Speed-the-Plow was published by Grove Press in 1988 after its Broadway premiere, starring Joe Mantegna, Ron Silver, and Madonna. Bobby Gould has just been promoted to head of production at a Hollywood studio. His old friend Charlie Fox has brought him a guaranteed hit: a prison buddy-action movie with a major star attached. The deal is done, the celebration is underway, and then Karen — a temporary secretary — persuades Bobby to read a different script: a radiation-themed literary novel about the end of the world.
Bobby, moved by the novel (or by Karen, or by his desire to be the kind of person who is moved by literature), decides to greenlight the novel instead of the buddy movie. Charlie is horrified. The third act is a confrontation between friendship and aspiration, commerce and art, loyalty and self-image — all conducted in Mamet’s signature staccato dialogue, where every sentence is a negotiation and every pause is a threat.
The play’s question — can a Hollywood executive act on sincere artistic impulse, or is sincerity itself just another commodity to be traded? — is never resolved. Mamet’s Hollywood is a place where everyone performs sincerity because sincerity is what sells, and the performance is so total that the distinction between genuine feeling and strategic emotion has ceased to exist.
Collecting Speed-the-Plow
First edition (Grove Press, New York, 1988): Trade paperback.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $15–$40
- Signed: $40–$100