Playwright David Mamet was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for his play "Glengarry Glen Ross." Two years before that, however, an earlier, major work, "Edmond," had fared less well with the critics.
The play had premiered in Mamet's hometown of Chicago, then moved to New York, where it was set. As Mamet, now 57, dryly comments in the program for SIS Company's current production of "Edmond" at the Aoyama Enkeigekijo, it only ran in New York for two months after being wrongly pegged as simply an unsettling comedy, rather than the forward-looking commentary on American society that it was. In fact, such misconceptions by the critics -- and the audience itself -- were probably a natural result of the play's unflinching expose of American confusion about the dismantling of the old racial hierarchy and the emergence of a more integrated society.
As the play begins, we meet a nondescript 37-year-old office worker named Edmond (Norito Yashima), as he is told by a fortuneteller (Mayumi Myosei) that "he is not where he belongs." This acts as a catalyst that releases a deep ennui he has been feeling, and he suddenly snaps, leaving his seemingly uncaring wife (Kyoko Koizumi) and heading off in search of his true place in the world.