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Review: House Of Games (Hampstead Theatre)

Review by Dan Sinclair


⭐️⭐️


We’re living in the era of the adaptation. Name a film? It’s a musical now. Fact. The recent success of Cry Baby at the Arcola, based on the John Waters cult classic, proves that everything and anything is on the table. But House of Games ushers in a new era for the adaptation, the re-staging of an adaptation based on a film based on a short story, with almost as many layers as the play itself. 


Based on the 1987 thriller by David Mamet, House of Games is a surprisingly chirpy look at the great American tradition of the deal… or the con. Psychiatrist Margaret Ford (Lisa Dillon) is again meeting with one of her clients, a troubled kid living off daddies money, Billy Hahn (Oscar Lloyd). He has $25,000 worth of gambling debts, owed to a con-artist known as Mike (Richard Harrington), and after a visit to the den, an underground bar known as the House of Games, Margaret becomes wrapped up in the world of the scam. After dipping her toes in the water, she becomes involved in a plan to con two bankers out of $150,000 - the long con. And the rest, well, that’s the rest, kid.



Originally adapted for the Almeida Theatre by Richard Bean back in 2010, the dialogue is quick, the surprises come thick and fast, and nobody is to be trusted. It streamlines the original screenplay from Mamet and makes a few changes to get it onto the stage, yet few work to the betterment of the story. The tone in this adaptation is comedic, with one-liners, everything is light, and nothing is too dramatic. I could overlook many a kink in a piece of theatre, apart from one key issue - it was boring. For a story that styles itself as a noir thriller, full of twists and turns, sex, drugs, crime, con-artists - it’s tremendously dull. 


Whilst the film is regarded as already being fairly theatrical, Richard Bean’s adaptation takes place simply across two locations: Margaret’s office and the House of Games (the bar/poker den). Pleasantly designed by Ashley Martin-Davis, the two sit on top of each other, with the sprawling bar underneath; it’s dingy, you can smell the beer soaked into the floorboards, and Peter Mumford takes full advantage of the outside street to blast some film-noir beams across the joint. Sound design and music from Paul Groothuis and Nicholas Skilbeck, respectively, transport us to each separate location, with a repetitive and fairly on-the-nose guitar twang used over and over again.



It is in the chopping between these two spaces that the play loses any semblance of tension. Many of the scenes in Margaret’s office felt entirely redundant; she’ll come in, lark about, and then something related to the plot will happen, and then the play stays there for a bit, often without any dialogue. This is a massive issue throughout the play, with extended sequences of genuine nothingness; Mike walks around and turns off the lights in the bar in silence before going up to his flat. If you need time for a costume change, don’t just fill it with silent wandering and chores. This was aggressively notable in the final scene where Margaret stands alone in silence for far too long and then says a closing line cheesier than a wheel of brie that got stuck under the tumble dryer. 


There are some solid performances from the cast, but many of them struggle under the weight of David Mamet/Richard Bean’s self-proclaimed ‘sarcastic insight, a sign of good writing' that becomes insufferable after 10 minutes. For me, the underdog of the night, Joanna Brookes as Kathleen, Margaret’s office assistant, was a treat. With the few scenes she had, she grounded the play and injected some sharp humour. Robin Soans as the gentleman scammer Joey was refreshing on the stage, precise and collected; he was wonderful.



For me, this was far from a hit. Art from the artist, cancel from the culture, I hope you are looking forward to Mamet’s next screenplay, all about Hunter Biden's laptop and the 'stolen' US election. But completely withstanding all of this, you could've told me it was originally written by Greta Thunberg, and my thoughts would stay the same - it just doesn't hold up, especially at an uninterrupted 1 hour 45 minutes. Is it the best use of the Hampstead Theatre’s main stage to do a 15-year-old adaptation of a 38-year-old movie, originally written by David Mamet, a writer and director who the sands of time will not look favourably upon? Ignoring my smug, sarcastic tone, one much favoured by Mamet and Bean, I honestly don’t know. Honestly. 


But after this production, I don’t particularly care. 


House Of Games is playing at the Hampstead Theatre until 7th June.



Photos by Manuel Harlan

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