Glengarry Glen Ross UK tour

Richmond Theatre will soon celebrate its 120th anniversary and remains one of the most attractive playhouses in the country sitting on the edge of the lovely Richmond Green and on a sunny Easter weekend it looked wonderful. Disappointingly for a Saturday night the audience was only half full for this touring production of Glengarry Glen Ross, the 1983 play by David Mamet about American Realtors. It is a lavish looking production with two overly detailed sets and a strong cast, yet it fails to really engage the audience and feels rather dated and unattractive.

The first Act, a very long feeling 30 minutes, is set in a deserted Chinese restaurant in three unlinked scenes where there are no other customers or even a waiter to serve each pair of men meeting for a private chat. First up is Mark Benton as Shelly Levene, the old salesman on a run of poor sales meeting the office manager John Williamson (Scott Sparrow) and desperate to secure better leads to follow up on by corrupting the boss. 

Next, we meet David Moss (Denis Conway) trying to persuade George Aaronow (Wil Johnson) to stage an office break to steal the best leads. Finally, Ricky Roma (Nigel Harman) is seen trying to convince James Lingk (James Staddon) to sign a contract to buy a property. All are desperate to get on the "sales board" for top salesmen to win a car. The Act sets up the characters and the situation of the second act but is very word heavy, static and we don't care or like any of the characters. The language is full of dated attitudes, racist remarks and crude language. The basic structure of the act is poor, the direction adds to the weakness and the American accents too variable to be convincing.

In Act 2 we are in the Realtors office the day after the break in that has stolen contracts and leads and left the office in chaos with the police man interviewing all the staff. We can only marvel at the hard work of the stage management team in resetting the stage so dramatically in the twenty-minute interval! The action is brisker with a few twists, but it is only when there are three characters interacting does it come alive. However only Mark Benton conveys successfully the pathos, desperation and insecurity of their situations but even then, we don't care whether he is a successful salesman or a crooked worker.

This is play that won awards when it first appeared, but I could see no reason to revive it and despite the elaborate setting and good cast, it failed to live up to the anticipation and the wonderful setting of the theatre.

Nick Wayne

Two stars