ajhlovestheatre

HOUSE OF GAMES 

based on the screenplay by David Mamet, story by David Mamet and Jonathan Katz 

stage version by Richard Bean

directed by Jonathan Kent 

Hampstead Theatre, London – until 7 June 2025

running time: 1 hour 40 minutes no interval 

https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2025/house-of-games/

Accepting things at face value feels like an increasingly naive thing to do in a modern world where you can’t seem to log on to your computer without receiving a phishing email, or read a paper without seeing a story about an innocent being scammed out of their life savings. Although based on a David Mamet-scripted movie first seen in 1987, House Of Games feels bracingly contemporary. Or maybe it’s just timeless, as apparently there will always be hustlers to hustle and suckers to be parted from their cash. 

In Jonathan Kent’s Rolls Royce production of a Richard Bean adaptation first seen at the Almeida in 2010, this stage version is a satisfying amalgam of edgy comedy and whiplash-inducing thriller. It’s fabulously well acted and designed, and the use of laptops and cellphones sets it very much in the present, or at least the very recent past. It also features, in Dr Margaret Ford, a Chicago therapist, writer and educator that gets drawn into a murky underworld of gambling and elaborate confidence trickery, a female central figure with agency and credible human layers, which is pretty rare in Mamet, a notoriously male-centric playwright. 

Lisa Dillon, in a superb performance, charts a richly detailed journey from detached but kindly professionalism through an unexpected bout of emotional investment to grim survival mode. She’s steely but warm and utterly credible, intelligently marrying together the career woman with the darker, wilder instincts lurking beneath the surface. 

Kent has surrounded her with quality. Robin Soans, Siôn Tudor Owen and Andrew Whipp offer delicious portrayals of a gang of incorrigible veteran gamblers who gather in the seedy, dark dive bar (realised with such vividness and relish by designer Ashley Martin-Davis that you can almost smell the stale smoke and spilt beer) under the supervision of Richard Harrington’s impressively volatile Mike, who Margaret falls for despite herself. Kelly Price and Laurence Ubong Williams, both electric presences, provide a fascinating change of energy as the pair of out-of-towners who this disparate bunch try to con money out of, or so we are led to believe. 

Oscar Lloyd brings a wired intensity to the gun-wielding, unstable rich kid who begins as Margaret’s patient but becomes her conduit into a shady underworld where her authority proves meaningless and Joanna Brookes finds comedy gold in an opinionated but concerned secretary. The acting from the entire company is so strong that it’s almost possible to ignore that there some tonal shifts in the script, possibly due to Bean’s comic instincts rubbing up against Mamet’s noirish machismo without quite making sparks, that don’t fully work, and that the play as a whole takes a bit too long to kick into thriller mode. When that does happen though, it’s wildly successful.

Kent’s production is strong on atmosphere, aided enormously by Martin-Davis’s intricate, impressive split level set, beautifully lit by Peter Mumford, that jumps between the contrasting locales of the basement bar and Margaret’s airily austere office with a filmic dexterity and speed. A bluesy music score marks the scene transitions and adds to the overall feeling of watching a screenplay on stage, although the performances and laser-sharp focus of the staging at times of high tension are the stuff of pure theatre.

House Of Games doesn’t have anything particularly profound to say about the human condition, beyond the fact that people are gullible (no spoilers here, but that includes audience members who take a while to cotton on to what is really happening) and ruthless, but it’s engaging entertainment. Why revive it now? If there’s no obvious raison d’être beyond giving people a good time in the theatre, well, maybe that’s enough, especially when it’s done this well.

Honestly, I suspect these particular actors invest their characters with rather more nuance and depth than is present in the writing, but when Kent’s enjoyable production hits its stride, the play becomes authentically gripping. I enjoyed this considerably more than the original Almeida version, which felt less streamlined and just generally harder going; it’s a cynical, funny, engrossing slice of twisted Americana with its heart nowhere the right place, and, under Jonathan Kent’s leadership, a feast of terrific acting.