Mamet first gained national recognition as a major playwright with the 1977 Broadway production of American buffalo (1975). He rose to international prominence as one of the greatest playwrights of the twentieth century with the production of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize-winning Glengarry Glen Ross in 1984. Mamet is widely celebrated for his skillful rendering of American vernacular English and the rhythms of spoken language. C. W. E. Bigsby, in David Mamet (1985), echoed many reviewers and drama critics in his assertion that Mamet expresses American buffalo Glengarry Glen Ross "a sensitivity to the American vernacular unequalled by any other playwright."

Summing up the extent of Mamet's status as a major American dramatist, Leslie Kane, in David Mamet: A Casebook (1992), explained:

Mamet is widely considered to be one of the most prolific and powerful voices in contemporary American theater. His sensitivity to language, precision of social observation, concern for metaphor and...