REVIEW: Glengarry Glen Ross – Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Christian Slater stars in a powerful revival of David Mamet's classic, INTERVIEW: Christian Slater on 'Glengarry Glen Ross'. Meanwhile, the current top dog, Roma, is seen coming on to a potential client in an act of intellectual seduction. Even in an underpowered production, these guys are fascinating specimens to watch as they navigate the vicious fray of office politics. The Hollywood Reporter, LLC is a subsidiary of Prometheus Global Media, LLC. Moss is a cunning operator trying to talk his colleague, Aaronow, into carrying out an office robbery. That said, this is as strong an ensemble cast as you are likely to see, particularly Johnson and Conway. The agility of the writing keeps us attuned to every nuance of their behavior, be it pathetic, scared, manipulative or despicably dishonest. But there are flashes of nastiness, and he leaves us with the sense that this man has hollowed himself out utterly in the ephemeral pursuit of sales. Shamos (Clybourne Park) finds painful nuances in James Lingk, who returns to the office to renege on the deal he was suckered into by Ricky. But Mamet’s play scorchingly reminds us that, in the real world, jobs and lives are at stake. Glengarry Glen Ross is a play by David Mamet that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. Skeptics in the theater community have not been shy about suggesting a more cynical agenda: With the play already in previews and generating stellar box office on the strength of Pacino’s name, why risk tepid reviews? TWITTER But the failure to mine that trajectory to expose the character’s frightened core is a disappointment. WC2N 5DE, Sam Yates: 'Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross men are still amongst us', Christian Slater on the challenges of Glengarry Glen Ross role, Glengarry Glen Ross, theatre review: Christian Slater sells sharp Mamet revival, {{#singleComment}}{{value}} comment{{/singleComment}}{{^singleComment}}{{value}} comments{{/singleComment}}. It's slack and short on electricity, which may be due to its fundamental imbalance. But he keeps one ice-cool eye on the prize at all times. FACEBOOK Time Out is a registered trademark of Time Out Digital Limited. Christian Slater on the challenges of Glengarry Glen Ross role The result is a vision of toxic masculinity, heartless greed and the way both these things seem to flourish in the marketplace. Mamet’s play takes its time. Mamet neither feels sorry for them nor celebrates them – this is simply how they are. He implicitly condemns a system that turns the salesmen into con artists who feel their virility is under threat: “I got my balls back,” one of them loudly trumpets after securing a contract. I swear it's not a world of men." And given that Mamet’s arrogantly alienating new play, The Anarchist, posted a closing notice last week just two days after opening to blistering reviews, an exceptional production of Glengarry might have helped remove some of that tarnish. Pacino, who received an Oscar nomination for his turn as ace slickster Richard Roma in the 1992 film version, returns here as Shelley Levene, the sad-sack office elder who burned through his hot streak years ago. PHOTOS: Tony Awards 2012: Stars of Stage and Screen Celebrate Broadway's Big Night. Playhouse, London A tip-top cast play David Mamet’s desperate salesmen turned robbers in his scorching condemnation of the dangers of male ego-driven capitalism, Last modified on Thu 26 Mar 2020 08.33 EDT. Allowing the play to be twisted from an ensemble piece into a platform for Al Pacino, an actor not averse to showboating, director Daniel Sullivan and his producers have done a disservice to the Pulitzer-winning work. © 2020 Time Out England Limited and affiliated companies owned by Time Out Group Plc. Dismissing his abysmal sales record of late as a mere bad luck streak, Shelly bloviates about his glory days as the office’s top seller, failing to recognize that yesterday’s success is soon forgotten in business. The video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. Yet, without moralising or peddling messages, Mamet also suggests there is a perverse heroism about these tainted Galahads who at least go out into the field while the office manager controls their destinies from behind a desk. Sitemap | Well, the producers shouldn't have worried – much. But his spin on the role makes the play’s ending hollow, diminishing its doleful sting. It’s an introduction to the characters’ inventive deceitfulness — the cunning and verbal pugilism of a gang of macho deal-makers who revel in flogging supposedly prime tranches of real estate (the Glengarry and Glen Ross of the title) to anyone who’s fool enough to listen. Lasting just 35 minutes and chased by an interval and dramatic set change, the first half almost functions as a prequel to the carnage of the second. Northumberland Ave But their collective efforts are not enough to make the somewhat routine staging crackle. Produced onstage in the good times of the 1980s, filmed in the hard times of the 1990s, it shows the new kind of American salesmanship, which is … 10:12 PM PST 12/8/2012 Pacino hardly looks at Harbour; instead his gaze drifts out toward the audience, soliciting the applause he receives at the scene's end. Lo and behold, the chap sat next to us expressed his dismay as it its omission as we filed out – one more disappointed middle-aged man in this study in their pathology. Yet Mamet's dialogue is still thrilling. How well does David Mamet’s play, 34 years after its world premiere at the National’s Cottesloe, stand up? "Always be closing." While the spate of recent dramas and self-congratulatory newspaper editorials may have shaken confidence in the writer, Glengarry shows him at his best, a poet of bluster and flimflam, the bard of the blighted American male. There are no means, moral or otherwise, left unutilised to secure a sale, be it by lying, cheating or stealing, in David Mamet’s Olivier, Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning Glengarry Glen Ross. In Miller's play, Willy