Glengarry Glen Ross

‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ is a comedy by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, David Mamet. This is the first production in Western Australia with an all-female cast. It is being produced by the Little y Theatre Company, the winners of the 2011 Blue Room Theatre’s Best Production Award. The mission of this young group, who have travelled the world and individually won numerous prestigious awards, is to create a go-ahead and candid theatre that inspires and cultivates a Gen Y audience.

This is the team’s fourth production and it is showing at The Blue Room Theatre, 53 James St, Northbridge until Saturday 8^th December. All shows are at 7.00 pm.

The Chicago born Mamet dedicated ‘Glengarry’ to Harold Pinter, who gave him the encouragement to mount the play. ‘Glengarry’ went on to receive a Tony nomination.

The dialogue has deliberate mistakes in the use of words and fractures in the construction of sentences to make the cynical dialogue appear more natural or jarring.

       The stage is black with a few scarlet props. The blood red lights are dim. A sign lights up saying ‘A Chinese Restaurant’, this is James Lingk’s (Caris Eaves) high-class dining establishment. The red curtains around the food trolley part and the waiter climbs out from the lower shelf, He stubs out his cigarette and wheels the trolley towards two diners.

        Two Florida real estate agents are talking. The senior partner, a Fagin like wheeler and dealer, Shelly (Leanne Curran) realising that his heyday has passed, and that he is now having trouble selling even simple properties is now trying to wheedle his way into John’s portfolio and the new prestigious Glengarry Estate. The quiet and respectable John (Georgia King) keeps on eating, totally unmoved by the fast-talking and ranting of his colleague.

       The trolley moves along the restaurant to another couple of cutthroat estate agents seated in a quiet corner. One is the sleazy, self-opinionated Dave (Alexandra Nell) a man without ethics or morals; he is talking to the latest recruit in the office, a quiet, nervous downtrodden man, George (Holly Garvey). As Dave talks, he paws and perves the waitress. Dave then explains how their contact list is worth everything, and that he wants a partner – in truth a scapegoat - to sell some details to some opposition agents, would George be interested?

     The trolley moves to an agent sitting by himself. He is a ‘caring’, streetwise salesman, who ingratiates himself to the potential buyers with his sincerity. This is Richard (Ella Hetherington) a smiling, dangerous manipulator.

     This horrendous collection of men work away in their own nasty style, but they did not reckon on Baylen (Verity Softly).

This has been described as a ‘ferocious comedy’, such was the wonderfully created depth of the characters that one often cringed, too appalled or embarrassed to laugh. The director, Mark Storen, has assembled an absolutely brilliant cast, almost everyone an award winner. He has chosen all women for the male parts; this has given an extra rawness and disgust to the coarse dialogue and unacceptable situations. Some of the actors were well outside their normal safe area, and yet fearlessly they captured the horrendous nature of these heartless businessmen.

Costumes (Fiona Bruce) were all black, quite businesslike suits with stylish shoes. The showy accessories were upmarket either scarlet or heavy silver items. As the set designer, Fiona chose either black bar stools or stylish, scarlet plastic chairs. The effect was stunning. Joe Lui’s warm, dim lighting picked out the areas as the trolley moved around. When there was turmoil or a panic situation, white fluorescent tubes would briefly flicker, and this would cause (deliberately) a disturbing earth hum effect on the sound system. The music design by Bosons (Andrew Weir and Ben Collins) was a threatening mix of industrial machinery sounds and cascading tones, which added a chilling feel to the whole situation.

This play has to be as near to a perfect production as one can get. The set, simple and well conceived; the sound - original tones and threatening; the costumes - beautifully cut and businesslike, yet with a bit of bare-chested, medallion-man, macho image. The acting was amazing. You were left gobsmacked at the delivery of these wild animals in a frenzied feeding pack, their bitchiness, the body language and the unforgiving pace for the full 75 minutes. Fantastic teamwork.

Even for the final curtain call, the cast lined up, pan faced, simply nodded an acknowledgement and left the stage in a military manner. The illusion had not been broken.

A truly memorable night at the theatre, however, the season is practically sold out so get in quickly.