Playwright David Mamet never appeared to be a huge fan of critics, and once called a pair of high-profile reviewers the “syphilis and gonorrhea of the American theater.” Since then, the Pulitzer Prize winner has taken a hard right, penning a 2008 essay for the Village Voice entitled “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’” and gaining the advocacy of folks like conservative commentator Barton Swaim. It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, to hear that Mamet has not invited critics to his latest play, nor is it a shock that one of the cast members is controversial actor Shia LaBeouf, who faces troubling allegations from several women. What is surprising is that LaBeouf appeared to flout Mamet’s anti-critic tendencies, and personally invited L.A. Times reviewer Charles McNulty to the show.
LaBeouf, a once-ubiquitous actor who made headlines last year during a public dispute with Don’t Worry Darling director Olivia Wilde, has been harder to find since former partner FKA Twigs (born Tahliah Debrett Barnett), singer Sia, and stylist Karolyn Pho came forward with allegations against the actor. Barnett filed a civil suit against LaBeouf in December 2020 in which she accused him of sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress, and also claimed that he had knowingly infected her with a sexually transmitted disease.
In response, LeBeouf told the New York Times, “I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years. I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt,” and that he is “committed to doing what I need to do to recover, and I will forever be sorry to the people that I may have harmed along the way,” but that some of the claims made against him “are not true.”
Barnett’s suit against LaBeouf was recently delayed, Pitchfork reports, as scheduling issues have held up depositions and “certain discovery issues still remain to be resolved.” The trial is now scheduled for Los Angeles Superior Court on October 14, 2024.
Meanwhile, LaBeouf took on his first-ever stage role in Mamet’s latest play, Henry Johnson. Per its description, the show “follows the plight of a man after an act of compassion upends his life,” and is currently running at The Electric Lodge Theater in Los Angeles.
“The reason you likely haven’t heard much about this offering is that this is one of Mamet’s clandestine world premieres,” McNulty writes of the show, to which “critics were not invited, even after they politely asked.” McNulty has written about Mamet’s evolving reputation over the years and doesn’t seem surprised by the diss. Given the reviews of recent works like Bitter Wheat (Mamet’s play about Harvey Weinstein), as well as Mamet’s widespread excoriation for his embrace of conspiracy theories, we probably shouldn’t be, either.
Nor was LaBeouf. In an email to McNulty, he wrote, “Three weeks into a successful run of ‘Henry Johnson,’ and we have yet to receive a review, analysis, or any illuminating interpretation of our work, positive or negative. Outside of a few tweets, and word of mouth. I know Mamet prefers this.”
But LaBeouf, it appears, does not. “Personally, I find dramaturgical criticism instructive and generative,” he wrote. “I think it’s good for the sport and I would be pleased as punch if you could join us in attending the play one of these days.”
McNulty took LaBeouf up on his offer, and the overall review is…not bad? “LaBeouf is scarily good,” he writes, and it’s his role that generates most of the critic’s praise. The jury is out on if Mamet will ever recover from statements like “Trump did a great job as president.” But if LaBeouf sends a polite and charming email to everyone disconcerted by the allegations against him, will that be enough to return him to the greater public stage?
