Lomans on the totem pole

David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross never fails to appear like dire prophecy. That the Prague Playhouse has chosen to mount a production in the midst of what promises to be a disastrous few years is equally inspired.

Mamet sets his play in the dog-eat-dog world of real estate - another factor that makes the play frighteningly timely. The piece's characters - all men - are a ruthless, grasping collection of souls who know full well that they are only one botched deal away from the bread line. They are the true sons of Arthur Miller's Willy Loman.

The pressure placed on these men can only lead to unscrupulousness. Indeed, all the men have become ethically wanting, with theft, bribery and lying part of their job description.

Mamet's dialogue, laden with realtor's argot, might easily be altered to place the action among insurance salesmen or hawkers of aluminum siding. It's all one world, where men are defined by the tyrannical appetites of their superiors and themselves, and where the lower salesmen (Miller's Lo-man) are forced to go at each other beak and spur. In the dismal land offices of Mitch and Murray (two malign Godots who never turn up), there's even a bitter contest being waged among the salesmen to win a new car. Making a killing becomes a killing game for the losers.

These white-collar gladiators have only their voices and wits as weapons, but they wound all the same. There's Shelly Levene, a former star huckster who finds himself in a sales slump; George Aaronow, a frustrated schlub in the same sinking boat; and Dave Moss, a scheming nobody tired of playing second. They've all fallen behind the salesmanship of the young, sharkish Richard Roma, who is well on his way to winning the car. The play becomes a vicious scramble for these men to realize immoral imperatives.

Brian Caspe's production for the Prague Playhouse gets very close to capturing this world, though it's hampered by a few performances that are not quite where they should be.

The play's action is divided into two acts. The first takes place at a Chinese restaurant near the office, where the salesmen meet to bitch and plot. Three vignettes introduce us to all the principals: Levene is found trying to cage leads from the office manager, John Williamson. Next, Moss and Aaronow find themselves discussing a crime that Moss has concocted to enable them to get ahead. Finally, the slick Roma is seen perfecting his craft as a salesman on an easy mark, James Lingk.

The second act is set in the office itself, one that seems to have externalized all of its occupants' internal disorders. A crime has been committed, and the police are on hand to crack the case.

The primary problem with this production is one of pitch and energy. As Levene, it falls to actor Curtis Matthew to set the pace, which he failed to do on opening night. Levene is a tanking man, one who should generate self-aggrandizing excuses like the stench of flop sweat. Matthew plays Levene completely defeated from the top, and neither his character, nor the play, has anywhere to go. There's no urgency in his performance, giving nothing to Denis Lyons' Williamson to play off of (though Lyons comes powerfully into his own in the second act).

The second scene is stronger between Matthew Blood-Smyth's Moss and James Lambert's Aaronow, though the two often missed keeping the ball of the dialogue in play. Speed the growls and sotto voce crime planning, and the scene would take off.

The third scene is when one begins to feel that Mamet's play is finally being realized. As Roma, the tall, thin Todd Kramer becomes a perfectly sleek weasel. With his hair gelled back like a Gordon Gekko acolyte, he methodically lands James Lingt (an excellent Jim High), the milquetoast open for the taking.

The second act, which introduces the only other character, the policeman, played by Mark Bowen, at least has the chance to build upon the Roma-Lingk scene, and does so. The verbal violence intensifies, and though three of these men will be totally ruined by the curtain, the last line classically put us back on the brutal, isolating trajectory on which capitalism has placed us all.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at
ssilvis@praguepost.com