‘GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS’: John Pirruccello & Kieran Culkin. Photo: Emilio Madrid.

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS
By David Mamet
Directed by Patrick Marber
Through June 28, 2025
Palace Theatre
160 West 47th Street
https://www.glengarryonbroadway.com/

By Scott Harrah

Greed, scams, double dealing, backstabbing, theft and desperation are the basic ingredients in this latest revival of David Mamet’s 1984 classic, Glengarry Glen Ross.

This is a wonderfully layered and textured play that has to be seen and heard on a live stage to be fully appreciated. The show had Broadway revivals in 2005 and 2012. The latter starred Al Pacino in 2012 as down-on-his-luck salesman Shelley Levene. Mr. Pacino played the wily, conniving Ricky Roma in the 1992 film version (for which he received an Oscar nomination).

A hot ticket

This revival is a hot ticket, thanks to the stellar cast and recent Oscar winner Kieran Culkin as Richard Roma. Others include Bob Odenkirk (of “Better Call Saul” fame) as Shelley Levene; comedian Bill Burr as Dave Moss; and stage veterans Michael McKean as George Aaronow, and Donald Webber, Jr. (star of Our Town and Purlie Victorious) as manager John Williamson.

Mamet’s ‘alpha male’ voice

David Mamet is the undisputed voice of “toxic masculinity,” complete with all the pathos, neuroses and four-letter expletives that plague the “alpha” male. His plays feature rapid-fire offensive dialogue (full of racism, sexism and homophobia), making them  difficult for anyone under 45 to sit through. Anyone who didn’t live through the era before “me too” may not know that straight white American men actually talked like the guys in Mamet plays (and some still do).

Contest & competition

Times are tough in a Chicago real-estate office. Four salesmen—Shelley Levene (Mr. Odenkirk); Ricky Roma, (Mr. Culkin); Dave Moss (Mr. Burr); and George Aaronow (Mr. McKean)—are given an incentive by John Williamson, their office manager (Mr. Webber, Jr.) to succeed in a sales contest. The first prize is a Cadillac; second prize is a set of steak knives; third prize is the sack. There is no room for “once were has-beens” in this dramatically male-dominated world. Why? Only “closers” get the good sales leads. There is huge pressure to succeed, so a robbery is committed and has unforeseen consequences for all the characters.

Shady dealings in Chicago

The story has two settings: a Chinese restaurant and a Chicago real-estate office. The men are all trying to win the contest. Everyone wants the coveted Cadillac El Dorado.

The real-estate office sells shady properties in Florida. The salesmen will do almost anything to get ahead, from blackmail to theft and bribery. It is all heavy and dark, but not a profound or verbose drama. It’s a simple saga of men devoid of morals.

The salesmen

Manager John Williamson gives his team “hot” leads, hoping they can find potential clients and turn them into solid sales. However, these guys are not exactly willing to play fair.

Mr. Odenkirk’s Levene is one of the older salesmen. He has not sold anything in some time, and he really needs to keep his job. He tries to get better leads from his boss but has no luck.

Mr. Burr’s Moss and Mr. McKean’s Aaronow are also having difficulty making sales. They cook up a scheme to steal the good leads and sell them to a different agency. Mr. Culkin’s Roma is full of smarmy charm and determined to win at any cost.

The business of backstabbing

Glengarry Glen Ross explores and exposes the seedy underbelly of the sales world and the unethical methods some will resort to just to get ahead. Just how far are these men willing to go to make a profit, and how dishonest and deceptive will they get? Both are running themes throughout the show.

The performances

Powerhouse performances enhance the classic story, giving it new relevance.

Each actor is noteworthy, but standouts include Bill Burr as Dave Moss. Mr. Burr gets many laughs from the audience with his slick talk and shifty ways.

Michael McKean is refreshingly laid-back as George Aaronow, with good comic timing, and the right mix of humanity and humility to make him sympathetic.

Donald Webber, Jr. plays John Williamson as harmless at first, but we soon learn he’s as devious as the others.

Bob Odenkirk gives a sincere performance as Shelley Levene. Mr. Odenkirk delivers Mamet’s dialogue with the right cadence and timing. He is also surprisingly poignant at times as the forlorn old salesman who can’t close a sale and worries about keeping his job.

