The setting is a conference room of a law firm.  Henry Brown (David Alan Grier) and his white partner Jack Lawson (James Spader) are interviewing a prospective client (Richard Thomas).  The client, a wealthy white man, is standing trial for the rape of a black woman.

Two expert attorneys interviewing a prospective client is the perfect device for Mamet to not only inform the audience of the facts at hand and the idiosyncratic personalities of the characters we will spend the next hour and a half of our lives with, but it also serves as a perfect showcase for the playwright’s legendary use of dialogue, timing, over-lapping speech patterns and no-holds-barred language.  For a Mamet addict, this is heroin.

It is a chance to watch a conversation that anyone outside that room was never meant to hear.  And the language the characters use reflect the comfortable and brazen style reminiscent of Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow, the unique vernacular often referred to as “Mamet-Speak.”

Also present but silent in the play’s opening scene is Susan (Kerry Washington), an associate at the firm.  She stays on a platform that stretches the length of the stage, upstage of the action.  She is always seen, observing but remaining silent.  We notice her, but we don’t focus on her.  Her mere presence (as well as the fact that she is a beautiful black woman and the plot centers on the rape of a young black woman) is a clear indication that she will play a pivotal role in the scenes that follow, and she does.

Yes, “Race” is about a rape trial.  And yes, race plays a factor in the case.  And yes, the race of the characters on stage serves as texture, tension and explosive material for the plot’s development.  But, the real over-riding subject of this play is Political Correctness and the destruction of our society because of it.

Guilt or innocence is rarely discussed by the attorneys in the context of the facts of the case or the strategy in defending their client.  They cynically attempt to navigate the politically volatile waters they find themselves in.  A major piece of evidence in the case is a twenty-year-old postcard written by the accused man which contains inflammatory language about black women.  This is held up as more critical to proving his guilt as a rapist than any physical evidence at the scene of the crime.  It is taken as a given that a rich white man who appears to hold a prejudice against black women will be assumed to be guilty of this heinous crime.  Thus, political correctness replaces jurisprudence and the constitutional presumption of innocence. 

Welcome to the Politically Correct world we inhabit.

And this is the world Mamet wants to expose.  Ever since his landmark play “Oleanna” which was written in the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings, the playwright has been at his best when he shows us the roaches that live behind America’s proverbial refrigerator but only scatter when he shines his flashlight on them.

Mr. Spader and Mr. Grier are a stunning tandem.  Not since Ron Silver and Joe Mantegna delivered Mamet’s dialogue in mesmerizing cadences in the original Speed-the-Plow have two actors so expertly conveyed his style and message.   Hearing Mr. Spader’s terrific stage voice articulating the unmistakable Mamet style in an intimate, live setting is truly a treat, and I drank up every word.  And in a break-out performance, Mr. Grier proves that he is a force to be reckoned with on the Broadway stage.  He has already shown audiences his comedic and musical abilities, but now he commands attention as a dramatic leading man.  Unfortunately for the audience we have to wait too long for the two of them to be alone on stage for a lengthy and pivotal scene.  We want more of the two of them and, unfortunately, less of Ms. Washington.

Ms. Washington is most often paired with Mr. Spader for the bulk of her scenes and the match-up just isn’t fair.  Mr. Spader possesses a mesmerizing and powerful voice that fills the Barrymore (seemingly unassisted by electronic amplification).  Ms. Washington does not possess such a voice.  And when her character must express intensity or anger she resorts to a painfully strained vocal style which distracts from the actual text and just sounds shrill.

The crime is that the Ms. Washington’s performance has led some critics to lazily assume that her character is weak, thus buying into the latest trend of accusing Mr. Mamet of hating women (gee, I don’t know why he seems to want to rail against political correctness so much).  But, the fact is Ms. Washington’s character is actually one of the strongest female roles written for a young, black actress in a very long time.

Mr. Thomas serves his character and the play admirably in a role that is essential to the plot, but not really important to the message.  Thus his efforts are respected, but not what you leave the theatre humming.

Mr. Mamet also deserves praise for his no-nonsense directing style.  He allows the audience to see the action without distraction we too often get from directors trying to remind you that they are there.  The staging is straight-forward and simple and does what it is supposed to do; serve the text and the actors, nothing more.

The set is handsomely executed with what I believe to be either a planned bit of symbolism, or a remarkable accident.  Stretching across the entire stage, upstage of the action is an enormous set of bookcases filled to the brim with law books of all sorts.  They loom over the play at all times.  Every scene has them as its backdrop.  You can’t escape looking at them.  And yet, in this play presented as a legal drama, set in a law office, with lawyers debating about the guilt or innocence of their client, not one of the law books is ever touched.

