Glengarry Glen Ross comes to Fucking Main Street

Bill fucking Dow and Josh fucking Drebit do fucking Mamet

"All it is, it’s a carnival. What’s special? What draws us?” asks Roma in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. He’s waxing philosophical on life as he draws in a potential sale. For this version of the carnival, The Main Street Theatre Company gives us David Mamet’s masterpiece about morality and salesmen. So what is special?

Well for one Main Street Theatre Company is full of special actors that can dig into the long speeches, stutters, pauses and repetitions that David Mamet is famous for. True to their name, MSTC bring us into a small art space just off Main Street to present their version of Glengarry. I was apprehensive at first because I knew the space was small, I worried if they’d able to pull of a play that would feature eight actors in what is essentially a tiny art gallery. The meager space actually gave us a new perspective on Mamet’s play, allowing the larger than life characters to be right on top of you. Michael P. Northey opens the play up as Blake with the bombastic monologue that was originally written for Alec Baldwin for the movie adaptation of the play. I’m not sure how common practice it is for productions to include a monologue that was not in the original play, but I’m glad Main Street put it in. In the tiny room it felt as if we all were being subjected to the tense, profanity laden motivational threat/speech. When I was taking my Business Diploma (I can’t believe I’m admitting this) my classmates and I would occasionally shout the lines of dialogue to each other completely oblivious to the irony of it. “ABC- Always be Closing!” Mamet productions often fail because of overzealous actors getting carried away with such lines, but not here. Bill Dow as Levene is a treat to watch as the aging former sales star. In amongst all of the great lines Mamet gives Levene, Dow peppers it with a wonderfully nuanced performance. Salesmen like to talk and in this play which is dubbed “Death of a Fucking Salemen”, no one likes to talk more than Roma played by Alex Ferguson. Ferguson gives us a salesman that is selling pure snake oil but we can’t help but want to listen. In such a cramped space, the front of house person warned us sitting in the front row to keep our feet in. In truth, there was little danger any of us would have wanted to tangle with these lions in the caged room. The dirctor used the small space creatively, utilizing an already built in booth for the opening Chinese restaurant scenes and then moving the seating for the second act so that the audience sat in the round making it feel like a mini circus ring. Mamet’s play is one of modern theatre’s classics but it seems to have a flaw, which even in the movie has always bugged me. It’s the character of Williamson. He is a tough character to play not just because everyone hates him but because he is on the receiving end of a series of long-winded diatribes from the other characters. Despite being under almost constant attack, Williamson remains an unsympathetic character to the audience so it ends up being a lose/lose situation for the actor playing him. Josh Drebit does his best, but if Mamet intended Williamson to be soulless he should provide more evidence of this as the actor faces the danger of looking simply absent. The rest of the supporting cast are superb, Ryan Beil is perfectly cast as the meek lion salesman Aaronow, along with Patrick Keating as the loser Lingk. Ian Butcher, and Daryl King round out the rest of the talented cast that Stephen Malloy directs. He keeps the pacing up and even includes a live drummer in the background to emphasize the rhythm of Mamet’s language. This young company is a great addition to Vancouver theatre and because of the small space it was the hottest ticket in town with a waiting list for standing room only. If you’re lucky enough to catch it you may find yourself just like me and my business classmates afterwards shouting lines of dialogue to each other in the coffee shop.

“Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers only!”

Real Estate and Coffee.

There’s nothing more Vancouver than that.

By Michael John Unger