Glengarry Glen Ross

At the Stanley until Aug. 22

Tickets: 604.687.1644

www.artsclub.com

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It's hard to keep a great play down, and David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross is a great play. I've seen a wicked production with an all-female cast, and I've shoe-horned myself into cramped Little Mountain Studio for a production so dynamic I found myself ducking when the insults were flying. And now there's this terrific Arts Club show directed by Michael Shamata with an all-star cast and a gorgeous Chinese restaurant set by Kevin McAllister.

Much of the preview buzz has focussed on Eric McCormack (the Will half of TV's Will and Grace) in the role of Roma, but this is also a stellar collection of seasoned Vancouver actors. In a recent interview, McCormack commented on the fact that Glengarry Glen Ross is often done with actors in their 20s and 30s. But Mamet's characters are closer to their 40s or 50s--a time in a career when, if you haven't made your mark, chances are you aren't going to. Shamata's cast is age-appropriate, and these actors, far from feeling the desperation their characters are experiencing, are at the pinnacle of their careers.

Glengarry Glen Ross is real estate as a blood sport. In the play, Williamson (Gale) is responsible for handing out the "leads"--sure-fire contacts. The best leads go to the best salesmen, leaving the guys who haven't been selling much out in the cold. It's a cutthroat business and Aaronow (Brian Markinson), Roma (McCormack), Levene (Gerard Plunkett) and Moss (John Pyper-Ferguson) are ruthless. A salesman who hasn't been doing well gets canned at the end of the month. The guy who sells the most properties gets a Cadillac.

Mamet is big on language--fractured, staccato, battering-ram language. As with Pinter, much meaning comes from what is not said, the pauses, "What I mean" or "You know what I'm saying" left dangling as the listener struggles to complete the thought.

The most excruciatingly perfect example of this kind of rapid-fire writing is Scene 3 in which Moss suggests it would be a good idea if the office was broken into and the leads were stolen. "Are we talking about it?" asks Aaronow in bewildered disbelief.

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To which Moss, back-pedalling, replies that they're not actually "talking," they're only "speaking." The distinction between "talking about" and "speaking about" is conveniently blurred and there is much more of this warping of language. But Moss's intention is finally clear: he wants Aaronow to do the dirty work, to do it "tonight" or else. If he doesn't agree and someone does steal the leads, Moss tells Aaronow he'll be an accessory. "And why is that?" asks a confused, browbeaten Aaronow. "Because you listened," says Moss. Pyper-Ferguson and Markinson handle this biting, broken-up dialogue brilliantly.

Especially in this particular play, Mamet shows how language establishes pecking order. At the top of this heap is McCormack's lean and slick Roma; somewhere in the middle are foul-mouthed Moss and Gale's self-important Williamson; Plunkett takes his character from bottom of the heap to cock of the walk and back down; and he brings his considerable experience and impressive chops to a late-in-the-play monologue that's a sizzler. At the very bottom is Bart Anderson's Lingk, the hen-pecked purchaser of some bogus Florida property that Roma has sold him. Detective Baylen (Daren Herbert) inserts himself into the hierarchy late in the play with considerable success.

Glengarry Glen Ross is not for the sensitive ear; Moss alone uses the f-word 89 times in the play. There are racial and sexual slurs. But it's a horrifyingly funny look at salesmen and what bottom-line economy does not only to realtors but to all of us. That's the Mamet world: not very pretty but as exhilarating as buying a house for $450,000 one day and selling it for $1 million the next.