''The Water Engine'' is a 1977 play by
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, author, and filmmaker.
He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony Award, Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and ''Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first ...
that centers on the violent suppression of a disruptive
alternative energy
Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...
technology.
Plot
Charles Lang works at a menial job at a factory and lives with his blind sister Rita in an apartment in Chicago during the 1934
Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Exposit ...
world's fair. But he is also an amateur inventor, and the play centers around a machine he designs that can create electricity from distilled water. Seeking to patent his idea, he finds a lawyer, Morton Gross, in the phone book and shows him the machine, but Gross’s motivations seem to differ from Lang’s. Gross recruits another lawyer, Lawrence Oberman, and together they menace Lang and eventually his sister. It is heavily implied that the two of them serve the corporate establishment whose profits Lang’s engine threatens.
By the time Lang realizes he is being taken advantage of, the lawyers have him trapped. He attempts to contact a newspaper reporter, but Gross and Oberman hold his sister hostage to prevent him from telling his story. He then meets a barker at the World’s Fair right before it closes for the night who tells him of a chain letter he has just received, which gives him an idea.
The lawyers try to force Lang into giving them his plans, but he says he no longer has them; the audience finds out from a scene in the newspaper reporter’s office that he and Rita have been killed. The play ends with Bernie, a young friend of the family who has previously shown mechanical aptitude, receiving the plans for the Water Engine in the mail.
Themes
The Century of Progress theme of the 1934 Chicago World's Fair informs that of the play. Technology is interspersed throughout the dialogue as the voices of various announcing figures, over radios, on physical soapboxes, and, in the case of the Chain Letter, of indeterminate origin, reinforce the notion of a rising tide of change as they herald the advent of a new technological era. The superstition represented by the Chain Letter contrasts with its eventual saving of Lang's invention and yet also coincides with it, as both the inventor and the letter seek explanations and justice in a world that often—particularly in the cases of both the lawyers, the knowingly bombastic newspaper reporter Dave Murray, and the Fair itself—seems more intent on flowery rhetoric than on the pursuit of truth or the greatest good of society.
The play plays with the form of daytime radio serials, as its plot and structure, with clearly defined heroes and antagonists, riffs off the suspense thrillers that were popular around the time the play is set. That it was originally written as a radio play positions it as an homage to the genre.
Production
Originally written as a
radio
Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...
play for the
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
drama showcase ''
Earplay
''Earplay'' was the longest-running of the formal series of radio drama anthologies on National Public Radio, produced by WHA (AM), WHA in Madison, Wisconsin and heard from 1972 into the 1990s. It approached radio drama as an art form with scri ...
'', ''The Water Engine'' was first staged at The St. Nicholas Theater in Chicago and later at
The Public Theater
The Public Theater is an arts organization in New York City. Founded by Joseph Papp, The Public Theater was originally the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954; its mission was to support emerging playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: ...
in New York by
Steven Schachter
Steven Schachter is an American television, theatre, and film director, and screenwriter.
Much of Schachter's success stems from projects on which he has collaborated with William H. Macy. The two co-wrote the cable television movies '' The Co ...
. It opened on December 20, 1977 and ran for 63 performances. The cast included
Dwight Schultz
William Dwight Schultz (born November 24, 1947) is an American television, film and voice actor.
He is known for his roles as List of The A-Team characters#Howling Mad Murdock, Captain "Howling Mad" Murdock on the 1980s action series ''The A-Te ...
as Charles Lang,
David Sabin as Morton Gross, and
Bill Moor as Lawrence Oberman. On February 28, 1978, it transferred to the
Plymouth Theatre on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...
as a double-bill with a short Mamet play entitled Mr. Happiness, and ran for 24 performances. In this production
Patti LuPone
Patti Ann LuPone (born April 21, 1949) is an American actress and singer. After starting her professional career with The Acting Company in 1972, she soon gained acclaim for her leading performances on the Broadway and West End stage. Known f ...
was featured as Rita. The play was nominated for the
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards are among the most esteemed honors in New York theater, recognizing outstanding achievements across Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway productions within the same categories. The awards are considered a signific ...
for Outstanding New Play.
