David Mamet's Duck Variations

Mamet's Duck Variations
David Mamet's Duck Variations is a 1972 play based around the mundane park bench conversation of two characters, George and Emil. Through the topic of ducks and other various wildlife, the theory of life and the world begins to emerge to reveal feelings about death and their own existence. They search for the importance of a duck's activities as if attempting to find meaning within themselves. Ironically, many of their discussions and ramblings are untrue or irrelevant and leaves the reader or viewer placing them in some position of knowledge or authority which they quite clearly do not have, or deserve for that matter. Whether through the characters Mamet is trying to instill an animalistic instinct within people or their surroundings or not, he does express a simplistic and mechanical similarity between people within society and ducks within nature. It seems fruitless since their theories and opinions are vague and meaningless, and one gets the feeling that the play is pointless and unnecessary, and compared to Mamet's other plays and works it is.
The idea that animals have a more natural life, one of purity and responsibility, gives them comfort.
They agree on most topics among these ramblings, but never stop to realize that inconsistency of their ideas. In a way the play is thoughtless, but extremely flexible within its themes. By the end of the play there is not much gratification and transformation at all, there is consistency. The consistency of thoughts, often incoherent ones, but thoughts none the less that express life, whether it's far too convoluted or not. This play reminds us of an Albee play, or possibly even one of Beckett's work. There is an eyre of mystery within these words and the cracks are not filled by such. It presents the audience with ideas, most unconnected or incompressible. There is no doubt that this is a play of theory, not of
story.
In class we discussed many transitional and important works, such as The Zoo Story by Edward Albee. This play could be compared probably rather easily to Duck Variations. The characters not a familiar to each other, at least not to our knowledge, and they are both experienced in life, as they are up in age. This already draws a parallel between Albee and Mamet and these two plays quite profoundly. Unlike Albee's work, Mamet presents no "pay-off", so to speak, at the end of his play. As stated before, he presents a play of theory, of ideas. Which once again might bring up the thought and comparison of Beckett. The interpretation of such playwrights and their works are similar to this Mamet play in such a way. It gives no reasoning and the substance can be drained and dripped to the last drop.
In class we also discussed the power of controlling characters, and this play does not appear to hold one. The both seem to wane within the depths of theory and copious philosophy that can stretch further than silly puddy. To state that they are static characters might be an exaggeration, but it just might well appear correct enough. We are not told who these characters are, or what their past entrails, we know only their names and their apparent older age as they hope to die naturally as the ducks do that fly above the crystal blue water that they drool over in the confides of their thick and rigid bench. They are an enigma of the theories that Mamet himself creates and in a sense destroys. And in the end I don't feel that a story can be taken from this play, or even a logic for that matter. I believe that concepts can be borrowed, concepts that can hold many theories about ourselves and the world around us. Whether that's important to us as the reader is irrelevant, we just know that we're subjugated to it, and once George and Emil stop talking and the distant silence of the nature disappearing is heard, we are left alone with our thoughts however vague they might be. The reassurance of life is necessary, as this play proves, because we're all just like the ducks, we just haven't realized it yet.