after the allowable three days.

The most effective and damaging lie Roma devises is his attempt to allay Lingk’s fears by professing friendship over business: “Forget the deal, Jimmy. (Pause.) Forget the deal . . . you know me.” Moments later, Roma adds, “Now I want to talk to you because you’re obviously upset and that concerns me.” Human compassion, he argues, overrules this particular business transaction. By this point, however, the audience is aware that all Roma really cares about is sales. He reduces Lingk’s marriage to a business venture, a mere legal agreement—and he nearly persuades Lingk. Moments later, however, Williamson’s smooth assurance—“Your check was cashed yesterday”—saves Lingk and costs Roma both this particular sale and the sales contest. Aware that he will not win the Cadillac, Roma explodes into a tirade.

The play draws to its close with Levene’s imminent arrest. Only now does the audience realize the identity of the burglar. After Levene’s (and perhaps Moss’s) arrest, life goes on as usual. In the now barren office, the remaining salesmen simply carry on. “I’ll be at the restaurant,” says Roma.

In performances of Glengarry Glen Ross, what strikes audiences most forcefully is the characters’ offensive language. Language is David Mamet’s primary means of making vivid the plight of these salesmen. Through language, he yokes together the public and private worlds of his characters. In elided street talk, in glib business jargon, the values, personal politics, and (usually limited) perceptions of his characters emerge. On a thematic level, his language reveals not only the characters’ sensibilities but also the extent of their personal entrapment. Many of Mamet’s characters seem imprisoned within a cosmos largely created by their own distorted use of language. His men and women seem aware of humane values, though they lack the vocabulary to pinpoint such values. Herein lies the subtlety of the playwright’s often-misunderstood language and aesthetic.

The language of Glengarry Glen Ross objectifies the nature of the salesmen’s obsessive pursuit of sales. Mamet has often been cited for employing realistic street language, but this play’s language is not realistic. It is adorned, overdone, the relentless swearing exaggerated for theatrical purposes. The language gauges the intensity of the salesmen’s desperation and the brutal pressures of selling in a society in which, according to Mamet, selling is tacitly perceived as conmanship. Some may think Glengarry Glen Ross flawed because of its overuse of expletives, but when audiences understand Mamet’s aesthetic—that the language functions as a kind of street poetry, a deliberately embellished dialogue—then the acerbity of the language takes on nonrealistic qualities. Even these salesmen, Mamet would concede, do not talk this way all the time; rather, they talk this way for two hours to assault the audience, to shock the spectator into a new awareness regarding one of America’s primary practices—selling. Their speech communicates the enervating influence that selling exerts on the spirit of the individual.

Another dramatic device Mamet uses is an old-fashioned whodunit plot. The playwright keeps the audience off-balance with several plot reversals. Although it is clear that Moss initiated the burglary scheme, not until Baylen arrests Levene does the audience know who the culprit is.

The setting, too, contributes to the impact of the play. The second act occurs in a topsy-turvy, colorless, barren office, a metaphor for the spiritual state of these small-time real estate peddlers.

Chinese restaurant

Chinese restaurant. Act 1 takes place in what is understood to be a typical Chinese restaurant in any large American city. No description of the interior is provided except that it has booths. Unlike many Chinese restaurants, this establishment serves alcoholic beverages, as the reader learns when Roma buys a round of gimlets for himself and Lingk. The salesmen are always talking about big sums of money, but they give the impression that they subsist on dishes of rice or noodles and chopped up vegetables. The restaurant is not much more than a door or two away from their office.

Real estate office

Real estate office. This place looks like every other real estate office in a big city, except that it has been ransacked. A broken window has been boarded up, and there is broken glass all over the floor. Even the telephones have been stolen in a vain attempt to divert suspicion from the real purpose of the burglary, to steal the fabulous Glengarry Glen Ross leads. It is immediately obvious that there is little in such an office worth stealing because no merchandise or money is kept on the premises. There is an outer office for the salesmen and an inner office for the manager, where Baylen, the detective, questions the salesmen one by one.

*Glengarry Glen Ross

*Glengarry Glen Ross. Real estate subdivision in far-off Florida, parcels of which are sold sight unseen by the high-pressure salesmen. The outlandishly romantic Scottish name, designed to help attract mailed-in “leads,” suggests the ironic contrast to the likely reality—flat, barren, grossly overpriced land infested with mosquitos and alligators, totally unimproved except for a billboard promising a future retirement paradise.