In Mamet’s view of American law, the actual law is not merely as important as the new, unforgiving rules of political correctness.  Go, David, Go!

The play received quite positive reviews.  Here are some interesting things I read in the reviews…

In Elysa Gardner’s positive review in USA Today, she refers to the contrasting times in which the play is now produced versus the original production:

When David Mamet’s Oleanna premiered in 1992, it was widely perceived as a response to the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in which Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by former assistant Anita Hill.  It has been 18 years since that real-life drama played out. But as the very different controversy now surrounding David Letterman reminds us, the debate over what constitutes an abuse of power between a male authority figure and a female subordinate isn’t going away.

I find it interesting that the Hill/Thomas debate is compared to the Letterman story.  Was Clarence Thomas ever accused by Anita Hill of anything even remotely close to what Letterman has ADMITTED to?  I don’t think there is a debate about “what constitutes an abuse of power between a male authority figure and a female subordinate” with regard to Letterman, do you?  Does Letterman?  Does anyone?

Later, Gardner properly hits the nail on the head:

Mamet, after all, seems less interested in condemning women or men than exploring the complicated dynamics between them, made no simpler by such modern inventions as academic equality and political correctness.

Brava, Elysa.

Meanwhile, unlike Gardner, the NY Post’s Elisabeth Vincentelli doesn’t see ANY topical issues reflected in “Oleanna” and she uses the occasion of this play’s opening to put Mr. Mamet on the couch a la Sigmund Freud:

But watching the play 17 years later is like watching something made during the Red Scare of the ’50s. “Oleanna” speaks volumes not only about an era dominated by the shared paranoia of conservatives and lefty activists, but also about its creator’s id. And what surged from Mamet’s brain is the closest Broadway now has to a slasher movie.

In Ben Brantley’s all-powerful NY Times review, further mind reading of Mr. Mamet occurs: [emphasis added]

What’s so infernally ingenious about “Oleanna” is that as its characters vivisect what we have just witnessed, we become less and less sure of what we saw. Anyway, that’s what occurs in performance — or should.  Think about it afterward, or read the script, and you’ll realize that the sympathies of Mr. Mamet, a man’s man among playwrights, are definitely with John, however flawed he may be. It also becomes clear that Carol, as a character, is full of holes, most conspicuously in the way she uses words.

John Simon wisely avoids any direct criticism of Mr. Mamet (Mamet effectively castrated Simon in print last year thus rendering the critic incapable of objectively musing on the playwright’s talent), and he also differs with Ben Brantley’s suggestion that the play is skewered in the man’s direction:

The entire play is a clever enough piece of equivocation, allowing viewers to approve or reprehend either character according to their notions of feminism and sexism. The writing clearly and deliberately aims at provocation, at which it succeeds rather better than at credibility.

David Sheward in Backstage takes a different approach.  In honoring this production, he decides to slam the original, Mamet-directed version:

Under Mamet’s direction, Rebecca Pidgeon (the playwright’s wife) played the co-ed as a vacuous fool obviously manipulated by an offstage group of evil feminists into ruining the life of the nice-guy prof played by sweet, teddy-bearish W.H. Macy. Many saw the powerful one-act as a backlash against the excesses of political correctness and the women’s movement. In Doug Hughes’ reconsidered staging (now on Broadway after a run in Los Angeles), with a pair of powerhouse performances by Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman, the terms of combat are more equal and the outcome more ambiguous.

And over at Talkin’ Broadway, Matthew Murray is not a fan of this production at all, but unlike his counter-parts, he does not take this as an opportunity to personally slam, label or psycho-analyze the playwright.  On the contrary, he actually compliments him and the play:

The beautiful thing about Mamet’s incomparably incendiary play, however, is that it inspires fervent disagreement about which character represents what – stories of post-performance shouting matches and even fistfights have dogged the show for years.

But the prize for assault by play review has to go to David Rooney in Variety.  Here are a few choice quotes:

…Mamet stacks the deck too heavily in favor of the former to make the drama a fair contest — or to escape the charges of misogyny that have long dogged this play.

…Carol is possibly the most complex female role created by Mamet, a writer whose women are more often ciphers than believably fleshed-out characters.

…Hughes’ sleek production is psychologically needling and uncomfortable to watch in a way that surely honors Mamet’s intentions

…Designer Neil Patel amplifies the abrasive nature of the material

…But while Pullman makes John’s undoing a harrowing spectacle, the sheer acrimony of Mamet’s stance against Carol blunts the confrontation.

In case you’re having trouble reading the hidden message in Rooney’s review, let me help you out:  Mamet hates women. (He is a conservative, after all.)

