In this image released by Richard Kornberg and Associates, actors from left, Cedric The Entertainer, Haley Joel Osment and John Leguizamo are shown in a scene from the revival of David Mamet's 'American Buffalo,' now playing at Broadway's Belasco Theatre in New York. [Agencies]

The four-letter words are intact but just about everything else is amiss in the slack, unsatisfying Broadway revival of David Mamet's "American Buffalo."

The production, which opened Monday at the Belasco Theatre, shrinks a play that already was small to begin with — small in the sense that it is a carefully constructed, minimalist character study of three losers, small-time Chicago hoods planning a heist of rare coins.

"American Buffalo" requires precision because of Mamet's spare, obscenity-flecked dialogue. It's this banter that defines the trio of sad sacks on stage and provides much of the atmosphere that is one of the chief pleasures of the play.

Director Robert Falls has cast the production with names — John Leguizamo, Cedric The Entertainer and Haley Joel Osment. They are a diverse crew, not only ethnically, but in their ability to handle the back-and-forth chatter that is at the heart of "American Buffalo." Unfortunately, each seems to be operating on his own wavelength.

Leguizamo has the evening's most showy role: the aptly named Teach, the volatile, big-mouthed mastermind of the robbery.

The actor has had some illustrious predecessors. Robert Duvall played the part on Broadway in 1977. Al Pacino followed — off-Broadway and on — in the early 1980s. More recently, William H. Macy portrayed Teach off-Broadway in 2000.

Audiences should get an uncomfortable feeling about Teach. He's the play's tension builder. Pacino, particularly when he performed the role off-Broadway at the now long-gone Circle in the Square on Bleecker Street, prowled the stage as if he were a panther. You never knew when he was going to pounce.

Leguizamo is too nice a guy to unnerve an audience. Even when he is spewing Mamet's foul language or battering the hapless young Bobby, you get the feeling he doesn't really mean it. The actor is naturally funny — which is not necessarily a bad thing. And "American Buffalo," despite its undercurrent of violence, exudes a lot of laughs, particularly when Teach learns there is real money to be made in the selling of old coins.

(China Daily/Agencies November 18, 2008)