Business

While many might not be acquainted with the complexities of a high-pressure real estate sales office, the environment of Glengarry Glen Ross in 1983, the year the play was completed and debuted, made this world appear not just plausible but almost unavoidable. The 1980s in American business were characterized by corporate takeovers, both amicable and hostile, where those orchestrating these takeovers earned personal fortunes in the tens of millions. Often, these takeovers were financed using high-yield "junk bonds," initially introduced by Drexel Burnham Lambert executive Michael R. Milkin. The assets of the target companies were used as collateral to repay the principal of these junk bonds, which offered returns ranging from thirteen to thirty percent.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was found guilty in Tokyo District Court on October 12 for accepting a $2.2 million bribe from Lockheed Corporation to use his influence in persuading All Nippon Airways to purchase Lockheed Tristar jets.

Politics

President Reagan signed Social Security legislation that postponed cost-of-living adjustments in payments and increased payroll tax deductions.

On March 8, President Reagan addressed an evangelical group in Orlando, Florida, labeling the Soviet Union as "an evil empire" and "the focus of evil in the modern world." Later, on March 23, Reagan introduced his "Strategic Defense Initiative," a high-tech defense system involving satellites equipped with lasers to intercept incoming enemy missiles. Senator Ted Kennedy mockingly referred to the program as "Star Wars," and many scientists doubted its feasibility despite its enormous projected expenses.

On October 25, three thousand U.S. Marines, along with three hundred military personnel from Caribbean nations, invaded Grenada to overthrow "political thugs" who had seized control of the government in an October 12 coup and appeared to be establishing a new communist stronghold in the Caribbean.

On November 2, President Reagan signed a bill establishing a January holiday to honor Martin Luther King's birthday, a celebration largely ignored by financial markets and most businesses.

Environment

James G. Watt, Secretary of the Interior, who advocated for opening federal lands to private exploitation, including oil drilling, resigned on October 9. He sparked outrage by jokingly stating that his coal advisory commission was diverse: "I have a black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple."

In the Soviet Union, commercial fishing in the Aral Sea was halted. The massive diversion of water from the sea's two source rivers for desert irrigation had reduced the sea's size by a third, doubled its salinity, and caused an ecological disaster. Winds carried chemically contaminated dust and salt from the dried sea bed onto nearby fields, contaminating water supplies and even mothers' milk.

Communications

In December, Chicago drivers began using cellular phones in their vehicles, with a price tag of $3,000 plus $150 per month for service. These phones quickly became not only practical business tools but also sought-after status symbols.

Miscellaneous

Cabbage Patch dolls became highly sought-after black market items as stores ran out of stock.

Plot

The structure of Glengarry Glen Ross is quite distinctive. Act I is made up of three short scenes, each featuring a two-person conversation. Throughout these scenes, we become familiar with the lingo of the real estate sales industry, get to know the characters involved, and are introduced to the potential burglary of the sales office by two salesmen. Act II follows a more traditional format, resembling a mystery play where the crime is both committed and resolved. However, it would be incorrect to assume that the plot is what keeps the audience engaged in Glengarry Glen Ross. The primary intrigue lies in the language, which reveals the evolving relationships and narratives of the characters.

Action

Mamet is explicit about what matters in his plays. In one of his essays in Writing in Restaurants, he asserts that it is not the play's theme that captivates us, but the action. In another essay from the same collection, he notes that "good drama has no stage directions. It is the interaction of the characters' objectives expressed solely by what they say to each other—not by what the author says about them." There is minimal description of the set in Glengarry Glen Ross and no instructions for character movement. Character is demonstrated through habitual action, and the author reveals this through what the characters do. Everything is conveyed through dialogue, with no unnecessary prose.

Language

In Writing in Restaurants, Mamet states, "Technique is knowledge of how to translate inchoate desire into clear action—into action capable of communicating itself to the audience." The characters in Glengarry Glen Ross are defined by the language they use, and for the salesmen, their livelihoods are tied to their linguistic skills. This language is not used to convey truth but rather to obscure it, manipulate others, fiercely attack one another, and tell stories that celebrate triumph—like when Levine recounts how he closed a deal for eight parcels of land. It is no coincidence that the salesmen greatly outshine the office manager Williamson, the customer Lingk, and the police detective Baylen (though through Aaranow and Moss's reactions, we understand that Baylen also wields language effectively during off-stage interrogations in Williamson's office). Language serves as ammunition in the fundamental struggles for power and survival.

It is widely acknowledged that Mamet possesses a keen ear for capturing male dialogue. As Robert Cushman, an English critic, notes, "Nobody alive writes better American." Yet, Mamet's language isn't naturalistic or a direct imitation of how people typically converse; it's meticulously crafted. The speech patterns, filled with repetitions, interruptions, hesitations, and bursts of intense obscenities and scatological language, transform into a form of poetry. It is important to remember that stage dialogue is designed to be heard, not just read. Mamet's dialogue takes on a musical quality. Jack Shepard, the actor who portrayed Roma in the original production, described it as "The rhythms are slick, fast, syncopated, like a drum solo." This allows us to hear and feel the music's power, sensing the underlying fear, panic, and desolation.

