Why The Ruthlessness Of 'Glengarry Glen Ross' Is Still Relevant

In 1984, American playwright David Mamet wrote the play Glengarry Glen Ross, a biting satire on American greed that described the power-fest of big business and the humanity that gets smashed along the way to making it succeed. The play joined a throng of other artistic productions charting the same themes, like the film Wall St and the novel American Psycho. It won a Pulitzer Prize and then became the 1992 festival hit film starring Al Pacino and Alex Baldwin. This year, The Melbourne Theatre Company stage a remount opening 5 Jul starring Alex Dimitriades and under the guidance of film and theatre director Alkinos Tsilimidos. Such a staging is consistent with the company's recent focus on presenting the full gamut of theatre forms, from challenging independent pieces to proven mainstagers. Tsilimidos, for one, thinks that this particular play warrants not only its accolades but a contemporary audience.

“There's no question that I wouldn't do it,” he says during a quick-fire break in rehearsals, “and I think it was a great idea from [MTC Artistic Director] Brett Sheehy to do it. It's a timeless piece that's like a microcosm of our society and economy.”

The play sees four salesmen in a real estate agency pitted against each other to sell land to a list of questionable potential investors. The best two stay on to bathe in pools of cash, the other two get fired. As in the recent Leo DiCaprio film, Wolf Of Wall Street, the agents regularly do whatever it takes to sell. Underhand tactics, lies and deception are all means of survival in the game.

The play's dramatic motivating force is the quest to get hold of the 'Glengarry' list, an index of the best leads, the potential investors with the most money and the biggest propensity to buy. The company's arsehole management hold these details. Getting hold of the Glengarry leads is essential to winning; essential to survival. Cue the kind of viciousness that Kevin Spacey (who was also in the film) channels as a congressman in the HBO series House Of Cards.

“When men are forced to act in such a competitive way – given that drive to achieve at all costs – it's violent, ruthless,” Tsilimidos explains. “It's like a microcosm of the GFC. You can see that these guys could create the GFC, their own kind of very micro-version of it. The issues, the themes, they're timeless and they keep bothering us.”

Today, with the ongoing sub-prime mortgage fiasco in the US and its ramifications around the world, these issues and this behaviour from big business, as Tsilimidos says, continue to influence our lives. “Glengarry is about selling the American Dream and the play gives a real idea of just what it takes to do that and at what cost.”

But MTC's production is not an 'update'. There're no emails here, no faxes. Paradoxically perhaps, Tsilimidos thinks this is an important aspect of really bringing the play's critique to its audience. “I thought, 'Why?' There was no reason to update it. I thought let's just go back into time and look at it. I think the point will come home that if we're in the '80s then, jeez, it's not that much different to today. Technology's changed but the greed remains.”

Mamet's ability as a playwright too is integral to delivering the fast-paced, ruthless atmosphere of Glengarry's board meetings and backroom bargains. “There's a rhythm to Mamet. It's all in his intentions and it's so easy to fall out of line or get sidetracked from it. He's intense and engaged, so you have to stay focused.”

Like Mamet's, Tsilimidos' own career straddles film and theatre, so a comparison between the two seems natural. “He's written some pretty entertaining books when it comes to his transition into film,” Tsilimidos points out. “I think that's what I like most about him – it's a giggle – from a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, thrown into the world of Hollywood. I just love the way that he still manages to maintain his artistry.

“I come from the world of film into the world of theatre, so it's slightly different, but on an intellectual level I completely understand. The thing is, Mamet actually cares about what he does, and that's sometimes a rarity.”