The Woods by David Mamet

First published: 1979

First produced: 1977, at the St. Nicholas Theater Company, Chicago, Illinois

Type of plot: Psychological

Time of work: The 1970’s

Locale: A summer cottage in the woods

Principal Characters:

• Ruth, a woman approximately twenty-five years old
• Nick, a man, also about twenty-five

The Play

Scene 1 of the conversational The Woods opens at dusk with the play’s two characters, Ruth and Nick, seated on the porch of Nick’s summer cottage in the woods, where the two lovers have come for a weekend getaway. Ruth, animated by the atmosphere and encouraged by Nick’s “Tell me,” comments on the environment’s natural denizens: seagulls, herons, and crickets. She talks about the ozone layer, pirates, and bears, noting, “We don’t have to be afraid. Because we have each other.”

The less talkative Nick, who is not afraid, is nevertheless angered by her “understanding.” He barely listens to what has become nonstop commentary, soliloquies punctuated with clichélike truisms such as “nothing lasts forever” and “things change.” He wants her affection more than her conversation. At her persistence, he relates for her his father’s story of accidentally falling into a hole “during the War” and ironically finding the man he had been sent to search for. Suddenly, Ruth stops listening. She wants Nick to take her inside the cottage and make love to her, adding that she bought him a present. Nick agreeably promises to finish his story as the two go inside.

At the beginning of scene 2, night has fallen, and Ruth, who has had trouble sleeping, is sitting on the porch. Nick joins her, verbalizing that he is upset because his watch has stopped and he does not know the time. He is also worried about the oncoming rain and cold. Ruth soothes his whining by telling her Granma’s story, which has the elements of a children’s fairy tale: a new moon to see by, wolves, bears, and small children who lose their way in the woods. The story reminds Ruth that she lost her beloved Granma’s bracelet by carelessly dropping it into the lake. Nick likens that incident to his father’s accidental fall into the hole. This seemingly aimless conversation continues until “Nicky” rushes Ruth into lovemaking. She tells him that if he were a man, he would treat her better. He tells her that she talks too much. Nick does not accept her present (a gold bracelet engraved “Nicholas. I will always love you. Ruth”) and hints that he has brought others to the cottage. “Nothing lasts forever,” quotes a sadder and wiser Ruth, who decides she will go home on the next bus. She adds, as she goes in to pack, “Many things go on. We have to learn from things.”

Scene 3 occurs the next morning. Nicky does not want to “do” anything, and he does not want Ruth to leave, so he talks of herons and the like. Ruth still thinks that Nick does not love but only wants her, and she challenges his manhood with “You make this manly stuff up.” He retaliates, “You’re nothing honey.” Physical violence ensues. Ruth lunges with the oar that was used to steer a now-rotting boat, and a threatened Nick knocks her down, which indicates to Ruth that Nick does not like women. Then a stunning reversal occurs: Nick’s fear at being left alone and not knowing himself forces him to admit, while she slaps some sense into him, that he loves her. She denies this assertion but calms him down as she retells the story of the lost children in the woods.

Dramatic Devices

Within the device of Nick and Ruth’s storytelling, Mamet uses repetitive dialogue, as he does in all of his plays, to underline and dramatize a search for meaning. When Ruth looks up to the great firmament, her usual sureness crumbles. She is unable to find an answer in the configuration of the heavens, unable to give meaning to a new story or find similarity in an old one. Her repetition underlines her confusion, rather than adding clarity:

Ruth: The lightning doesn’t look like anything. Do you know what I mean?

Nick: No.

Ruth: The lightning doesn’t “look” like anything. Do you know what I mean?

Nick: No

The impact of this inability to communicate is heightened by the nonproductive repetitiveness.

The play runs the risk of being produced as a static “play of ideas.” Mamet, ironically, introduces physical violence at the very moment his characters admit they care, dramatically emphasizing the characters’ fear of loving and being loved. The playwright presents the “rape” scene in full view of the audience. Although Ruth says no, Nick forces her, not even allowing her to go inside to get lubrication or birth-control protection (“some stuff”). Nick, therefore, becomes an unsympathetic character who uses brute strength to get what he wants. The audience sees Ruth treated as an object, and empathy for his lonely plight is lost.

Mamet further brings out their animalistic qualities by having Ruth repeat the shrill and caustic sound of the migratory birds. “Caw, caw, caw. And Winter comes and they go somewhere else.” Mamet enhances the whys and wherefores of this deteriorating relationship with the imagery of decay: the rotting boat, the musty raincoat, the dampness, and the chill that will not go away. No panacea—neither mercurochrome nor aspirin—can relieve the pain already caused. A special poignancy in this modern-day winter’s tale is achieved when Ruth realizes that Nick wanted the very same things from Ruth that she desperately wanted to give to him.

Critical Context

One can readily see the influence of Anton Chekhov, specifically of Chayka (pr. 1896; The Seagull, 1909), on Mamet’s early work, The Woods. Both plays include natural imagery as symbols for the process of decay. The storytelling motif is used by Mamet much as Chekhov uses the play-within-the-play, which the characters see as a fictive quasi reality. Nick becomes the bear who cannot speak, much as Nina becomes the tossed-aside seagull.

One can also trace the development of Mamet’s storytelling device in The Woods from that of his short, one-scene Dark Pony (pr. 1977), in which a tender father tells a favorite story to lull his daughter to sleep. Dark Pony was published as a companion piece to the more dramatic (and more hopeful) Reunion (pr. 1976), in which a different father tells a story to try to explain himself to his daughter. In Reunion, as in The Woods, the characters seem able and willing to set aside their differences, if only for the moment, out of their need and loneliness. In addition, Bernie gives Carol a bracelet as a token of his love in Reunion, much as Ruth gives one to Nick. The Woods, therefore, can be seen as a beneficiary of earlier plays and as a springboard for the development of later ones, specifically Speed-the-Plow (pr., pb. 1988), which has as a subplot the same major theme, how to “know oneself,” and is also structured with a neoclassical unity of time, space, and action. Ruth recognizes that people are afraid to be alone and afraid to die. Her love is giving, curative, and maternal; yet she needs to feel loved to be secure. Nick needs her to smother his aloneness. He does not love her; nevertheless, they “go on,” with Ruth lulling Nick’s fears by telling him a story.

Sources for Further Study

Bigsby, C. W. E. David Mamet. New York: Methuen, 1985.

Bigsby, C. W. E. Introduction to Beyond Broadway. Vol. 3 in A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Carroll, Dennis. David Mamet. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.

Christiansen, Richard, “David Mamet.” Contemporary Dramatists. 6th ed. Detroit: St. James, 1999.

Dean, Anne. David Mamet: Language as Dramatic Action. Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990.

Friedman, Samuel G. “The Gritty Eloquence of David Mamet.” New York Times Magazine, April 21, 1985, 32-38.

Kane, Leslie, ed. David Mamet: A Casebook. New York: Garland, 1991.

Lahr, John. “David Mamet.” In Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2000.