YES, NO, MAMET?

If, as a writer, you’re not hurting someone with your words, you’re probably not telling the truth. The audience is meant to bleed, as well as laugh. Playwrights have historically felt the scorn of audiences, only to be immortalized by the test of time. Mamet knows this and is shocked that he’s being penalized for taking up the torch of his predecessors.

Political correctness seems, alarmingly, to have become a rose-colored euphemism for censorship. Mamet’s comment, “For the first time I’m scared for this country,” says it all.

ANNA GOSSETT

Toluca Lake