HotCity TheatreDavid Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross"

Glengarry Glen Ross’ is a tale of hungry salesmen
whose desperation eats them alive

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Two guys walk into a bar, one, a young whippersnapper office manager named John Williamson, played by Christopher Lawyer, wields his power over the other aging real estate salesman Shelley Levine, played by Bobby Miller, whose professional glory days are a distant memory. This is the opening scene of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” whose characters really are the butt of a cosmic joke. But while the audience laughs, the characters are not having much fun.

Many of us have been, at turns, Williamson and Levine: up and coming and down and out. And before this presentation by HotCity Theatre at the Kranzberg Arts Center is over, the two men also find themselves in one another’s highly polished wingtip shoes.

Mamet’s examination of desperation and greed illustrated, by an office shared by five salesmen — there are no women in this play, save one female bar and grill employee who appears for less than 30 seconds to bus a table — resonates deeply in today’s economic climate. While office Rolodexes and card files shout “1984!”, the year the play was written), razzle-dazzle sales techniques, professional betrayal and personal angst whisper of timeless themes in the cutthroat business world.

In a nod to Arthur Miller’s examination of Willy Loman, another washed-up guy who sells for a living, “Glengarry Glen Ross” sometimes is referred to as “Death of a F%#@ing Salesman” because of its repetitive-by-design use of the “F” word. Using various forms of it — noun, verb, adjective and adverb — literally hundreds of times during the play, Mamet’s characters would employ the “F” as a preposition if they could. And the audience, whose shock wore off before scene two, would be delighted.

But one snippet of a powerful monologue by successful salesman Rick Roma, played by Jerry Russo, contains no words that start with “F”: “Bad people go to hell? I don't think so. If you think that, act that way. A hell exists on earth? Yes. I won't live in it. That's me.”

Though small-but-swaggering Roma seems to be at peace with his less-than-ethical decisions and actions, we ultimately see that he, too, acts out of his own distress.

But it is similarly ethically challenged and profoundly sad Levine we understand most of all. Miller doesn’t just act the part of Levine; he channels him, using his entire body, his shuffling feet and deep sighs, speaking volumes about Levine’s never-fully-explained anguish. Twice, after literally begging for good sales leads, he swallows hard and begins, “My daughter … .” But both times, he is interrupted; we never learn what tragic circumstance has befallen his child.

Still, with only those two words tugging at our hearts, we feel sympathy for her — and him.

“Always be closing” is the mantra of this pack of real estate rogues. But when this play closes, it’s not really over, as it leaves you pondering its meaning for many days to come.

by Nancy Larson