CityLife

Preview: Glengarry Glen Ross - Library Theatre

David Fleeshman

David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross is, believes the Library Theatre Company’s artistic director Chris Honer, ‘one of the masterpieces of 20th century drama, a magnificent play’.

This sizzling drama about double-dealing and deceit by men on the edge won David Mamet a Pulitzer Prize in 1984.

It’s the second production in what will be the final season in the theatre’s current home, the historic Central Library in Manchester.

“It’s a play that we’ve wanted to do for a really long time and it’s proved very difficult to get hold of the rights,” Chris reveals, “so I was delighted when the rights suddenly became available to us.

“That was one thing, but the other thing is that the Library has had a long association with American drama of one sort or another, whether that’s Neil Simon or Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams or, indeed, David Mamet.

“So it was a very attractive idea in this final season in our current home to pair it with our Neil Simon production I Ought To Be In Pictures.

“That is a more sentimental form of American drama, whereas David Mamet is the reverse of that, absolutely keying into a particular kind of vicious energy which is just as entertaining to watch, seeing people behave as badly as they do!”

It is a play which is still shocking, Chris agrees, not least for the, erm, ripeness of its language.

“There was hilarity the other day when, in our English accents, we had to go back to a particularly foul-mouthed phrase,” he chuckles.

Mamet worked as a salesman at one stage in his life and based the play, which he dedicated to Harold Pinter, on his own selling experiences in the Sixties.

Tough and tough-talking, it centres on four Chicago real estate salesman who have been told by head office that whoever tops this month’s sales chart drives home a gleaming new Cadillac. The runner-up gets a set of steak knives. The other two get the sack.

Dave Moss is aggressive; the sweet-talking Richard Roma, the best salesman in town, is determined to get his hands on the car keys; Shelly ‘The Machine’ Levene and George Aaronow will do almost anything to get a piece of the action, but, with their prime selling days behind them, they’re both getting desperate.

'Keen'

The play was filmed in 1992 with a cast that included not only Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon, but also Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey and Jonathan Pryce – a pretty impressive cast by any standards and all willing to take a pay cut just to appear in it!

But the Library’s cast is barely less impressive. Two of the city’s best-known actors, MEN Theatre Award-winning David Fleeshman and James Quinn, feature as Shelly Levene and George Aaronow respectively, while Richard Dormer, whose portrayal of snooker ace Alex Higgins in the one-man show Hurricane was nominated for Best Visiting Production at the MEN Theatre Awards in 2004, plays Richard Roma.

John McAndrew, who plays salesman Dave Moss, has credits on several well-known TV programmes, as well as appearances in many of the country’s leading regional theatres, while Knutsford-based Paul Barnhill, who plays office manager John Williamson, is well known for playing racist villain Josh Carter in Brookside and also appeared in Mike Leigh’s film Topsy-Turvy.

Library Theatre regular Leigh Symonds and Liverpool-born Nick Moss, as Baylen, a detective, complete the cast.

“I was very keen from the moment we knew we were going to do it for David to be in it,” says Chris of the casting.

“Both because of David’s long association with the Library, so it would just be really good for him to be involved in one of these last four plays and also because it just felt like ideal casting.

“I know Jack Lemmon played the role in the movie but I’ve always thought his performance was slightly sentimental and David will avoid that. I suppose that challenge and attraction
is that Mamet is just about the only great American writer I haven’t played and I guess now, with the death of Arthur Miller, he’s the greatest living American writer,” enthuses David Fleeshman, whose leading role in the Library’s production of Miller’s The Price won him an MEN Theatre Award in 2005.

“In fact, having done that journey as Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman at Bolton Octagon, which was my last stage role, I thought ‘you know what?

“It’s time to hang up my gloves in terms of regional theatre, because I’ve done 30 years and there’s nothing left I really want or need to do.’ I’d decided to just do TV and radio and film from now on. But this role and Chris coaxed me out!

“I’d done nearly 20 productions here and to be part of this season, doing this part, was just too tempting!”

Glengarry Glen Ross is at the Library Theatre from March 12 until April 3, 2010. An accompanying event from March 31 into April is Mr Happiness, a rarely-seen short one-man drama by David Mamet set in a New York radio station in 1934. James Quinn stars and Katie Lewis, assistant director of Glengarry Glen Ross, directs.