More reviews are sure to trickle in as the week goes on, and If I find anything particularly obnoxious, I’ll bring them to your attention.  In the meantime, as the show is a limited engagement, do yourself a favor and see it if you are in New York.

“I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.” – David Mamet

As I discussed in my very first post here at Big Hollywood, many in the theatre world were surprised to read David Mamet’s amazing article, “Why I am No Longer A Brain-Dead Liberal” in the Village Voice.  In my post, I used the play “Oleanna” as an example of a conservative lean that I recognized in Mamet’s work when it premiered off-Broadway in 1992.  I concluded with a couple of questions:

The real test will be when Mamet offers a new work for public consumption.  Will it be viewed through a new spectrum?  Will critics recognize Mamet’s un-deniable brilliance?  Or, will a hidden meaning be searched for in every scene and in every rapid-fire dialogue sequence?

It turns out we won’t have to wait long for an answer.  Our current Broadway season will feature two major productions from Mr. Mamet, and both deal with the most controversial political issues of our time:  Race and Gender.

This week, the Mark Taper Forum’s revival of the aforementioned “Oleanna” will open on Broadway.  ”Oleanna” was universally hailed when presented in the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings.  Many of the critics praised Mamet for being so even-handed in its presentation that it was hard for people to really know if the accused man was truly guilty of sexual harassment.  Now that Mamet has “outed” himself, will they still see “Oleanna” and Mamet as “even-handed?”

Later this winter will see the opening of the brilliantly and economically titled:  ”Race” directed by Mamet, himself.  Precious few details have been leaked about the plot other than a quick description in Mr. Mamet’s recent, must-read NY Times op-ed:

In my play a firm made up of three lawyers, two black and one white, is offered the chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black young woman. It is a play about lies.

How will “Race” be received in the Era of Obama with the knowledge that Mamet is no longer a “brain-dead liberal”?

I plan to use my space here at Big Hollywood to let you know.  I will be providing a run-down of the critics’ reactions to these plays and any direct, personal attacks on Mr. Mamet and/or his politics.

In the true tradition of Broadway, I can provide you a “preview.” The Atlantic Theatre Company just opened two Mamet one-acts under the single title:  “Two Unrelated Plays” by David Mamet.   There is a very useful website called “Critic-O-Meter” which compiles all of the reviews for plays that open in New York.  I use the site often as a resource.  The proprietors of the site provide a quick synopsis of the reviews before linking to each, individual one.  In its synopsis of the Mamet one-acts, the site provided this helpful information:

Despite writing some bona-fide classics, David Mamet hasn’t written a good play since The Cryptogram, devoting most of his time to creating a third-rate 24, excoriating Jews who aren’t into ethnic cleansing as self-hating and– in his essays in the Times and the Voice– doing his borscht-belt imitation of Ann Coulter’s schtick. Ah well, he has a banner season ahead of him anyway, including a revival of Oleanna (the first step in his artistic downfall) and a new play called Race, both of which open on Broadway this season.

Mr. Mamet:  Welcome to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.

Just as last season brought a record number of plays as well as stellar gross sales (despite doom-sayers in the industry) this season already looks locked and loaded with a huge number of shows scheduled to open between October 1st and the first week of May (the traditional Tony nomination cut-off).  So to help the readers of Big Hollywood plan their trip to the Great White Way (we can still say that, can’t we?), I submit the top 10 things to look for from the center/right perspective:

10.  ”Superior Donuts” – A transfer from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre (one of my personal favorite regional houses in America), the play stars “Spinal Tap”’s Michael McKean as an aging hippie who owns a donut shop in a largely black neighborhood and Jon Michael Hill (do all young Broadway actors HAVE to go by three names now?) as a 21-year-old from the neighborhood who talks his way into a job at the shop.  From the New York Times review:  ”In one of the play’s most amusing exchanges Franco challenges Arthur to name 10 black poets. Arthur names a few, then stands dumb, a look of deep concentration on his face. “It’s like watching George Bush on ‘Jeopardy!’ ” Franco cracks.”

9.  ”Hamlet” – Uber-UN activist Jude Law stars as the Danish prince in a Broadway transfer from London’s famed Donmar Warehouse theatre company.  His performance was almost universally praised by Fleet Street’s snarky critics.  This production has Hamlet delivering his “To be, or not to be” soliloquy in an on-stage snowfall.

8.  ”Bye, Bye, Birdie” – One of the first musicals to embrace pop music with a back-beat, “Bye, Bye, Birdie” will receive a revival at New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company.  It will star Gina Gershon, Dee Hoty, Bill Irwin and (wait for it….) John Stamos.  All I can say is this production has the potential to be fantastic, or to be a complete disaster… don’t expect anything in between.

