There must be something about salesmen. Just as nothing Arthur Miller did before or has done since can match Death of a Salesman, so no piece of David Mamet's considerable output is as carefully shaped or flawlessly heard as the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Glengarry Glen Ross". Under Amy Morton's light-handed direction, Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents a production utterly in sync with the play and just as brilliant. This first major Chicago revival since the 1984 premiere was worth the wait.
Though Glengarry itself premiered elsewhere, it's the kind of work on which Steppenwolf built its reputation: an earthy ensemble yell-fest. But at 25 years and counting, the theatre has broadened and shifted its focus so that last season featured simultaneous productions of Uncle Vanya and Hedda Gabler. Those classics were wonderfully done, but it's nonetheless a joy to see the company return to a simulacrum of its roots.
Glengarry chronicles the fall and rise of Shelly "the Machine" Levene, a veteran real estate salesman in danger of losing his job. As he alternates between bullying and begging his new boss for the "premium leads," Mike Nussbaum slides effortlessly between desperation and self-importance, terror and arrogance, the embodiment of every man about to lose his grip. Nussbaum, who created the role of another salesman in the original production, obviously knows these guys inside and out. He resists the temptation to make Shelly simply pathetic, a latter-day Willy Loman. Shelly's hurting, the actor and playwright make clear, but that doesn't make him any less a son-of-a-bitch-indeed, probably more so.
Nussbaum's nuanced portrait is the standout in an ensemble without a weak link. As Levene's protege Richard Roma, David Pasquesi is compelling, whether seducing a prospective buyer, cutting the boss down to size or comforting Shelly with flattery. Lean and mean as a snake, he slithers around an office of fleshy, stolid co-workers looking for an undefended flank to strike. Peter Burns makes the nearly wordless role of Roma's prey both pathetic and comic as he resists, clinging to what little dignity he has. Finishing each other's sentences while plotting to steal the good leads, Matt DeCaro and Alan Wilder suggest Laurel and Hardy drunk on rage and loss. Playwright Tracy Letts, whose mastery of Mametian dialogue rhythms shows in plays including the cult hit Killer Joe, here demonstrates that mastery in performance, making new boss Williamson not merely a petty dictator but one with an angle. Sooner or later, everyone betrays someone else, or himself, or both, and "all are punished."
These characters were created originally by young men wearing spirit gum and spray-on gray. Their performances were stunning, but these have an extra dimension. When a young man plays one well into middle age, he's guessing what it feels like to realize you'll never have everything you want; when a middle-aged man plays the part, he knows. It's an extra kick to remember that the original cast members were mostly contemporaries of the men onstage today-an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual maturing of the Chicago theater community.
The actors' ease with each other is apparent: though they're playing men jockeying for position, their performances show none of that, being as generous and cooperative as their characters are selfish and mean-spirited. Give director Morton credit for this, as well as for the transparent clarity of the piece. Faced with characters every one of whom is a font of bullshit, Morton has kept her eye, and her actors, focused on the underlying architecture of their relationships. They conceal what they're doing from each other, and even from themselves, but not from her. She's nailed them, and the play.
Don't be surprised if this group of Chicago real estate salesmen finds its way to New York.