I decided to start my weekly reading of plays off with David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. I had read and seen some of Mamet's work before, and I love his distinctive style of dialogue and gritty, difficult characters. Since Glengarry Glen Ross is considered by many to be Mamet's best work, I was excited to read the play and see what all the fuss is about. While I found the plot a bit disappointing, the characteristic "Mamet-speak" used by the characters was top-notch and made the play extremely compelling to read.
The play begins with put-upon real estate salesman Shelly Levene desperately exhorting his office manager John Williamson to give him the "Glengarry leads," a list of names of potential clients for the sale of expensive properties. When Williamson demands cash in advance, Levene is unable to produce the money and leaves empty-handed.
In the next scene, two salesman from the same company, Dave Moss and George Aaronow, are discussing their recent struggles to maintain the office's sales quota. Moss hatches a plot which would require Aaronow to burglarize the office, steal sales leads, and sell the leads to a competing company. Aaronow wants no part of the plan, but Moss intimidates him into agreement.
Meanwhile, the company's best salesman, the charismatic and ruthless Rick Roma, is delivering a long and spectacular monologue to an enraptured customer named James Lingk. Roma's manipulative sales tactics leave Lingk hypnotized into purchasing some undesirable real estate.
Act II opens in the office after the burglary has been discovered. A police detective, Baylen, is interrogating the office's employees to finger the perpetrator of the crime. Roma storms in, furious after hearing of the robbery because he fears that the proof of his sale to Lingk has been lost; this would prevent him from exceeding the sales threshold to win a Cadillac in the company's sales competition. However, he is reassured by Williamson that the sale was closed the night before. Minutes later, Levene bursts excitedly into the office and triumphantly explains that he has made a large and lucrative sale to a couple named Bruce and Harriet Nyborg. Soon, Lingk walks into the office, begging to speak with Roma about the previous day's sale. Roma pretends that Levene is a doctor named Ray Morton, whom Roma must rush to the airport post-haste. Roma nearly manages to escape out of the door when Lingk exclaims that his wife has demanded that he cancel the sale. Roma unsuccessfully tries to hoodwink Lingk into believing that he can cancel the sale later. Roma is called into the other room to interview with Baylen, and Williamson explain to Lingk that, contrary to Roma's assertions, his contract has already been processed by the bank. Roma, furious, storms off to his interrogation. When Levene insults Williamson for making something up, Williamson asks Levene how he knows that the contract had not actually been delivered. The only way Levene could have known this is if he himself perpetrated the robbery. Levene confesses that he and Moss planned and executed the break-in. Levene frantically begs Williamson not to fire him, trying to use his recent Nyborg sale as leverage, but Williamson explains that the Nyborgs are notorious deadbeats whose check certainly will not clear. Roma then exits the interview with Baylen and explains that he and Levene are now business partners - meaning that Roma now keeps 100% of his own commissions and 50% of Levene's as well.
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