Pacino can't save Mamet's broken 'China Doll'

‘CHINA DOLL’: Al Pacino. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

CHINA DOLL
Written by David Mamet
Directed by Pam MacKinnon
Through January 31, 2016
Broadhurst Theatre
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.Chinadollbroadway.com

By David NouNou

David Mamet’s latest, China Doll, is an enigma. Enigmas can be fun and brilliant. Just think of last year’s film The Imitation Game; Alan Turing cracking the so-called unbreakable codes of Germany’s World War II enigma machine. Now that was genius. A present-day audience cracking the so-called undecipherable codes of Mamet’s China Doll, however, is pointless; you’ll just end up with a headache.

Mr. Mamet’s last play, The Anarchist in 2012, had a narrative that was too confusing, and unfocused to qualify as a solid drama. However, in China Doll, the narrative is so undisciplined and structure-free that it is hard to connect to its central character Mickey Ross, portrayed by Al Pacino. It is hard to decipher whether Mamet based the character Mickey Ross after Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, or if this was the way Pacino wanted to portray Mickey Ross.

Mickey Ross is a self-made billionaire who can be a bully and get his way. As the play opens, he is berating his assistant, Carson (Christopher Denham), for what Mickey thinks was a job not well executed. The first act is all about Mickey having bought a Swiss-made, custom-built jet but its serial number has been switched from Swiss numbers to an American number, making it impossible for it to land in the U.S. Otherwise, if it does, Mickey has to pay a $5 million tax. On board this plane is his (unseen) much younger, beautiful girlfriend (who was commissioned by Mickey to redecorate the interior of the plane to her specifications) who is supposed to fly directly to Toronto, but the pilot had to make a forced landing because of a malfunctioning signal light at 41,000 feet, forcing him to land in the U.S. and then go to Toronto. The dynamics of the first act are almost a total monologue by Mickey, having to talk to various attorneys and friends to straighten things out with who owns the plane, who should pay the taxes, and how his girlfriend was humiliated by a strip cavity search at the American landing site. As the curtain for Act I is about to come down, politics rears its ugly head and a lot of belligerence and bile is spewed by Mickey.

Yes, indeed politics becomes the root of all evil in Act II. As Mickey is about to make his mea culpas for his belligerence the night before and get out of the business, and take his young fiancé with him, that’s when his real problems begin. There is blackmail, bribery, extortion, conspiracy, revenge, prison sentencing, everyone consorting with everyone else, double dealings—all the absurdities that embroil the late Jackie Collins’ novels, but are not half as much fun. In other words, Act II unravels faster than you can say Lucky Santangelo.

If you had gotten used to the staccato, rapid-fire bandying of words in his masterpieces Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-The-Plow, American Buffalo and Race, forget it here because the dialogue comes in leaps and spurts. Since it is almost a monologue, Mr. Pacino bears the burden of the delivery. Poor Mr. Pacino, either he has problems remembering all the lines that are being fed to him by earphones, thus his deliveries are stilted and late; or he is deliberately doing a slovenly Donald Sterling imitation with no character shading or nuances. Christopher Denham as Carson, the assistant, just has to stand, be obedient and deliver his one-liners.

Alas, the culprit who failed both Mamet and Pacino is the highly touted director, Pam MacKinnon. She is way out of her league with two super egos like Mamet and Pacino; she never had a chance.

At the end I had to wonder if all billionaires have the tsuris (I left some out, so why spoil it for you?) that Mickey Ross goes through in 24 hours, or is this what the “one percenters” have to deal with in their everyday life? Maybe Mamet’s moral here is who needs to be a billionaire? You can get by easier by just being a millionaire.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published December 4, 2015
Reviewed at press performance on December 3, 2015