7.  ”The Neil Simon Plays:  Brighton Beach Memoirs & Broadway Bound” – Revivals of two of the three plays which made up the Neil Simon “BB” trilogy will play in repertory this Fall (I’m guessing the middle play, “Biloxi Blues,” is omitted because Brighton Beach and Broadway Bound share the exact same set which is the Brighton Beach home of Simon’s alter-ego, Eugene, so it is much easier to play them in Rep.  Biloxi takes place in an Army barracks as it follow Eugene through basic training).  The revivals will star Laurie Metcalf.

6.  ”In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)” – After having its world premiere at Berkley Rep., this play is transferring to Broadway via Lincoln Center Theatre.  The New York Times describes the play as:  “A fanciful but compassionate consideration of the treatment, and the mistreatment, of women in the late 19th century” and the show’s website calls it “a comedy about marriage, intimacy and electricity.” Hmmm…  In the words of Forrest Gump:  ”And that’s all I have to say about that.”

5.  ”Race” – World Premiere of David Mamet’s newest play starring James Spader, Kerry Washington and Richard Thomas.  When asked about details of the plot, producer Jefferey Richards said:  ”The title speaks for itself.”  Mamet, Spader and a play called “Race.”  Seriously, ENOUGH SAID!

4.  ”A Steady Rain” – Starring Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, this play is one of the most anticipated of the Fall.  A press report describes the Chicago premiere as: “A Steady Rain chronicles love and rage on the streets of Chicago as a domestic disturbance call sends two Chicago cops, friends since childhood, on a harrowing journey that will test their loyalties and change their lives forever.” But, as the NY Post succinctly said: “Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman in police uniforms? All the boys will be there!”

3.  ”The Addams Family” – A musical adaptation of the famous, macabre characters starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwerth.  I am both embarrassed and proud that I am SO looking forward to this show!

2.  ”The Royal Family“  – George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s famous parody of the Barrymore family, this revival will star Rosemary Harris, Stephen Collins, John Glover, Tony Roberts, Jan Maxwell, Ana Gasteyer and Reg Rogers.  Its view of celebrity and privilege in the tunnel-vision perspective of an actor’s life resonates just as perfectly today as it did in 1927.  Really looking forward to see this cast play those characters (especially since I went to school with one of them!).

1.  ”Oleanna” – The Broadway premiere of Mamet’s 1992 Pulitzer-Prize winning play (it appeared off-Broadway at that time making this production it’s Broadway premiere).  When originally produced, this play was a compelling, challenging and electrifying reflection of the ground-breaking Clarence Thomas hearing that had split the nation the year before.  The 1992 production starring William H. Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon was universally praised for its thought-provoking approach to the issue of sexual harassment and the use of rhetoric as a weapon in politically correct America.  None other than Frank Rich gave it one of his strongest endorsements as theatre critic of the New York Times.  But, a funny thing happened between 1992 and today, David Mamet famously proclaimed himself “No longer a brain-dead liberal.”  Will this breach of liberal dogma and orthodoxy in any way affect the theatre community’s once universal praise of “Oleanna”?  I know I will be looking very closely at how it is received by the critics as well as industry insiders.  This new revival premiered in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles.

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The Saul-like conversion of Mamet has produced reams of commentary from both the left and the right, but it is the reaction of the left that is especially interesting.  Many in the liberal “intelligentsia” have greeted the news by openly wondering whether such a political shift will result in the loss of Mamet’s famous creative powers.  A “depressed” Michael Billington, for one, writing in The Guardian, is fearful of what Mamet’s conversion portends for his work because, “the precedents for a shift to the right on the part of creative artists are not exactly encouraging.”

So how did Mamet come by his new conservative frame of mind?  The essay itself is fascinating, for it is that rarest of artifacts – the admission of an honest mind that it has been wrong about large and important things, and a frank embrace of what it once thought to be wrong.

Mamet tells us that while working on the political play November (which opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York in early 2008 and starred Nathan Lane) he started thinking about politics – specifically, how politics manifested in the clash between his two protagonists, a president who holds a realist (conservative) world view, and his Utopian (liberal) minded speech writer.

Mamet began to realize that a large gulf existed between his long-held liberal beliefs and the real world which surrounded him.  For example, of the liberal aversion to business;

…I began to question my hatred for ‘the Corporations’ – the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.

This is followed by an astonishingly mature re-evaluation of his views on the military;

…I began to question my distrust of the “Bad, Bad Military” of my  youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world.

Most interesting is Mamet’s realization that many of the reasons that he and other liberals had once lionized John F. Kennedy were some of the same reasons those same liberals detested George W. Bush!

