Theatre in Review: Glengarry Glen Ross (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre)

If we're going to have certain plays revived over and over again, it is at least interesting to have the opportunity to compare different productions. From the minute the curtain goes up on the current revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, one is struck by the cast's across-the-board facility with David Mamet's language. As is well known, his characters rarely speak in complete sentences, instead offering little symphonies of hesitations, fragments, repetitions, and apparent non sequiturs. With actors who can speak Mamet, every intention becomes scathingly, hilariously, crystal clear. The brief first act of Glengarry consists of three conversations in a Chinese restaurant, and it is fun to experience this gifted company converting the author's crabbed syntax into a marvelous simulacrum of everyday speech.

If anything, Daniel Sullivan's cast may be a little too mesmerized by Mamet's words to fully put them to the uses of drama. What's missing from this otherwise strong revival is the stench of desperation, the Darwinian awareness that forces them to use every trick in the book to close deals on (probably useless) Florida real estate. It's a kind of jazz arrangement of Death of a Salesman, making harsh, astringent music out of the art of the deal; Mamet's characters are stripped of Willy Loman's illusions of being admired; instead they pressure, wheedle, and con their marks into making expensive purchases they neither need nor want.

If you focus on the words and not their underlying meanings, the force of Glengarry Glen Ross is blunted. Setting the tone for this kinder, gentler interpretation is Al Pacino, whose character, the aging Shelly, should be the most desperate member of this tribe. Having blown one deal after another, he is now holding onto the bottom of the totem pole by his fingernails, struggling to conjure a deal, any deal, out of leads that are strictly DOA. Shelly is the most Loman-like of the characters; if he loses this job, he will be well-nigh unemployable. But the first scene, in which he begs John, the office manager, for better leads is surprisingly lacking in any undertone of terror. Pacino's delivery of Shelly's speeches is full of color, variety, and pacing -- he seems to be savoring the sound of each sentence -- but in the end, he's playing his speeches for their music rather than for their intent.

Much better is Bobby Cannavale as Ricky Roma, the office hotshot, a preening, reptilian deal-closer. Spinning lies out of thin air, he moves in on each new mark like a predator eyeing his next meal, drawing the poor fool into his confidence and making the act of signing a contract seem like an assertion of masculinity. Jeremy Shamos is equally fine as the sweaty loser who wants to get out of a deal with Ricky, as is Richard Schiff as the colleague who falls under suspicion of having robbed the office. (Both John C. McGinley, as the salesman who first proposes the robbery, and David Harbour, as the put-upon office manager, occupy a middle ground, suggesting their characters' coiled fury without quite going all the way.)

Interestingly, Sullivan's lighter approach yields much more laughter; at the performance I attended, whole passages of the second act played like a vintage Neil Simon comedy. Pacino especially plays for laughs in the scene in which Shelly, having closed the unlikeliest of deals, enters in triumph, eager to share his triumph with the others. Much, if not all, of the laughter is honestly earned, but there remains a nagging feeling that something crucial is being sacrificed at times to please the audience.

Still, Glengarry Glen Ross remains one of the finest plays of the last few decades. Mamet's faultless ear for his characters' profanity-stained lingo; his clever use of misdirection in Act I to set us up for a stunning twist in Act II; and his savage view of capitalism as nature red in tooth and claw are all on display, if perhaps a little less vividly than before. (It would be interesting to know what Mamet, who in recent years has embraced an extreme conservative vision, thinks of this masterwork, which depicts capitalism as a dirty, degrading business.)

Everything else about the production is aces, including Eugene Lee's scenery, depicting a cheap Chinese restaurant and the grimy, drab real estate office; James F. Ingalls' lighting, which captures the quality of cheap fluorescent workplace illumination; and Jess Goldstein's costume design, in which the particular cut of a suit provides a reliable index to each character's status. (There is no sound design, because Mamet doesn't believe in it.)

If the result is Al Pacino's Glengarry Glen Ross rather than David Mamet's, the box office certainly isn't suffering, and Mamet, a devout believer in the free market, must surely be gratified by the results. From an audience point of view, this production offers a perfectly fine introduction to the play. By all accounts, people are lining up to see Pacino, not the play, which was seen on Broadway only a few years ago. They are likely to leave the theatre more than satisfied.--David Barbour