The new revival of David Mamet’s seminal play Glengarry Glen Ross opens on Broadway 41 years and one week after the work’s original Broadway debut, in March 1984. It’s not exactly an auspicious anniversary, yet it’s a close enough parallel to wonder whether this new production is simply the latest modern contextualization of Mamet’s masterpiece, or a belated anniversary gift.
Nothing about the play, save perhaps the scale of its two lavish sets at the recently reopened Palace Theatre in Manhattan, has been especially contemporized. It’s still clearly set in the early 80s, unfolding in four scenes: three conversations in a Chinese restaurant in the first act, and one long sequence in a real estate office in the second. The four major characters are salesmen defined principally by their levels of desperation. Shelley “The Machine” Levene (Bob Odenkirk) hits the highest, as an ageing would-be closer on a cold-sweat streak, with a nagging, insistent tendency to remind everyone the precise dates of his long-past wins. Ricky Roma (Kieran Culkin) keeps it coolest, his patter with a potential customer so smooth that he barely mentions a sale until the end of the scene. In the middle (at least of a scale that includes Levene) are the aggrieved Dave Moss (Bill Burr) and the worn-out George Aaronow (Michael McKean), who seems to lack the energy for more active desperation. Everyone is after better “leads” – information on prospective clients who might actually want to buy land, as opposed to the extra-sweaty nudging required to sell it to those who don’t want or can’t afford it. Naturally, they’re only provided to the salesmen who are already proving themselves with sales.