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam.  Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago.  Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson.  Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

All of this is fascinating, but the question remains: Will Mamet’s conversion be followed by a loss of literary juice, as Billington and others feared?  Of course not, or at least, not necessarily.  The trope that one cannot be both creative and politically conservative is a vile myth, promulgated by snide liberals who fancy they have exclusive claim to the arts, a meme containing just as much validity as the one passed along by liberal professors that there aren’t more conservatives in academia because well, you know, you have to be smart to be a professor.

The reason liberal professors even say such things is because there is an undeniable dearth of conservatives in the academic establishment, so they come up with an explanation which elevates themselves while simultaneously degrading their political opposites. In so doing they fail to take into account other possible explanations for the discrepancy – differences in temperament, for example; differences in goals and values.

(It is not unlike, at bottom, the oft cited discrepancy between men and women’s pay – liberals are apt to see oppression in such statistics, completely ignoring what everybody outside of academia knows, that men and women choose, generally, different professions as a result of differing values and goals – family, flexibility, danger, etc.).

Can this be the answer to why there aren’t more conservatives in the arts?  Could conservative minded folk just value the arts less, or in a different way, than liberal minded folk?  Are we really talking about a difference in temperament?

Next week we will explore this possibility, and conclude the series.

Ed. note: You can read a new chapter of this eight-part series every Saturday and Sunday morning. Previous chapters –Part one, two, three, four and five.]

Matt Patterson is a columnist and commentator whose work has appeared in The Washington Examiner, The Baltimore Sun, and Pajamas Media.  He is the author of “Union of Hearts: The Abraham Lincoln & Ann Rutledge Story.”  His email is mpatterson.column@gmail.com.

Nathan Lane and John Goodman are selling tickets hand over fist for their revival of “Waiting for Godot” but neither received the honor of a nomination.  Same with David Hyde Pierce, Frank Langella, Mary Louise Parker and Matthew Broderick. 

It was no surprise that Jeremy Piven was included out of the Best Actor category after his famous sushi defense for missing performances in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow,” but not honoring John Lithgow’s brilliant turn in “All My Sons” in the same category is a crime against humanity!  It ranks up there with the snub of Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman in the 1984 revival of “Death of a Salesman.” Brian Dennehy was honored with the Best Actor award when he did Willy Loman in 2000, but that goodwill did not anoint him worthy of a nomination this year for his turn in “Desire Under the Elms.” 

Add to the list of the egregiously overlooked: Diane Wiest, Kristin Scott Thomas, Daniel Radcliffe, Tovah Feldshuh, Joan Allen, Jeremy Irons, Rupert Everett, Christine Ebersol, Patrick Wilson, Susan Sarandon and Katie Holmes. 

As an industry, Broadway seems to take an odd pride in the moniker “The Fabulous Invalid” and I have lamented this mindset on these pages before.  Broadway’s ability to eat its young and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory has become legendary and not a little bit annoying. 

Here we are at the end of a season where the biggest headline was about how horrible things are on Broadway and how every show is closing and how there are nothing but empty theatres, and right when the industry has a chance to turn that story around and promote the fact that not only has every theatre been occupied but incredibly high-wattage stars have come out to perform live in intimate, beautiful theatres, they turn around and kill their own lead. 

Wouldn’t it have been great to have a nationally televised theatre awards show with ratings better than an NHL playoff game? 

Now, I understand the argument that everyone can’t be nominated, and I recognize that some pretty big names were honored like Jeff Daniels, Geoffery Rush, Marcia Gay Harden, Jane Fonda, Stockard Channing, John Glover and Angela Lansbury.  But, really, if the industry is in the trouble they say it’s in, and you have a chance to showcase Daniel Radcliffe, Katie Holmes (and maybe Mr. Holmes?) and Rupert Everett on national television as honored performers from the prior season, shouldn’t you figure out a way to do it? 

Here’s a modest proposal:  Expand the acting categories!  Where is it written in stone that there should only be five nominees for each category?  In some pretty thin years in the not-too-distant past they have nominated LESS than five in some categories.  (I know that the doom-sayers on Broadway all think that this is the worst it’s ever been, but seriously, in 1989 the THREE nominees for Best Musical were “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway”, “Black and Blue” and “Starmites”!).  So in a crappy year, they change the rules and only nominate three, but in a year packed with stars, they hold to the arbitrary five nominee rule and the story becomes “Who Got Snubbed”.  It makes no sense at all. 