The play was adapted by Mamet,
Steven Bognar
Steven Bognar (born 1963) is an American film director.
An Oscar-winning and award-winning documentary filmmaker, his films have been screened at SXSW, Sundance, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Bognar has also worked as an instructor of med ...
,
Julia Reichert
Julia Bell Reichert (June 16, 1946 – December 1, 2022) was an American Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, activist, and feminist. She was a co-founder of New Day Films. Reichert's filmmaking career spanned over 50 years as a director ...
, and Martin Goldstein for a
1992 made-for-cable television movie produced by
Donald P. Borchers, directed by Steven Schachter and starring
William H. Macy
William Hall Macy Jr. (born March 13, 1950) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. He is a two-time Emmy Award and four-time Screen Actors Guild Awards, Screen Actors Guild Award winner, and has been nominated for an Acade ...
as Charles Lang,
John Mahoney
Charles John Mahoney (June 20, 1940 – February 4, 2018) was an English-American actor. He played retired police officer Martin Crane on the NBC sitcom ''Frasier'' from 1993 to 2004, receiving nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and two P ...
as Mason (instead of Morton) Gross,
Joe Mantegna
Joseph Anthony Mantegna (, ; born November 13, 1947) is an American actor best known for starring on CBS's ''Criminal Minds'' since 2007 as FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi. He has voiced the recurring role of mob boss Fat Tony on th ...
as Lawrence Oberman, and Patti LuPone as Rita.
Charles Durning
Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...
,
Treat Williams
Richard Treat Williams Jr. (December 1, 1951 – June 12, 2025) was an American actor, whose career on stage and in film and television spanned five decades. He received many accolades for his work, including nominations for three Golden Globe ...
,
Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Louisa Marcovicci () is an American actress and singer.
Life and career
Marcovicci was born in Manhattan to Helen Stuart, a singer, and Eugene Marcovicci, a physician and internist of Romanian descent. In her teens she decided that sh ...
,
Peter Michael Goetz
Peter Michael Goetz (born December 10, 1941) is an American actor.
Early life and education
Goetz was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Esther L. and Irving A. Goetz, a construction engineer.[Rebecca Pidgeon
Rebecca Pidgeon (born October 10, 1965) is an American-British actress who has appeared on stage and in feature films. She is also a singer, songwriter and recording artist.
Early life
Pidgeon was born to English parents in Cambridge, Massachus ...]
,
Felicity Huffman
Felicity Kendall Huffman (born December 9, 1962) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Lynette Scavo in the ABC comedy-drama ''Desperate Housewives'' and her role as Sabrina "Bree" Osbourne, a transgender woman, in the film ''Trans ...
,
Ricky Jay
Richard Jay Potash (June 26, 1946 – November 24, 2018) was an American stage magician, actor, and writer. In a 1993 profile for ''The New Yorker'', Mark Singer called Jay "perhaps the most gifted sleight of hand artist alive". In addition to s ...
, and
Joanna Miles
Joanna Miles is an American actress. She received two Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Laura Wingfield in the 1973 film production of Tennessee Williams's '' The Glass Menagerie''.
Early life and education
Miles was born in Nice, France, the da ...
also were in the cast. It was produced by
Amblin Television
Storyteller TV Distribution Co., LLC, doing business as Amblin Television, is the television production division of Amblin Partners. It was established in 1984 by Amblin Entertainment as a small-screen production arm for Steven Spielberg's ''Am ...
and broadcast by
TNT
Troponin T (shortened TnT or TropT) is a part of the troponin complex, which are proteins integral to the contraction of skeletal and heart muscles. They are expressed in skeletal and cardiac myocytes. Troponin T binds to tropomyosin and helps ...
.
See also
*
Water-fuelled car
A water-fuelled car is an automobile that hypothetically derives its energy directly from water. Water-fuelled cars have been the subject of numerous international patents, newspaper and popular science magazine articles, local television news c ...
References
External links
Lortel Archives entryIBDb entryIMDb entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Water Engine, The
1977 plays
Broadway plays
American plays adapted into films
Plays by David Mamet
Fiction set in 1934
Free energy conspiracy theories
Water-fuelled cars
Water fuel
Century of Progress
Fiction about world's fairs