The Cryptogram doesn’t talk like he’s channeling Glengarry Glen Ross, and the catty lesbians in Boston Marriage aren’t going to be confused with the three men in American Buffalo. But he’s still distinctly Mamet in each of these plays, thanks to rapid-fire dialogue, accusations, vulgarities, wit, grime, and secrets. He stretches a bit further with 2005’s Romance, throwing farce in with political commentary and a mostly male and homosexual cast of characters.

Romance centers on a trial headed by an overmedicated judge prone to pontificating to his dry bailiff and whoever else has the misfortune of entering his courtroom. His victims in the play are the defendant (a morally questionable Jewish chiropractor); his anti-Semitic WASP attorney going through a divorce; and a closeted (to this specific courtroom, anyway) prosecutor who’s trying to keep a tumultuous relationship with his flamboyant boyfriend together. Shouting matches and ramblings on the sexuality and ethnicity of famous figures litter the play, along with jokes, which are hit or miss: "You people can't order a cheese sandwich... without mentioning the Holocaust," the attorney quips in an exchange with his client, who soon ends up calling him a "mindless Nazi fuck."

Mamet's works, even the most serious ones, are at their funniest when they fully embrace the callousness and speech of immoral people. Here, Mamet parodies his own dialogue style, allowing his cardboard cutouts of characters to spew more “cocksuckers” and “kikes” than a season’s worth of Deadwood monologues. During a thoroughly puzzling debate over Shakespeare, the judge muses, "And could he not have been a Jew and a fag? Could he not have been two things...? Like Herbert Hoover?" At times it's as if Mamet is trying to top himself at swearing, or at least one-up those who’ve ripped off his famed dialogue, rather than offer insights into the awfulness of these hideously warped people.

Romance's hazy, dreamlike tone ensures fans looking for a creative exercise will get it. Detractors will have plenty to gripe about, especially a badly aging half-baked commentary on Middle Eastern conflict that underlies the whole proceedings, and an abundance of juvenile dick and gay jokes. Romance captures Mamet outdoing Mamet, but doesn't capture his ability to develop characters that earn laughs through sheer nastiness.