Glengarry Glen Ross. David Mamet’s play revived at The Gladstone in “classic Mamet Style”.

Photo. Maria Vartanova

The story It’s enough to make a life-long renter out of anyone. David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, now in an electric revival at The Gladstone, spotlights the desperate, often viciously unethical goings-on at a testosterone-driven real estate office where clients’ cheques, as opposed to their interests, motivate the motley gang of sales agents. With management amping up the pressure to make sales, the office descends into ever-worse lying, cheating, and a plot to steal leads and sell them to another agency: a microcosm, in other words, of human nastiness and spiritual barrenness circa the 1980s, all done up in classic and funny Mamet style.

Pros The characters may be out only for themselves, but the actors click from the get-go. Steve Martin makes the fast-talking, morally bankrupt Ricky Roma a study in shape-shifting as he earnestly encourages the Willy Loman-like has-been Shelly Levine (a powerful Tom Charlesbois) to keep plugging and then co-opts the willing Shelly into a scam of the timid client James Lingk (Dale MacEachern). John Muggleton gets up an almost frightening head of steam as the hot-headed and contemptuous Dave Moss who launches the lead-stealing plot and, one suspects, is a prime candidate for stress-induced cardiac arrest. The other salesman, George Aaronow (Chris Ralph), is as close as it comes to a moral conscience in the office, but his pitiful lack of self-confidence means he just goes along with the crowd. Leslie Cserepy rounds out the real estate team as the despised office manager John Williamson who, since he hands out the leads, is the agency’s de facto power-broker.  Director Geoff Gruson orchestrates this brawling snake pit of a show with a sure hand. Gruson has also stepped into the role of Detective Baylen, called in to investigate the theft of the sales leads, for a couple of shows, replacing the absent David Whiteley who’s on a film shoot.

Cons None worth mentioning.

Verdict A way better investment than ocean-front property in Arizona.

Glengarry Glen Ross

Produced by the Avalon Studio

At The Gladstone

Continues until July 5. Tickets: 613-233-4523, thegladstone.ca