No sale

Sound and fury signifies nothing at NewGate

by Bill Rodriguez

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. By David Mamet. Directed by Debbie Falb. With Robert K. Dunn, Josh Willis, Jim O'Brien, Tom DiMaggio, Joe Mecca, William Oakes, and Stephen Lynch. At NewGate Theatre through November 21.

At one time Arthur Miller's Willy Loman was the definitive salesman and seeker of the American Dream, sallying forth on a smile and a shoeshine and the fantasy that friendship is rewarded. Come 1983 and David Mamet blew that basically benign assessment of national character off the stage with his Pulitzer-winning Glengarry Glen Ross. This time the sales metaphor involved too much villainy for one man, so we got a pit of vipers competing to peddle real estate amidst so much spewed venom the air was misty.

NewGate Theatre is mounting the scathing drama, directed by Debbie Falb (through November 21). The energetic evening is a lesson in how incidental Mamet's abundant fuck yous are to his most hyper-macho play, which can be reduced to A Bunch of White Guys Standing Around Yelling. While the production and its actors have their moments, this powerful drama is really about the relationships behind the explosive dialogue, and here few of those one-on-one encounters manage to shed light as well as heat.

A chalkboard with the month's sales tallies makes the set-up clear, as the totals range from $95,900 to zip. The first and shortest act consists of three conversations in a Chinese restaurant actually, two conversations and a monologue. The tone is set right off as a wheedling Shelly Levene (Robert K. Dunn) by turns begs and demands some decent sales leads from the office manager, John Williamson (Josh Willis). Levene used to be known as "The Machine," he was such a reliable closer. But this month there is a competition, and not only is he not up for the Cadillac bonus, he hasn't made a single sale.

Then we see a master at work, Richard Roma (Jim O'Brien), whom we later learn is Levene's young protégé. He's not selling, so it appears, but merely philosophizing to a silent man (Tom DiMaggio) at a nearby table. (In a nice touch, director Falb has him speaking from behind a gauzy scrim, accenting the dreamlike effect.) We forge our own realities and then steel ourselves to live them, yada-yada-yada. The words don't much matter because what's being communicated to the speechless stranger is pure charisma. By the time Roma steps over and lays down a sales brochure before him, we know his mark is as good as mugged.

Lastly we listen in on a sales pitch to a salesman. Moss (Joe Mecca) first feels out a weak-willed George Aaronow (William Oakes) about stealing the office file of hot sales leads and selling it to the competition. Then he intimidates him into joining in on the scheme -- or, in a mind-fuck worthy of Barnum, at least thinking that he has.

By the time the salesmen assemble in the second act, the office is trashed, the place burglarized. (Despite a ski mask, we can tell whodunit -- an odd spoiler for those who don't know the ending.) All the anger and resentment building up in Act I comes barreling forth like powder kegs, as a police detective (Stephen Lynch) pulls each offstage for interrogation. Aaronow is terrified he'll get in trouble. Roma goes ballistic when somebody blows the sale that would have got him the Cadillac. Williamson is a pile of dry tinder, holding in his resentments over everyone's abuse.

One important dimension that does come across in this staging is the dogfight nature of this cruel little world. The characters are constantly and abruptly changing status and position in these conflicts, sometimes several times in the same conversation. And when an Under Dog, whether he is whimpering or not, suddenly becomes Top Dog, if only for a moment, his viciousness usually is as unbridled as in a pit bull melee. Until he has reason to cringe again.

Mamet dialogue, at its most elliptical in Glengarry, is notoriously hard to get to sound natural, with its pauses, hesitations, and split-second timing for interruptions. So there is an inevitable choppiness here. However, since the play is mostly face-off exchanges, its potential and payoff is more in what eyes can reveal, not dialogue. O'Brien provides appropriate arrogance, but I missed the admiration and pain Roma must feel watching his has-been mentor Levene self-destruct. As the vilified Williamson, Willis is properly understated, but where's the vindictive glee he feels when he can eventually dash Levene's hopes?

Glengarry Glen Ross reveals the self-imposed pain inevitable when an American Dreamer dies with dollar signs in his eyes. This production delivers all the sound and fury of that sort of greed but drops the consequences of it signifying nothing.