Apologies for the lengthy delay; between going on holiday and getting back to work, I have had little time for culture lately. But I came back to London cultural life with a bang on Wednesday, when I attended the first preview of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, starring Richard Schiff, Nigel Lindsay, and, infamously, Lindsay Lohan. Ordinarily I would not book tickets for a first preview, but my knowledge of Lohan’s predilections had made me cynical about her appearing on very many occasions, so I wanted to make sure I saw her.

Well, see her I did (after a fashion). Speed-the-Plow is a David Mamet play about two producers in Hollywood, one of whom, Charlie Fox (Nigel Lindsay) has been given an excellent opportunity. The other, Bobby Gould (Schiff) is head of production at a major studio and is delighted when Fox brings him the opportunity. Plans are, however, derailed when Lohan’s character, Karen, gets involved, bringing her naiveté to the situation and seducing a Hollywood cynic with the one thing to which he is unused, innocence.

I do understand that previews are not meant to be reviewed until the press night, but previews are meant to be mostly finished performances that the director might add a few tweaks to here or there. Previews are not meant to be rehearsals. Accordingly, to see Lohan need a line prompt on no fewer than 6 occasions was disappointing (but unsurprising). To see Richard Schiff need a line prompt (which he did, once) was normal. It ought to be noted that the scene in which Schiff needed the prompt was one of the many scenes between his character and Nigel Lindsay’s character. Those scenes were fine, having the merit of two professionals acting in them, but seemed woefully under-rehearsed in comparison to the scenes involving Lohan. Clearly the vast bulk of rehearsal time had been spent on scenes she was in.

It is difficult to say how much of the blame was due to Lohan’s inability to remember her lines, how much was due to the complete and utter lack of chemistry between Lohan and Schiff, and how much was due to the fact that it simply didn’t seem to me to be a very good play. But it ended up being ludicrously unbalanced, with Lohan’s Karen a complete blank, Schiff’s Gould simply unbelievable (because his actions depend entirely on Karen), and only Nigel Lindsay’s Fox having any fun at all. When Fox would leave the stage, I longed to follow him into his logical, corrupt and infinitely more interesting world than that inhabited by Karen and (for a time) Gould.

When Lohan did remember her lines, she was adequate. However, her face was remarkably blank for that of a 28-year-old. An actor needs to be able to use her face to express emotion, and Lohan’s face wasn’t capable of doing that. She has a lovely speaking voice, though, and generally used it to good effect. I did not get the sense of any emotional maturity being present, however, although to be fair, the character does not need to express any.

Schiff, as mentioned, had nowhere to go with his character, but his scenes with Nigel Lindsay’s Fox were enjoyable enough. He had projection problems, which I remember also being the case the last time I saw him on stage, in Underneath the Lintel in 2007. Nigel Lindsay was the only one of the three to really sink his teeth into the part, seemingly enjoying himself and producing a generally good American accent (although it wandered from the northeast to the south to the west coast).

Ultimately, however, the play’s the thing, and I didn’t think the play was all that good. Admittedly, the actors did not really produce Mamet’s rat-a-tat dialogue as quickly or trippingly as I suspect he would have wanted, but the plot was not particularly interesting or shocking. It may well be that we are much more jaded than we were in 1988 and the play is simply dated, but my sympathies were entirely with the Hollywood “let’s make money and who gives a crap about art” attitude, because the alternative was so poorly presented.

An interesting failure. It may improve Lohan’s bankability, if she can finally learn her lines and be relied on to turn up. I would not particularly recommend it though, unless you enjoy squirming, or schadenfreude.