Mamet’s masterpiece is set in a Chicago real estate sales office where the sales force is in bitter competition. They are hunters and prospective buyers are their prey.
Chris Phillips plays Richard Roma, hyper-aggressive, efficient, singular, profane, a feared titan to his colleagues and a generous facilitator of wealth to his customer.
John Krause plays Shelly the Machine Levene, the over-the-hill salesman caught in the economic downturn, his misery amplified by the company’s sales contest. In the cruel musical chairs of business, he must place high in sales or lose his job entirely. Krause’s Levene alternately pleads and threatens, calculates and flatters, apeals to justice and greed, trying one technique after another to gain advantage. Your friends in the office are your enemies.
Mark Bird plays Dave Moss recklessly, second only to Roma in the number of kills per month. Moss dares cross the line, raising the stakes and propelling the pack of business wolves toward their cataclysm.
Frank Willey plays the privileged office manager John Williamson. Sean Hallinan plays George Aaronow, near Levene at the bottom of the heap. Randy Blair plays James Lingk, the customer-as-lamb in the wolves’ den. Carole Robinson plays Detective Baylen, a wolf from a different pack.
The best salesman places the customer at the center of the sales encounter. It’s about constructing the buyer as the grandiose center of the universe and it is this imaginary self-image that is handed the pen and is urged to sign. The signing of the contract that provides the commission.
The Actors’ Theatre ensemble does a fine job with Mamet’s scripts. Keith Phillips richly underlays Mamet’s dialogue with ulterior motive. Listen to the repetitions as they threaten differently in each repetition.
Glengarry Glen Ross is playing at the Actors Theatre, 855 Bush Street, San Francisco through March 24th, 2012.
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