Kieran Culkin, as Richard Roma, is mostly effective and polished, but he is not always as menacing as the character should be.

Patrick Marber does a fine job with directing and keeping everything moving along smoothly, and that could not have been easy considering that the newly renovated Palace Theatre is huge, cavernous and best suited for big, splashy musicals.

Glengarry Glen Ross holds up as a morality tale about greed, capitalism and questionable ethics. Mamet’s story captures all the competition and betrayal that often happens in any sales job—the pressure to sell, sell, sell just to stay employed. It remains a disturbing topic today, considering all that’s happening with the current American economy, the volatile stock market and the unstable workforce.

Published April 8, 2025
Reviewed at press performance on April 1, 2025

‘GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS’: Kieran Culkin & Bob Odenkirk. Photo: Emilio Madrid.

‘GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS’: Bill Burr & Michael McKean. Photo: Emilio Madrid.

‘GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS’: Donald Webber, Jr. & Michael McKean. Photo: Emilio Madrid.

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‘AMERICAN BUFFALO’: Sam Rockwell & Laurence Fishburne. Photo: Richard Termine.

AMERICAN BUFFALO
Written by David Mamet
Directed by Neil Pepe
Through July 10, 2022
Circle in the Square
235 West 50th St.
New York, NY
212-239-6202, wwwAmericanBuffaloNYC.com
 

By David NouNou

It’s hard to review a David Mamet play these days without including his heinous quotes recently on Fox News: “Teachers are abusing children mentally and using sex to do so,” further alleging “Teachers are inclined, particularly men, because men are predators to pedophilia.” It’s amazing he can make quotes like these when most of his plays are full of overt sexism and toxic masculinity driving the narrative. What I find most amazing in today’s culture is the double standard for women. With all the expletives that are used in this play, especially the misogynist name calling of women with the use of the “c” word and the women that are talked about by one character as “lesbian dykes,” some people who find the text most amusing are women. When you are seated at Circle in the Square Theatre, you not only get to hear audience reaction, you also get to see audience reaction. As written and spoken by Mamet, it is acceptable and humorous, but if spoken by the average person on the street, it is offensive, demeaning and contemptible to women.

The action takes place in a junk shop on a Friday morning and later that night around eleven o’clock. In Act I, Donny (Laurence Fishburne), owner of the junk shop and a father figure to the slow-witted Bobby (Darren Criss)— who has made a mistake and apologizes for it—wants Bobby to learn from his mistake. They’re also discussing on how to go about doing “the thing.” In comes Teach (Sam Rockwell), a repugnant conman  loser if ever there was one. He is sexist, racist and has total disdain for humanity.

Turns out “the thing” is a robbery to take place later that night. A buyer has come to the shop a couple of days earlier and bought a buffalo nickel for $90. He has given his number to Donny to call him if he should come across some more. Donny now feels he has been cheated and should have gotten more for that nickel   Bobby later informs Donny that the buyer has left town with his girlfriend and a suitcase in a car that morning for the weekend and his place will be empty. Upon hearing of this job, Teach wants a piece of the action and wants Bobby out for being slow and unreliable for such a job. The meeting is set for 10:30pm that night with Donny, Teach and a third party named Fletch to break in to the buyer’s home and take back the coin and more if there are any.

Act II begins with Teach being late, and Fletch nowhere to be found. Only Bobby shows up with a lot on his mind. No spoiler alert here, but violence does ensue. This unraveling is what keeps the audience’s attention.

The redeeming grace of the evening is the solid work of the three actors, each giving stellar performances. As loathsome as Sam Rockwell’s character Teach is, his performance is as powerful as it is menacing. Having seen the original Teach, Robert Duvall in 1977, Al Pacino in 1983 and John Leguizamo in the disastrous 2008 revival (which only lasted for 20 previews and eight regular performances), Mr. Rockwell’s performance is by far the most nuanced and pulsating with seediness and rage.

Laurence Fishburne gives an equally stunning and riveting performance; the beauty here is the strength in his character as well as his protective feelings toward Bobby.

