Steel Beam's gamble on 'Glengarry' pays off
Donna Steele took a chance including "Glengarry Glen Ross" as part of Steel Beam Theatre's season, and her gamble paid off.
David Mamet's caustic comedy about a group of ruthless real estate salesmen trying to unload worthless Florida property on unsuspecting dupes is certainly timely. But it isn't typical for the St. Charles theater, which mostly produces plays of the PG and PG-13 variety. Not that Steel Beam shies away from provocative drama, as recent productions of "Doubt" and "True West" attest. But Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play features rather unpleasant characters uttering the kind of abrasive, expletive-filled language one doesn't often encounter on suburban stages.
That said, 25 years after its U.S. premiere at Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Mamet's examination of cutthroat capitalism and desperate employees scrambling to hang onto their jobs still resonates. "Glengarry Glen Ross" is a taut little examination of the exercise of power, a subject that underscores most Mamet plays. Deceptively simple, it demands a lot from its director and cast. Director R. Aaron Thomann's well-executed revival - which clocks in at 75 intermissionless minutes - delivers. Brisk but unrushed, Thomann's production features some of the best ensemble acting I've seen at Steel Beam. Some of the edges need honing and not all the actors have fully settled into their roles, but overall, this well-rehearsed production hits the mark, mostly because Thomann and his cast understand that there's more to Mamet-speak than speed, and there's more to a Mamet play than meets the eye.
Case in point: "Glengarry Glen Ross," which centers on a struggling Chicago real estate firm, whose owners initiate a sales contest where the employee who closes the most deals wins a Cadillac, the runner up gets a set of steak knives and everyone else gets a pink slip.
On the surface, it's about unscrupulous men willing to lie, cheat and bribe their way to a sale. But really the play's about men emasculated professionally and personally, who are trying to recover their manhood and the lengths they go to accomplish that.
Act I unfolds as a series of duologues revealing the power plays and manipulations in which these characters engage in order to survive. In the first scene, onetime cracker-jack salesman Shelly "The Machine" Levine (Richard Culliton) tries to convince office manager John (a dispassionate Sean Hargadon) to feed him the good leads that will help Shelly out of his slump, thus saving his job. In the second, Pat Able's distraught George Aaronow and David Prentiss' volatile Dave Moss ponder retaliation against the bosses who've misused them. And in the last, hotshot Richard Roma (played with genial arrogance by the personable Trevor Luce) entices milquetoast married man James Lingk (an understated Ed Pierce) to buy land he doesn't need.
The second act opens with the salesmen returning to their ransacked office to discover a thief has stolen the firm's coveted Glengarry leads. Shortly thereafter, deals begin to crumble as Jim Pierce's Detective Baylen interrogates the salesmen, each of whom is a suspect.
Mamet's idiosyncratic, stylized patois poses a challenge for actors. Making the pauses and interruptions, overlapping dialogue and half-formed thoughts that comprise Mamet-speak sound natural isn't easy, but the Steel Beam cast manages it. Able and Prentiss in particular, establish a rhythm and rapport that's about as close to a textbook example of how to do Mamet as you'll find. Kudos to Thomann and company for bringing it to the 'burbs.
"Glengarry Glen Ross"
Rating: 3 stars
Location: Steel Beam Theatre, 111 W. Main St., St. Charles
Showtimes: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays through May 3
Running time: About 75 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $23-$25
Parking: Free municipal garage nearby
Box office: (630) 587-8521 or steelbeamtheatre.com
Rating: For adults, strong language