The Woods ends with a bed-time story, but the final reconciliation remains uncomfortably tempered by the violent core we now know to be hiding beneath the soothing words.
[2] The play's New York City premiere was in 1979, Off-Broadway at the Public Theater, where it was produced by Joseph Papp, directed by Ulu Grosbard, and starred Chris Sarandon and Christine Lahti.
This resulted a special four-night Off-Off-Broadway engagement at the Producer's Club in January 1997, starring Danielle Kwatinetz and Eric Martin Brown, and directed by David Travis.
'"[5] In the Chicago Reader, Diana Spinrad writes: The Woods, by David Mamet, is a character study of two people who represent the quintessential male and female, and explores how we manage to survive in the dark primordial forest of relationships.
The challenge of the piece, then, is for the director and actors to create two interesting characters who can stand as individuals, above the stereotypes set for them, and who can make the action clear within an essentially static situation.
Ruth and Nick speak in vague, ostensibly punchy sentences whose dead nouns (things, stuff) and circumlocutions (If we can't know ourselves, how can we know ourselves?)
Linguistic coloration comes in the form of unconvincing nature imagery: sea gulls, frogs, raccoons, bears, birds, fish and, heaven help us, some cawing herons are forever rearing their cute little heads.