Darren Criss as Bobby is of course the least showy character in the play. However, Mr. Criss delves into Bobby to make him more than the simple character he is. There is a genuine desire to please his mentor, thus imbuing his character with humanity.

There are two more notable assets to the play.  First, Scott Pask has created the best junk shop set devised for this play. It is a work of art. Second is the pulsating direction by Neil Pepe, for even in a moment of stillness, there is constant movement. Whether it is in the dialogue or the actors, something is always moving.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 22, 2022
Reviewed at April 21, 2022 press performance.

‘AMERICAN BUFFALO’: Darren Criss & Laurence Fishburne. Photo: Richard Termine.

‘AMERICAN BUFFALO’: Laurence Fishburne. Photo: Richard Termine.

‘AMERICAN BUFFALO’: Sam Rockwell. Photo: Richard Termine.

‘AMERICAN BUFFALO’: Darren Criss. Photo: Richard Termine.

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BITTER WHEAT
By David Mamet
Directed by David Mamet
Through September 21, 2019
Garrick Theatre
Charing Cross Road
London, United Kingdom
(0330 333 4811), BitterWheatPlay.com

By David NouNou

LONDON–There was a time when David Mamet was a playwright who wrote with a certain style, had a way with words and demanded our attention. He was a force to be reckoned with and then he started taking his notoriety too seriously. Take into consideration his last four plays: The Anarchist with Patti LuPone and Debra Winger, incomprehensible, China Doll with Al Pacino, abysmal and pointless; November with Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf, a sad attempt at comedy of the absurd; and now Bitter Wheat, an incomplete and inexplicably bad stab at attempting to write about a Harvey Weinstein (Hollywood producer who has fallen from grace, in case you’ve been living under a rock lately) character, with the added hubris of Mr. Mamet directing the play himself.

It starts out with Barney Fein (John Malkovich), a horrible, foul-mouthed, narcissistic egomaniac Hollywood producer trying to chisel a screenwriter out of paying him for his screenplay. Lots of foul expletives are used, and the screenwriter leaves. In comes his secretary, the long-suffering and put-upon Sondra (Doon Mackichan) where she is explaining to Barney that he is being presented with an award that night, but he wants it done in his image. In comes Doctor Feel- good who gives Barney his (let’s say, Viagra?) shot because he is about to make a conquest. In comes the conquest, Yung Kim Li (Joanna Kimbook); she is a beautiful South Korean filmmaker who has just made a film entitled Bitter Wheat, which was very well received in Cannes, and the seduction begins. For the next half hour Barney is chasing Yung Li from room to room, floor to floor, in his penthouse apartment/office. He has an erection from Dr. Feel-Good, he has to make a conquest before it wears off, but she is too smart for him. She finds an alarm button presses it, sirens go off, Barney is with his pants down and the curtain comes down for Act I.

Since I saw it in a preview and knew nothing about the play, it is at intermission discussing the play with my companion that it dawned on me that it had similarities to Harvey Weinstein and the story seemed like a half-baked roman a clef about the disgraced Hollywood mogul.

Act II begins with Barney coming back after charges were pressed on him, now more women accusers are coming out and speaking against him. Disgraced and fallen from grace, Barney is informed by his secretary, Sondra, that his award/statuette is being rescinded and that she has had enough covering up for him and is walking out on him, that doesn’t go well, more expletives, she leaves. In comes Yung Kim Li, his accuser tells him she hopes there are no hard feelings and the curtain comes down.

Say what?

John Malkovich, absent too long from both the New York and London stages, poses an age-old question as to why this show would be his comeback vehicle? Was it because he was able to play an odious character with no scruples or moral compass, spewing venom at everyone throughout the night, or was he caught up in David Mamet’s faint aura?

The two people that come off best are Doon Mackikhan very good as the secretary that has crammed every skeleton in all the closets and has had enough. Joanna Kimbook is enchanting as the South Korean filmmaker.

Moral of the review: A bad play should not be directed by the playwright who wrote it, there is no distance from it and no one to tell the playwright “the emperor has no clothes on.” There is no play here.

