Climbing Plato’s Ladder

Edmond

, Mamet’s most provocative work, dramatizes the search for friendship. The opening throws us into an Orphic world. A man consults a fortune-teller. He says almost nothing. She says plenty, but what she says is unclear:

FORTUNE-TELLER: If things are predetermined surely they must manifest themselves. When we look back—as we look back—we see that we could never have done otherwise than as we did.... What we see reflects (more than what is) what is to be.... You are not where you belong.... The world seems to be crumbling around us.... And you are unsure what your place is. To what extent you are cause and to what an effect....

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The palm reader’s incantation raises three points: the world is falling apart, Edmond is not where he should be, and free will set against predetermination (“cause” opposed to “effect”). Free will versus predetermination has been the bete noire of Western philosophy. Dress the question up in whatever language one likes—philosophical or theological, biological or sociological, psychological or legal—it continues to plague us. At stake is the question of responsibility. If we are not free, if God or the stars or biology or the environment determines what we do, who can hold us responsible? The play begins with “if.” It is in the subjunctive mode.