I know that none of this seems to follow a “Right versus Left” storyline that many of you may be used to here at Big Hollywood, but hang in there with me for a few more thoughts.  The fact is, the left on Broadway (meaning the vast majority of actors, designers and staffers in the production offices) relish the fact that they give a big “up yours” to the Hollywood types who dare to come to Broadway.  In this context, the Hollywood actors are “rich” and the New York theatre people are the poor, starving artists giving up riches for their craft.  They want to see the Hollywood star fail.  It’s classic class warfare, just like it is played out in the political world of America. 

The same mentality that celebrates the increased taxes on “The Rich” and rails against “Big Pharma” and “Big Oil” yet fails to recognize the damage done to our society when these productive members of our economy are punished by ever-burdensome taxes and regulations is at play when they watch in bitchy glee as Hollywood movie stars are snubbed in favor of a “real” actor from their ranks.  But they fail to realize that those Hollywood hacks are the ones who are selling the tickets and keeping the “Theatre Community” employed.  If Hollywood actors ever get the message and stop risking rejection and embarrassment by performing on Broadway, it will just mean more unemployment for the theatre purists. 

But, that’s OK, they’ll just blame Middle America for not being smart or cultured enough to truly appreciate Thomas Sadoski in “Reasons to be Pretty” instead of wanting to see Tom Cruise’s wife or that guy from “3rd Rock From the Sun.” 

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Until I met him, he was just another Hollywood liberal loud mouth.

Yes, he was an award-winning actor and prolific film star. And, yes, he had strong political opinions. (The net sum of his positions added up to no partisan’s delight.)

But Ron Silver was also astoundingly intelligent. Ask anyone who knew him. He spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese and Spanish to go with having a Master’s Degree in Chinese History.

These facets combined to make Silver a most compelling public person, a natural leader and the type of man who automatically commanded respect and admiration no matter the social or vocational circumstance.

I understand why the left is so angry that he changed teams in the last years of his life.

How would you feel if someone you loved — he created the hip and powerful Creative Coalition, for crying out loud — left you in a very public way?

And even though Ron fell into the arms of so-called neo-cons and assorted right wingers, a conversation with him always conveyed that his principles were steadfast and that he was not in lock-step with his current suitors. He even proudly stood by the term “liberal” until the very end.

Ron Silver was always an individualist and a patriot.

By going against the Hollywood left in the thralls of its opposition to the Iraq War, and by supporting the always unpopular Republican Party and its demonized standard bearer, George W. Bush, Silver understood perfectly well that lifelong friends and job opportunities would be lost. Peers even walked away from him on the red carpet at film premieres.

Before New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote Silver off as another D-List celebrity supporting Bush, the former art critic praised his 1988 best actor Tony Award for David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow” as “the performance of his career.”

“Mr. Silver’s frightening eruptions of snarling anger and crumpled demeanor in the face of defeat make what could be another Beverly Hills caricature into a figure of pathos,” Mr. Rich wrote.

Frank Rich later lobbied to get the life-long New Yorker to oversee a campaign to help revitalize Broadway.

Maybe the D in D-list stood for defector.

Last year in New York I had the privilege to hear Ron give an informal, impromptu speech to a group of his peers. Many knew he was fighting an unwinnable battle against cancer, so his words were packed and delivered like an Oscar winning performance. Ron stated eloquently that he had no regrets and had no choice but to stand for what he believed.

In an industry full of many flakes and followers, Hollywood benefitted greatly from having an actor as principled and committed as Ron Silver.

It was the performance of Jeremy Piven’s life. Last week, he tearfully persuaded five fellow actors that he was deathly ill from mercury poisoning due to his lifelong love of sushi – and not merely slacking off with Britney – when he abruptly walked away from the Broadway production of “Speed-the-Plow.’’ I predict future actors will have “no raw fish” clauses attached to their contracts. Entire A-list restaurants will tremble at the loss of high-profile business. On the bright side, fish will live.

Piven dodged a financial bullet by pleading his case to a grievance committee of Actor’s Equity. He could not escape the hilarity that ensued over his fishy tale. As “Plow’’ playwright David Mamet joked to the New York Post’s Michael Riedel, “My understanding is he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer.’’

This is why Piven is my latest “Celebutard of the Week,’’ in keeping with my new book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberal and Pandering Politicians Who Are Destroying America.

Piven got in trouble with producers of the Broadway show in December, who allege that he’s just another spoiled, egotistical (or is that redundant?) Hollywood jerk. Two months into the show’s run, Piven, who won three consecutive Emmy awards co-starring as hyperactive agent Ari Gold in HBO’s “Entourage,’’ simply refused to show up onstage for his lead role, plunging the $3.5 million production into chaos and upsetting co-stars Raul Esparza and Elisabeth Moss of “Madmen” fame. 