And to think the previous night we saw The Lehman Trilogy; talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published July 1, 2019
Reviewed at performance in London, June 2019

‘BITTER WHEAT’: John Malkovich. Photo: Manuel Harlan

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‘CHINA DOLL’: Al Pacino. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

CHINA DOLL
Written by David Mamet
Directed by Pam MacKinnon
Through January 31, 2016
Broadhurst Theatre
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.Chinadollbroadway.com

By David NouNou

David Mamet’s latest, China Doll, is an enigma. Enigmas can be fun and brilliant. Just think of last year’s film The Imitation Game; Alan Turing cracking the so-called unbreakable codes of Germany’s World War II enigma machine. Now that was genius. A present-day audience cracking the so-called undecipherable codes of Mamet’s China Doll, however, is pointless; you’ll just end up with a headache.

Mr. Mamet’s last play, The Anarchist in 2012, had a narrative that was too confusing, and unfocused to qualify as a solid drama. However, in China Doll, the narrative is so undisciplined and structure-free that it is hard to connect to its central character Mickey Ross, portrayed by Al Pacino. It is hard to decipher whether Mamet based the character Mickey Ross after Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, or if this was the way Pacino wanted to portray Mickey Ross.

Mickey Ross is a self-made billionaire who can be a bully and get his way. As the play opens, he is berating his assistant, Carson (Christopher Denham), for what Mickey thinks was a job not well executed. The first act is all about Mickey having bought a Swiss-made, custom-built jet but its serial number has been switched from Swiss numbers to an American number, making it impossible for it to land in the U.S. Otherwise, if it does, Mickey has to pay a $5 million tax. On board this plane is his (unseen) much younger, beautiful girlfriend (who was commissioned by Mickey to redecorate the interior of the plane to her specifications) who is supposed to fly directly to Toronto, but the pilot had to make a forced landing because of a malfunctioning signal light at 41,000 feet, forcing him to land in the U.S. and then go to Toronto. The dynamics of the first act are almost a total monologue by Mickey, having to talk to various attorneys and friends to straighten things out with who owns the plane, who should pay the taxes, and how his girlfriend was humiliated by a strip cavity search at the American landing site. As the curtain for Act I is about to come down, politics rears its ugly head and a lot of belligerence and bile is spewed by Mickey.

Yes, indeed politics becomes the root of all evil in Act II. As Mickey is about to make his mea culpas for his belligerence the night before and get out of the business, and take his young fiancé with him, that’s when his real problems begin. There is blackmail, bribery, extortion, conspiracy, revenge, prison sentencing, everyone consorting with everyone else, double dealings—all the absurdities that embroil the late Jackie Collins’ novels, but are not half as much fun. In other words, Act II unravels faster than you can say Lucky Santangelo.

If you had gotten used to the staccato, rapid-fire bandying of words in his masterpieces Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-The-Plow, American Buffalo and Race, forget it here because the dialogue comes in leaps and spurts. Since it is almost a monologue, Mr. Pacino bears the burden of the delivery. Poor Mr. Pacino, either he has problems remembering all the lines that are being fed to him by earphones, thus his deliveries are stilted and late; or he is deliberately doing a slovenly Donald Sterling imitation with no character shading or nuances. Christopher Denham as Carson, the assistant, just has to stand, be obedient and deliver his one-liners.

Alas, the culprit who failed both Mamet and Pacino is the highly touted director, Pam MacKinnon. She is way out of her league with two super egos like Mamet and Pacino; she never had a chance.

At the end I had to wonder if all billionaires have the tsuris (I left some out, so why spoil it for you?) that Mickey Ross goes through in 24 hours, or is this what the “one percenters” have to deal with in their everyday life? Maybe Mamet’s moral here is who needs to be a billionaire? You can get by easier by just being a millionaire.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published December 4, 2015
Reviewed at press performance on December 3, 2015

‘CHINA DOLL’: (left to right) Christopher Denham & Al Pacino. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

‘CHINA DOLL’: (left to right) Christopher Denham & Al Pacino. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

‘CHINA DOLL’: Christopher Denham. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

‘CHINA DOLL’: Christopher Denham. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

‘CHINA DOLL’: Al Pacino. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

‘CHINA DOLL’: Al Pacino. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

‘CHINA DOLL’: Al Pacino. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

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