Loman was out there all alone, on a smile and a shoeshine. My first review on this channel: 'Glengarry Glen Ross' by David Mamet! “I mean are you actually talking about this?” asks Aaronow of the projected heist, to which Moss cagily replies: “We’re just speaking about it.” Kris Marshall, barely recognisable as the flat-haired, bespectacled manager, also exudes the caution of a man who has never been exposed to the dubious artistry of salesmanship. All rights reserved. Christian Slater ‘has exactly the measure of Ricky Roma’ in Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet at the Playhouse theatre, London. A warning to die hard fans of the film: Alec Baldwin’s famously sweary ‘always be closing’ speech was added for the 1992 movie and has never been part of the play, which is now semi-notorious for disappointing audiences expecting to hear it. There are no means, moral or otherwise, left unutilised to secure a sale, be it by lying, cheating or stealing, in David Mamet’s Olivier, Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning Glengarry Glen Ross. He’s sure enough of his winning qualities to be amiable with his competitors and even generous in his support of Shelly’s self-aggrandizement. Whether turning on the oleaginous charm to reel in a patsy, or furiously dressing down Williamson for speaking without thinking, Cannavale takes unequivocal possession of the role. Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon! In his first scene, wedged into a booth at the Chinese restaurant, Pacino’s Shelly more or less hits the right marks in his wormy negotiation with office manager John Williamson (Harbour) for premium buyer leads. More crucially, the play even engenders the necessary perverse affection for these shysters. Try another. While the underlying whiff of desperation could be stronger, the performance is effective enough. ‘Declining champ’ … Stanley Townsend as Levene with Kris Marshall as Williamson and Christian Slater as Roma. TWITTER So what went wrong? While this is a cast of experience and quality, there are issues with some of the acting which appears forced at times and renders some of the characters more caricature than fully-formed forces of nature. Today the elimination dance of capitalist competition has been turned into TV entertainment with The Apprentice of which, in the States, Donald Trump was the overweening host. Photograph: Scott Landis/AP/Jeffrey Richards Associates. Meanwhile Kris Marshall, playing against type to impressive effect, is grimly determined as the ice-cold office manager. He piles on the physical and vocal tics to such a degree that almost all traces of Shelly’s vulnerability as a man trapped into a reckless act are erased. Frequently purple-faced with rage as he spews fountains of expletives, his Dave Moss is every bully who ever watched anxiously as his edge slipped away, prompting crafty measures to regain the advantage while shoving someone else into the firing line. The expletive-laden, staccato dialogue in Mamet’s 36 year-old play is delivered at machine gun pace from the mouths of four unscrupulous, highly flawed and hard to like protagonists, and at times the dense text and fractured phrasing proves to be a challenge to some of the cast. Sullivan is certainly an accomplished director. © 2020 The Hollywood Reporter With its fusillade exchanges and fat-free set-up, it remains a model of dramatic economy. The result is a vision of toxic masculinity, heartless greed and the way both these things seem to flourish in the marketplace. Given that Ricky will inevitably one day become another Shelly, the casting makes sense. That is partly because its report from the frontline of cut-throat capitalism still rings true and partly because this latest revival has a tip-top cast headed by. THR Staff Worth watching even if only to celebrate a culture and way of life best left behind. Venue: Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, New York (runs through Jan. 20), Cast: Al Pacino, Bobby Cannavale, David Harbour, Richard Schiff, John C. McGinley, Jeremy Shamos, Murphy Guyer, Presented by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Jam Theatricals, Luigi & Rose Caiola, Gutterman Chernoff, Universal Pictures Stage Productions, Amy & Phil Mickelson, Patty Baker, Mark S. Golub & David S. Golub, Ken Greiner, Meg Herman, Kathleen K. Johnson, Stephanie P. McClelland, Harvey Weinstein, James Fuld Jr./Kirmser Ponturo Fund, Kit Seidel/Myla Lerner, Will Trice, GFour Productions, in association with RPMedia Company. Daniel Sullivan directs a competent revival, if not a particularly inspired one, and those who have come to worship at the altar of Pacino or scourge their ears with Mamet's profanity-laced verbal lashings won't come away disappointed. For the dazzlingly fraudulent Ricky Roma, you are what you sell, and Christian Slater does a fine job of showing how well slick talk can mask lies and viciousness. Producers delayed Glengarry's own opening night by a month, purportedly fearing that negative reviews would harm ticket sales. "Always be closing." US playwright David Mamet has devoted much of his recent career to being a grade-A douchebag (his most recent wheeze was threatening to fine theatres who held post-show discussions after his plays). Seduced by salesmanship … Al Pacino (left) and Bobby Cannavale in a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in New York. Sullivan proved an excellent director of Pacino in their last collaboration on The Merchant of Venice, finding fragility in the actor, which is not often among his keynotes. Thanks for subscribing! Set the next day, the men are reeling from the aftermath of an office break in. VIDEO: Al Pacino on Bringing Glengarry Glen Ross Back to Broadway: ‘It's One of the Best Plays I Know’. About Our Ads The fact that many New York theater critics still have vivid recall of the knockout 2005 revival (from the same lead producer) that starred Liev Schreiber and Alan Alda adds fuel to those suspicions – particularly when this new incarnation fails to measure up.
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