THE ACTORS GROUP The Actors Group's productin of "Boston Marriage" is intended to reach out to lesbians but transcends such narrow categorization. Performances will be held every weekend this month.

Mamet focuses
on lesbian pair

'Boston Marriage' Presented by The Actors Group » Where: Yellow Brick Studio, 625 Keawe St. » When: Opens Friday, running 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays, through Aug. 28 » Tickets: $15 » Call: 550-8457 or go online at www.honoluluboxoffice.com

Playwright and screenwriter David Mamet is probably best known for "Glengarry Glen Ross," a dense, profanity-laden Pulitzer Prize-winning slice of dark American life about cutthroat real estate salesmen. If not for that contemporary classic, Mamet for also similarly styled work in which aggressive male characters use language as a blunt weapon of mass destruction in their struggles for supremacy.

Mamet's reputation for his meticulous scripts and screenplays may make "Boston Marriage," his comedy/drama about two lesbians in late-19th century Boston, something of a surprise for those not familiar with the full range of his work.

"I think that's one of the reasons he wrote it -- to show that he could do Victorian-style dialogue, too," says David Schaeffer, director of The Actors Group production that opens Friday.

Betty Burdick and Kristen Van Bodegraven star as Anna and Claire, respectively, with Clara Dalzell and Dusty Behner double cast in the role of the couple's maid.

The title is said to come from a Victorian Age euphemism for the living arrangements of women who shared a household without having a conventional male provider. Some lived off inherited money; others made a living as writers or by other "respectable" endeavors. Some of the relationships may have been platonic. Others definitely were not.

Henry James detailed one such relationship in his 1886 novel "The Bostonians" and may have based the characters on two well-known "New Women" of the time. Mamet builds on the concept with "Boston Marriage," and, Schaeffer says, addresses issues of class and gender with his usual gripping style.

The Actors Group's press release on the production gives the impression that "Boston Marriage" is intended to reach out to lesbians in the same way that its productions of "Two Trains Running" and "A Raisin in the Sun" were seen as reaching out to African Americans.

But with any good theater, the story appears to transcend such narrow categorization.

Anna, the older of the two, is feeling the passage of time and fears she is going to lose Claire to a much younger woman, yet she agrees to help Claire seduce a girl that Claire has her eye on. Unknown to Claire, Anna has become involved with a man whose gifts are helping the women maintain their comfortable independent lifestyle.

In short, it's a Mamet play, as good a pedigree as any, and director Schaeffer showed with his direction of "Copenhagen" back in March that he can be counted on to make good choices in presenting challenging yet entertaining theater.