The rhythm and action are intertwined; the salesmen use their dialogue, akin to arias or duets, to captivate and manipulate their audience, whether it's a potential client, a colleague, or the theater audience. The theater audience can become as engrossed in these narratives as the on-stage characters. In Act II, Levene's story about closing a deal, with its precise elimination of unnecessary words and masterful pauses, draws the audience into his world. He recounts sitting silently for twenty-two minutes by the kitchen clock and the solemn toast that followed the signing, pulling the viewers into Levene's experience. Meanwhile, Roma's speech to Lingk in Act I defies logical sense yet is brilliantly executed. Roma weaves a narrative rich with references to shared experiences of sexuality, guilt, self-acceptance, and male camaraderie. He pauses only to let Lingk agree with him, exploiting Lingk's clear desire for male companionship. Roma uses his language to captivate and, like a cobra, strikes with his sales pitch.

Dramatic Irony

Glengarry Glen Ross is an exceptionally humorous play despite its bleak portrayal of a corrupt and demoralizing system. One reason we can enjoy the play is Mamet's clever use of dramatic irony. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience is aware of information that some or all characters are not. Mamet expects us to feel a sense of superiority over the characters on stage, believing that we live in a more ethical world and conduct ourselves better than they do. This gives us a sense of superiority. Additionally, we perceive—another element of the dramatic irony—that Mamet actually likes and even admires his characters. Despite their greed, immorality, disloyalty, and deceit, he views them as casualties of the system they are compelled to navigate. The system compels them to use their significant talents to pursue unworthy goals. The characters are quick-witted, daringly bold, and exhibit the kind of persistence found in all great comedic characters. Perhaps the greatest irony lies in the fact that, to some extent, we do admire these characters and, in doing so, see a reflection of ourselves in them.

Glengarry Glen Ross was transformed into a movie by David Mamet, with James Foley as the director. The film features an impressive cast, including Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Altman, and Jude Ciccolella. It was distributed by LIVE Entertainment, Movies Unlimited, and Baker & Taylor Video.

SOURCES

Barnes, Clive, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in the New York Post, March 26, 1984.

Billington, Michael, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in the Guardian, September 25, 1983.

Coveney, Michael, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in the Financial Times, September 22, 1983.

Cushman, Robert, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in the Observer, September 25, 1983.

Hirschhorn, Clive, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in the Sunday Express, September 25, 1983.

Kissel, Howard, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in Women's Wear Daily, March 26, 1984.

Kroll, Jack, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in Newsweek, April 9, 1984.

Shulman, Milton, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in the Standard, September 22, 1983.

Watt, Douglas, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in the Daily News, March 26, 1984.

FURTHER READING

Bigsby, C. W. E., David Mamet, Methuen, 1985, p. 15.
This is the first comprehensive study of Mamet, covering his work from the beginning up to Glengarry Glen Ross. It serves as an excellent introduction to Mamet's methods and themes.

Carroll, Dennis, David Mamet, MacMillan, 1987, p. 155.
This book provides an excellent evaluation of Mamet's career at its midpoint, from the start through Glengarry Glen Ross, explored through thematic categories.

Dean, Anne, David Mamet: Language as Dramatic Action, Associated University Presses, 1990, pp. 96-197.
A brilliant examination of Mamet's use of language, analyzed both generally and within individual plays. Additionally, it offers valuable insights into themes and the rehearsal process, derived from the author's interviews.

Gordon, Clive, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in the Spectator, September 27, 1983.
An exceptionally unperceptive and conceited review of the London performance.

Kane, Leslie, Interview with Joe Mantegna, in her David Mamet: A Casebook, Garland, 1992, pp. 254-55, 259.
This interview provides a captivating glimpse into the work of a talented actor as he approaches and rehearses a character. The Casebook also includes other insightful essays, such as "Power Plays: David Mamet's Theatre of Manipulation" by Henry I. Schvey and "Comedy and Humor in the Plays of David Mamet" by Christopher C. Hudgins.

Mamet, David, Writing in Restaurants, Penguin, 1986, pp. 3, 6, 13, 14, 20, 32, 116, 124-25.
A diverse collection of essays that significantly aid in understanding Mamet's perspective on theatre, tradition, technique, and life in general.

Rich, Frank, Review of Glengarry Glen Ross in the New York Times, March 26, 1984.
A comprehensive, insightful, and detailed review of the New York production.