The Great White Way is not nursery school. Nor is it pampered Hollywood. Hard-working thespians and hoofers tend to look askance at people who’ve grown too big for their britches, even if their seams are busted by excessive quantities of uncooked seafood.  Producers of “Plow’’ brought Piven up on charges with the actor’s union, claiming that Piven’s abrupt departure hurt the play. Piven had simply told producers he was sick and hopped the first flight back to Los Angeles, announcing he wasn’t coming back. Actors simply don’t do this. When they get sick, they are expected to negotiate their returns to the plays they leave.

Of course, Piven’s well-documented days and nights of hard partying did not sit well with cast mates or crew (the guy crashed Britney Spears’ birthday party!) Also, as The Post reported, Piven called several prominent actors in the days before he hightailed it out of Broadway, begging them to take over his role. And still, the show managed to end its run in February in the black.

Piven was so concerned about the effect the hoopla might have on the remainder of his career, he traveled to the dreaded Theater District last week to tell the Equity committee of five actors and five producers that his problem was mercury coursing through his bloodstream, and not other substances.  Piven contends the mercury level in his blood was five times normal, and he risked having a heart attack if he stayed. He cried before the committee deciding his fate, proving he still has his acting chops intact. The actors took his side. The producers did not. Without a unanimous verdict, the producers were screwed.

He wasn’t finished. Piven immediately took his case to no less an authority than The New York Times. Sitting for an interview as a publicist babysat, he twice broke into tears and quoted the Obama administration’s warning about mercury pollution as a national threat. He also quoted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “No lie can last forever.’’ It had something to do with his ruined reputation.

Now, the whole mess goes to arbitration, where producers will continue to try to get restitution

Piven’s stage career, by the way, is kaput. His Tony award, once considered a lock, is up for grabs. I wonder if raw fish – or Britney – was worth it..

I am an unabashed lover of the acting craft. I see virtually every movie, large and small, that passes through the US marketplace, and, taking nothing away from Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger, not all of 2008’s best performances have been recognized. I’m not going to be obvious here. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Gran Torino, but he received lots of acclaim for the role including being named Best Actor by the National Board of Review. My goal is to highlight 10 performances from last year that have received virtually no acclaim in the US. Many of these roles can be found in hardly-seen, under-appreciated movies that came and went without much notice. Each and every one of these movies deserve a spot in your Netflix (or Blockbuster) cue.

My list is by no means definitive. If you have a favorite performance from 2008 that sticks with you, this is a great place to tell the world. There were 20 actors nominated on Oscar night, but there is a lot of great work that hasn’t been recognized with a walk down the red carpet.

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1. JEAN DUJARDIN, 0SS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES
This was the funniest movie of the year for me. OSS 117, a reboot of a previously successful franchise, was a hit in France, but generated only about $300,000 in very limited engagements in the US. Dujardin is a James Bond-style secret agent who bumbles his way across the middle east with the panache of Sean Connery and the comic physicality of Peter Sellers. He was nominated for Best Actor at the Cesar Awards (French Oscars), but almost nobody saw Nest of Spies here. The sequel OSS 117: Rio Ne Repond Plus is due later this year. Steve Martin, who badly resurrected the Pink Panther franchise, should watch this movie with a deep sense of shame.

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2. PATRICIA CLARKSON, ELEGY
Sold about $3.5M in tickets at American box offices. In many ways, Penelope Cruz’s performance here is more courageous and luminous than her winning turn in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but I am choosing to focus on Patricia Clarkson who brings a heartfelt honest to her small role. I am always impressed when a woman is unafraid to appear nude in a film, especially if it gives us a window into that character’s soul. Clarkson is close to 50 and her character is maintaining a purely sexual relationship with Ben Kingsley’s David Kepesh. She has no illusions about being young or being in love. She is settling for the occasional comfort of a tumble with this man, and sadly, her constant career demands make a permanent loving relationship a faraway idea.

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3. BILL IRWIN, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
Loading a dishwasher has never been so dramatic. Primarily a theatre actor (he played George alongside Kathleen Turner in the 2005 Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf), he does something very different in Jonathan Demme’s documentary-style Rachel Getting Married. He is the buttoned-down, peacemaker who is hiding a shattered emotional interior that comes forward in a remarkable scene in which he demonstrates how to correctly load a dishwasher. Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway and Golden Globe nominee Rosemarie DeWitt were both excellent, but Irwin’s performance has stayed with me in a meaningful way.

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4. ELSA ZYLBERSTEIN, I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG
This extraordinary French film from the masterful Phillippe Claudel features the luminescent-but-prickly Kristin Scott Thomas, who was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Drama and many other awards. Elsa Zylberstein portrays the fully accepting sister who loves without any strings attached. She unwinds the mystery about why her sister committed a horrible act, and simultaneously remains patient and receptive. She allows for as happy an ending as this film can possible allow. Her soulful beauty softens the rough edges of Kristin Scott Thomas’ Juliette.

