House of Games, Hampstead Theatre review - adapted Mamet screenplay entertains but is defanged

There is so much that is right about Jonathan Kent’s new production of House of Games – the casting, the staging, the direction. But the flaw it can’t overcome is that the 1987 David Mamet screenplay on which Richard Bean based this stage version in 2010 has been transformed from a vicious psychologically tough caper-movie into an almost jaunty puzzle-play, its sharp teeth removed.

The setting is still Mamet’s regular beat, Chicago, slightly modernised: there are mobile phones here, though they don’t play a strategic part in moving the plot along. There are fleeting references to the senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, and a pointed Trump reference when Joey the gambler refers to deals as being what America is founded on (wry laughs from audience). It would be nice to think these updatings were intended as a commentary on Trump's America, but they aren't thoroughgoing enough to make a case for that. Most of the other changes are determined by the need to compact the action into a manageable space.

Bean adds two female roles – a woman pro gambler from Baltimore, Trudi (Kelly Price), and Rebecca (Joanna Brookes), feisty receptionist to successful therapist Margaret Ford (Lisa Dillon) – while cutting Mamet’s secondary characters and settings altogether. The main focus of the action, the House of Games, is now a downbeat bar, not a pool hall; the action moves between this bar and an upper boxed area serving as Margaret’s squeaky-clean office (excellent set design by Ashley Martin-Davis).

We meet Margaret, dressed in smart-casual neutrals, in a session with a punkish young man, Billy (Oscar Lloyd), who wants her to cure his gambling habit. He is $25,000 in debt to a bar owner, Mike, who he claims will kill him if the money isn’t repaid. For this reason, Billy packs a pistol, which Margaret persuades him to hand over to her. As compulsive behaviour is the subject of her bestselling self-help book, she is naturally intrigued and decides to visit the bar and confront Mike. The wheels of the con mechanism have been set in motion; the gun will reappear.At the House of Games, Margaret encounters Bobby the bartender (perfectly pitched by Andrew Whipp, pictured above, centre) Billy has described to her: a big former Hell’s Angel with the long greasy ‘do and moustache of the biker and the intellect of a small child. It’s a culture clash expressed in the bar order she tries to give him: a Manhattan. In a back room, noisy men are watching local team the Cubs lose a baseball game. When Mike (Richard Harrington) emerges, he is not at all scary but personable, engaging and clever, and Margaret isn’t cowed. Soon it becomes clear that although she went to the bar to warn him not to threaten her patient, she is intrigued by his line of work, the con; the art of parting people from large amounts of their money. But is it a purely professional interest? 

The steps towards the big con Margaret will be allowed to observe taking place (she’s technically a federal employee so has to avoid direct involvement in any form of malfeasance) are carefully marked, She starts wearing denim jeans to work; she drinks beer at the bar. Most important, the rapport between her and Mike, cemented when he holds her hand in a game of (successfully) guessing which finger she is thinking of, turns into a sexual relationship, She is hooked on him and excited by the danger of what he does. He has predicted she wants her life upended, and he was right. Soon she is fascinated by learning from him about “tells" and “marks”.

Peopling this little world are some typical Mamet characters, pugnacious and verbally adept. Joey (Robin Soans) is the dapper, professorial one, a sort of senior partner, while George (Siôn Tudor Owen, pictured left) is a loud, beer-gutted buffoon. Why do I always get to play the rude, fat man, he whines. “Because you’re believable,” comes Mike’s terse reply. Their repartee is punchy and sharp, a quality Bean has also given to Rebecca, the worldly receptionist. But this is the familiar Mamet male-dominated world of jostling wannabes and cynical oldsters. 

How Margaret tackles the men has been oddly declawed, though. If you know the denouement of the film, this stage version won’t totally satisfy, even as it seems to be claiming a victory for womankind. It’s still an entertaining evening, with laugh-lines that really do land and a plot that still loops around delivering multiple surprises, even if not exactly the one in the film. Dillon and Harrington are credibly matched, and the other con-men are fun to hang out with. But Bean has softened Margaret’s transformation. Mamet’s heroine (played in the film by his first wife, Lindsay Crouse) evolved from crisp shrink to driven risk-taker. Bean has given his leading lady a less interesting arc. 

• House of Games at Hampstead Theatre until 7 June
• More theatre reviews on theartsdesk