It was never a question of whether the Denver Center Theatre Company’s production of “Glengarry Glen Ross” would be good. It’s a searing, jostling 85 minutes up against the ropes that may leave audiences checking their noses for blood. In a short play, director Marco Barricelli produces some of the most quickly and intensely realized character work you’ll ever see, from company veterans and newcomers alike.
But it is fair to ask why the company is doing it in the first place.
There’s something odd about David Mamet’s 25-year-old look at bile-spewing real-estate sharks opening at the Denver Center the same weekend his new election comedy, “November,” direct from Broadway, opened across town at the tiny Avenue Theater.
Of course, “November” was not yet available when DCTC artistic director Kent Thompson picked his season in February, but this coincidental juxtaposition of Mamet old and new illustrates how the DCTC’s 30th anniversary season is, so far, kicking up dust.
“Glengarry,” which has been bleeping-up stages since 1983, opened just after “The Trip to Bountiful” and “Noises Off,” and just before the upcoming “The Miracle Worker,” which makes for four plays a combined 155 years old. All leading up to the DCTC’s 18th staging of “A Christmas Carol.”
“Glengarry” does have some unfortunate contemporary relevance, thanks to the collapse of the mortgage industry that many blame on predatory lenders. Mamet’s brutal look at five unscrupulous small-time salesmen makes it abundantly understandable how millions of Americans have been seduced into buying beyond their means.
The play, set here in Chicago, opens smartly with the sound and fury of an El train, a perfect auditory nod to Mamet’s signature, staccato cadence, the trainlike rhythm of his profane dialogue.
The play, Pulitzer-winning though it may be, opens with three similar scenes in a Chinese restaurant that shock with their harsh language, but are inactive and grow increasingly stagnant. The play takes off once we move into the run-down real-estate office that has been robbed.
The unknown thief has not only stolen recent contracts that will have to be “re-closed,” but the all-important list of sales leads that an office manager (Vince Nappo) doles out by a Darwinian formula some say is Mamet’s indictment of greed, others of capitalism itself: He rewards high-achieving salesmen with the most promising prospects and punishes low producers with dead ends.
Add to that a sales contest: First place wins a Cadillac. Second place, steak knives. Last place: fired. How distinctly American. Had Mamet written this play today, it would also be a reality TV show.
Once again, Mamet takes the skuzziest people you’ve ever met … and makes them 10 times worse. His maggots are cartoons, and yet we’ve all worked with people who are just enough like these. (Which dovetails nicely with a set and lights that are also, intentionally, slightly exaggerated here.)
What’s more obscene than Mamet’s filthy language is how easy he makes it for us to understand just how these carnivores got this way. These guys are no Trumps; they’re the gum on Trump’s shoes. They are barely eking out decent livings in a field that over time turns everyone in it into paranoid barracudas, liars and thieves.
Worth mentioning among a stellar ensemble is estimable veteran Mike Hartman’s Shelly. A former top dog made desperate by encroaching age and obsoleteness, Hartman’s Shelly is a sad Willy Loman with a shank in his hand … and a much more sharply honed survival instinct.
Also remarkable is Ian Merrill Peakes’ Richard Roma, who makes Ari Gold (“Entourage”) seem humanitarian. He’s the king of a hill that’s only 6 feet tall. The most fascinating scene has a syllable- and gesture-perfect Roma trying every trick in the book to salvage a sale to a cold-feet client (a superb James Michael Reilly). In the single greatest moment of the performance, Peakes strokes Reilly’s bald head like a dog, which is about what he’s treating him like.
“Glengarry Glen Ross” is a worthy of its Pulitzer. It is enormously entertaining in performance, yet still disturbing to anyone who wonders why Mamet and his ilk are so quick to slash open the seamy underside of anything with an underside. This dog-eat-dog world is not an easy one to live in, even for just 85 minutes (a particular blessing, especially with most performances starting at 6:30 p.m.).
On the way out, associate artistic director Bruce Sevy reminded me that the first Broadway staging in 1984 had enough cigarette smoking to set off alarms in Denver. But since onstage smoking is illegal in Colorado, the air here was completely clean — and that’s the first time this play has ever been accused of being in any way clean.
And likely the last.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“Glengarry Glen Ross” *** (out of four stars)
Mean green drama. Presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company at the Ricketson Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex. Written by David Mamet. Directed by Marco Barricelli. Starring Mike Hartman, Vince Nappo, Lawrence Hecht and Michael Santo. Through Nov. 22. 85 minutes, no intermission. 6:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 7:30 p.m. Fridays; 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays. $34-$51. 303-893-4100, King Soopers or .