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5. CHIWETEL EJIOFOR, REDBELT
David Mamet does a movie about Mixed Martial Arts. Go figure. The master of dialogue practices jujitsu in real-life, and now he has found a way to incorporate it into one of his films. Chiwetel Ejiofer portrays Mike Terry whose mantra is that “There is always an escape.” Some Hollywood types, played with the appropriate dollops of sleaze and smarminess by Tim Allen and Joe Mantegna, put him in an impossible situation, and he must find the escape. A buff Ejiofor delivers physically (easy to buy him as a badass), and he has a rigid sense of honor. His scene with Emily Mortimer in which she exorcises a past demon in worth the price of admission.

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6. KARINA FERNANDEZ, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
I love Happy-Go-Lucky. Writer/Director Mike Leigh takes a full year rehearsing and improving with his actors in order to finalize the script. He hit solid gold with Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins, who won the Golden Globe and, I assume, narrowly missed an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. The same can be said for Eddie Marsan as the anal retentive driving instructor Scott. But my shout-out here goes British stage actress Karina Fernandez who, in two short scenes, demonstrates her rigid and unbending love for the flamenco and that those very steps may be the only thing keeping her from becoming emotionally unhinged.

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7. HAAZ SLEIMAN, THE VISITOR
So much of the lightness in Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins’ turn in The Visitor is his reaction to the joyful drumming of Haaz Sleiman’s Tarek Khalil character. His co-star Danai Jekesai Gurira is also wonderful, but something tells me that the Lebanese-born Sleiman will be heard from again. After drumming with reckless abandon at one point, Tarek realizes that he is going to be late and says his girlfriend will kill him because he’s on Arab time, “It means I’m late by an hour. All Arabs are late by an hour, It’s genetic. We can’t help it.”

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8. CANTINCA UNTARU, THE FALL
The weirdest, most fantastical movie of 2008 was directed by Tarsem Singh, whose best-known previous film was the strikingly visual horror pic The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez. This is a fable told by an injured, drug-addicted stuntman in the early 20th century who befriends a little girl. Lee Pace (brilliant in the 2003 film Soldier’s Girl and also seen in ABC’s short-lived Pushing Daisies) weaves a spectacular fantasy that plays out in the imagination of a little girl played by novice actor Cantinca Untaru. I love this movie, and I’m not alone. Roger Ebert wrote, “You might want to see this for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.” Part Wizard of Oz. Part Lord of the Rings. 100% original. And it all works because of the innocence and spontaneity of a chIld actress before the camera for the first time.

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9. KATE DEL CASTILLO, UNDER THE SAME MOON
She is absolutely beautiful and has a number of popular telenovelas to her credit including El Derecho De Nacer, Ramona, La Mentira and Imperio De Crystal before mading the jump to American television with the 2002 PBS series American Family from creator Gregory Nava (Selena, Mi Familia). This heartbreaking story of a little Mexican boy who decides to try to make it over the border to find his mother, working as a nanny and sending money home, is sweet and pulls at the heartstrings, and this Patricia Riggen movie also features a strong performance from Mexican comic actor Eugenio Derbez.

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10. JASON BUTLER HARNER, CHANGELING
I did not like Changeling. I am a huge fan of Eastwood the director, and, for me, Angelina Jolie’s performance was one-note, Jeffrey Donovan from TV’s Burn Notice was doing a 1930’s rat-ta-ta-tat dialect while Oscar nominee Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) seemed to be playing it present day. As for the art direction, it’s been done so much better in classics like Chinatown and more recent noir like L.A. Confidential. But, the reason to see the movie is Jason Butler Harner as serial killer Gordon Stewart Northcott. He conveys a certain cavalier smarminess when confronted with his evil deeds. He enjoys the infamy he has achieved and uses it to manipulate and torture Jolie’s Christine Collins. Unsettling and unforgettable.

HONORARY MENTION
-in no particular order-

MILA KUNIS, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL

MISTY UPHAM, FROZEN RIVER

DON CHEADLE, TRAITOR

DAVID KROSS, THE READER

REBECCA HALL, VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

JEFFREY WRIGHT, CADILLAC RECORDS

EVAN RACHEL WOOD, THE WRESTLER

DANNY MCBRIDE, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

DOMINIQUE PINON, ROMAN DE GARE

TILDA SWINTON, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

PAUL RUDD, ROLE MODELS

RICKY GERVAIS, GHOST TOWN

ALAN RICKMAN, BOTTLE SHOCK

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