American Buffalo was published by Grove Press in 1977 after premiering at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 1975 and transferring to Broadway in 1977. Don Dubrow owns a junk shop. His friend and employee Bobby is a young junkie. Teach is a blowhard and a petty criminal. Together, they plan to steal a valuable buffalo nickel from a customer who bought one from Don’s shop and may have an entire collection. The plan never happens: it is endlessly discussed, revised, argued over, and ultimately abandoned in a burst of violence that accomplishes nothing.
Mamet’s genius is to invest this trivial scenario with the weight of tragedy. The three men talk about the robbery the way corporate executives talk about mergers — with strategic language, appeals to loyalty, assertions of professional competence — but they have no competence, no strategy, and no loyalty. The language of American business, Mamet suggests, sounds the same whether it describes a billion-dollar deal or a two-bit coin theft, because both are fundamentally about dominance, not commerce.
The title links these small-time operators to the larger American project: the buffalo nickel commemorates the American bison, driven to near-extinction by the same entrepreneurial energy that the characters parody. The play is simultaneously very funny and deeply bleak — a comedy about people who have internalized the mythology of American capitalism without possessing any of the resources to participate in it.
Collecting American Buffalo
First edition (Grove Press, New York, 1977): Trade paperback original.
Market values:
- First edition paperback, fine: $40–$100
- Signed: $100–$250