One of the fondest dreams of people who stage plays in Los Angeles is that success on the boards will translate into a movie, but it doesn't happen that often. David Mamet's "Lakeboat" is one of the few plays in recent years to successfully navigate the difficult journey from stage to screen.
An outstanding production of L.A.'s 1994 theater season, this early work by the playwright-screenwriter was directed at the Tiffany Theatre by longtime Mamet associate, actor Joe Mantegna. Now Mantegna marks his feature film directorial debut with "Lakeboat," which premieres Thursday at the Directors Guild of America, as the opening event of the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. The ensemble cast includes Charles Durning, Peter Falk, Andy Garcia, Denis Leary and George Wendt.
Based on Mamet's own experiences with a summer job, the early 1970s comedy-drama portrays a group of men working aboard a steel freighter on the Great Lakes. It's a contemporary Dudes at Sea, with a nod to Eugene O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape," minus the heavy-handed politics but with a large dose of affection for a world clearly on the verge of extinction.
Instead of one brutish Yank, you get an array of Yanks of different ages and types. Into their midst comes a graduate student from an Eastern school who's signed on for a summer gig. The subject is not male bonding but male anomie, and the tale is told in the kind of trademark early Mamet F-word speak that takes you back to a time when men were men and Mamet was Mamet.
It's unusual material with a charm all its own, a far cry from today's PC norm. "Here is this world of these men, for better or worse," says Mantegna, seated in the backyard of his Toluca Lake home. Best known for his portrayals of Mamet men in such plays as "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Speed the Plow" and such films as "House of Games," "Things Change" and "Homicide," the darkly handsome actor has often been cited as the preeminent interpreter of the playwright's work. "They're dinosaurs. These guys are not going to change. That doesn't make them bad people. They're just not quite in step with what's happening in this century."
Mantegna's association with "Lakeboat" actually began 25 years ago, when he was an actor at the Organic Theatre company in Chicago. Working with fellow actor Jack Wallace--who would go on to be in both the stage and screen casts of "Lakeboat"--Mantegna was looking for some scenes they might perform in an upcoming Equity showcase, an annual union event intended to call actors to the attention of casting directors and others.
