American Buffalo: Ready, Set, Research!
Posted by Marti Lyons on 11/17/2009
One of the best parts of my job as Steppenwolf Literary Apprentice is creating Actor Research Packets. What is an actor research packet? Good question! An Actor Research Packet is research compiled to support and contextualize the world of the play for the actors. This research can be excerpts from stories, articles, films, photos, oral histories: anything that helps to add detail to the physical landscape and the themes of the play.
The American Buffalo research hunt was a wild ride full of twists, turns and surprises. I researched topics that ranged from pig iron to Mamet-speak to Thorstein Veblen. But by far my favorite research discovery was a quote from James Earle Fraser, designer of the Buffalo nickel, explaining why he chose this particular symbol:
“In designing the buffalo nickel, my first object was to produce a coin which was truly American, and that could not be confused with the currency of any other country. I made sure, therefore, to use none of the attributes that other nations had used in the past. And, in my search for symbols, I found no motif within the boundaries of the United States so distinctive as the American buffalo or bison.
The great herds of bison that roamed the western plains played an important role in the great American epic ‘The Winning of the West.’
With the Indian head on the obverse, we have a perfect unity in theme, truly American. It has a pertinent historical significance, and is in line with the best traditions of centuries of coin design where the purpose was to memorialize a country or a nation.”
I love this quote. I love the irony that, while Fraser is correct that these images create a currency truly American, given the history of violence toward buffalo and Native Americans in this country, these images also symbolize a very dark part of the “American epic.” And I find it thrilling that this irony so deeply resonates with the ideas Mamet is exploring in American Buffalo. Mostly, I love that this two paragraph bit of research can so succinctly illuminate the themes of this play.