Jonathan Pryce as Shelly Levene
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Review Round-up: Pryce Is Right Again in Glengarry

Following a last-minute cast change and a two-day postponement of its press performance, the new West End revival of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross opened on Friday (12 October 2007, previews from 27 September) at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, with Peter McDonald stepping in for Anthony Flanagan in the seven-strong all-male company headed by Jonathan Pryce (pictured) and Aidan Gillen (See News, 31 Jul 2007).

In David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, five cut-throat Chicago real estate men are pitched against each other in a cut-throat competition. Close the deal and you’ve won a Cadillac; blow the lead and you’re f...ed. In a world of high stakes and hard sell, these men will do anything, legal or otherwise, to sell the most.

Glengarry Glen Ross had its world premiere at the National Theatre in 1983 and was subsequently produced on Broadway and adapted, by Mamet, for a 1992 film starring Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin as well as Jonathan Pryce, who now takes on the part of luckless salesman Shelley Levene (played by Lemmon in the film). On stage, Aidan Gillen plays Richard Roma (Pacino on screen).

Also in the cast of James Macdonald’s new production, designed by Anthony Ward, are fellow salesmen Matthew Marsh (as Dave Moss) and Paul Freeman (George Aaronow), Tom Smith (prospective buyer James Lingk, Pryce’s screen role) and Shane Attwooll (the police officer, Baylen). McDonald plays the office manager John Williamson.

If McDonald was at all nervous about being such a late addition to the line-up, it didn’t show as far as the overnight critics were concerned, with one hailing him as “remarkable” for his “complete sangfroid”. There were raves too for both headliners, Jonathan Pryce (“excellent”) and Aidan Gillen (“riveting”), as well as for the “superb” ensemble playing of the entire company, performing at a “cracking pace” in Macdonald’s “nifty” production. But the real star of the evening was undeniably Mamet’s play itself, a “masterpiece” of American drama, which, if anything, is perhaps even more “timely” in today’s consumer-driven society.

Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (four stars) – “No play better conveys the spirit of our money-obsessed times than this enthralling, black comedy by David Mamet … (James Macdonald’s) effective production … snaps, crackles and pops with lies, threats and criminality … During 80 minutes' playing-time scarcely a single expression of genuine kindness or generosity is heard … Few plays are so infested with such expletives or vituperative men who so proudly measure their masculinity according to the size of the deals they broker … Aidan Gillen's riveting Richard Roma, who swindles an innocent husband with heartfelt sincerity by selling him worthless land and wears the nastiest little moustache on the London stage, boasts the charm of a slug clinging to your hand. Glengarry Glen Ross premiered in 1983, but appears more timely today, when both our main political parties bend over backwards to satisfy very big business, than it did in the first, blue, hot flush of Thatcherism … (Pryce’s) Shelly, whose flailing agitation echoes Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, is met with the obstinate, stone-wall of Peter McDonald's young Williamson. The remarkable McDonald, who took over this role just days ago but acts with complete sangfroid, first puts on a terrific show of taciturn indifference, then tries to make money from Shelly's predicament and finally displays the full range of his low-key malice. Comparable displays of oneupmanship follow when Matthew Marsh's repellent agent blackmails Paul Freeman's rather too elderly Aaronow.”

- by Terri Paddock

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