MAMET MAKES A PASS AT THE LADIES

Three women turn Victorian propriety into
a wicked game of lust, jealousy, and verbal warfare

Heather Wake and Nicole Pacent (Paul Crichton)

David Mamet is best known for plays populated by men who lie, bully, bargain, betray, and verbally bludgeon one another. Then there’s Boston Marriage.

Written in 1999, the comedy centers on three women engaged in sexual intrigue, elaborate verbal sparring, and plenty of the manipulation at which Mamet excels. Anna and Claire are longtime companions in what was known as a “Boston marriage,” an arrangement in which two women lived together independently of men and, in some cases, were lovers. Here, independence gets complicated. Anna has acquired a wealthy male lover whose money supports her luxurious household, while Claire has become infatuated with a much younger woman and wants Anna’s help arranging a rendezvous.

Jealousy, lust, class, money, and exceptionally bad behavior follow.

Dulce Valencia

Creative Coven LLC is bringing Boston Marriage to Studio City in a production with an irresistible additional conceit: Nicole Pacent and Heather Renee Wake alternate as Anna and Claire. On Saturday nights, even they won’t know who is playing whom until an audience member tosses a coin to determine the casting.

That should be particularly delicious with Mamet’s elaborate verbal sparring. The two roles demand very different comic energies, and watching the same actors trade characters offers a rare opportunity to see how much of a role belongs to the writing and how much to the performer.

Bernardo Cubria

The setting makes the experiment even more intriguing. Director Bernardo Cubría stages the play at European House LA, an actual Studio City residence filled with Baroque, Rococo, and Old Hollywood furnishings. Rather than recreating an ornate drawing room inside a theater, the production puts its audience inside one. With seating limited to just 30 people, there won’t be much distance between Mamet’s schemers and the people watching them scheme.

Dulce Valencia plays the Maid, the third participant in the household warfare. Cubría, whose Crabs in a Bucket won the 2024 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Writing, directs; Katarina Van Derham, owner of European House LA, is production designer.

Mamet may seem an unlikely source for a comedy centered entirely on women attracted to women, which is part of what makes Boston Marriage such a fascinating anomaly in his work. But the territory is unmistakably his: people want things they probably shouldn’t, devise elaborate strategies to get them, and discover that language can be both weapon and aphrodisiac.

Add two actors trading lovers, a 30-seat house, and a Saturday-night coin toss, and this Boston Marriage sounds like one worth crashing.

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Boston Marriage
Creative Coven LLC
European House LA, 12355 Rye St. in Studio City
Fri.–Sat. 8; Sun. 2; Thurs., Oct. 22 at 8
ends on Oct. 24, 2026
for tickets ($50), visit TicketSource

for more shows, visit Theatre in LA

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