Review of the Play Glengarry Glen Ross

Glengarry Glen Ross is a play about an office of real-estate salesmen in Chicago and an amazing day in their lives. It was written by the playwright David Mamet. The first thing that I had noticed about the play, Glengarry Glen Ross is that it is a play about talking. The characters talk in a way which is different than a lot of other plays that I have read. The conversations seems very fast and aggressive, the salesmen are always selling, even in their normal, everyday conversations. Before reading Mamet's original version of the play I had already viewed the film portrayal of the play. After reading it I found the written text to be even better then the on-screen version.

If Glengarry Glen Ross is about two things, it's about talking and desperation; it is a play about salesmen. It kind of reminded me of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesmen in a very little way, but where Death of a Salesman is sad and relaxed and emotional, Mamet's work is nasty, rough and short. The play introduces four struggling salesmen at various stages of their careers, all employed by the same Chicago real-estate office.

The first act consists of three short scenes set in the Chinese restaurant that serves as an extension of their actual office. In this scene Shelly "The Machine" Levene is pleading with manager John Williamson for a couple of hot sales leads. Levene used to be a hotshot but is getting old and is in the middle of his worst cold streak, and throughout the play Mamet shows a man with very little dignity remaining and who is absolutely desperate for a big break.

The next two characters Mamet introduces are Dave Moss and George Aaranow who also are workers at the real-estate office. These two men discuss the abstract notion that someone should steal the leads from their office. The further they discuss the idea the less abstract this notion becomes. Their conversation dealing with this is somewhat funny. Next Mamet introduces Richard Roma. Roma's character is introduced with a very interesting monologue because it just seems to be different than the rest of the play. I really found this monologue to be powerfully written and I've seen it performed on screen equally as well. In a play about talking, his success as a salesman is obviously shown to be his ability to open his mouth and speak with a strange sort of authority.