ALWAYS . BE . CLOSING.
Lies, bribery and intimidation. Four Chicago real estate agents are prepared to do just about anything to stay at the top of their game in this masterpiece of American drama. With scintillating dialogue that will have you on the edge of your seat, Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet’s brilliant dark comedy asks: just how far will you go to close the deal? Writer-to-Writer: A Conversation With David Mamet By
Mark Rubinstein
Your dialogue has been called street-smart and edgy. It’s even called Mamet speak. How does it come to you? There’s an old joke about a guy who comes home and finds his business partner in bed with his wife. And he says, ‘Sam, I have to...but you...?’ (Laughter) That’s not about my marriage...I’m married to a goddess, and I thank the Lord every day for the last 25 years. But the idea is simply...I have to. I just don’t know any better. That’s how I write. I’m a bit of a freak. There are times I re-craft it, but sometimes it just comes out of me. You just do it until it’s done. Language seems so important in understanding and appreciating David Mamet.Well, you know, a play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have a pretty good play. We know this because we see plays in translation. Not many people speak Norwegian or Danish or whatever guys like Ibsen spoke, or Russian--yet we understand Chekhov and the others. We don’t get the poetry of it because it’s been translated. So we follow the plot and get the idea. On the other hand, you can also write it in what’s essentially poetry that’s going to stick in your mind. The test of that is people remember what’s been said in the play. People remember Shakespeare’s words all their lives. We remember the rhythm of it. You’re a psychiatrist, right? Yes. So as Freud said, it’s polymorphous perversity. It’s a priori...we can’t get beyond the fact that there’s something in music that gets to us. And for me, poetry is the music of speech. So conflict is at the heart of it all? Yes, of course. That’s what a play is about. That’s why it has the capacity to cleanse. Here’s what happens in a play. You get involved in a situation where something is unbalanced. If nothing’s unbalanced, there’s no reason to have a play. If Hamlet comes home from school and his dad’s not dead; and asks him if he’s had a good time, it’s boring. But if something’s unbalanced, it must be returned to order. The task of a play
is to return to order that which has come unbalanced. In Hamlet, Shakespeare not only has conflict between people, but brilliantly conveys conflict inside Hamlet’s head. But conflict is the essence of it. Your plays and films often deal with duplicity, theft, manipulation and con games, like House of Games and Heist or in a play like Glengarry Glen Ross. Is this your view about our times? Well, it’s a view of every time. Some of my plays deal with conflicts in the business world; some deal with marital conflicts or in growing up. Perhaps you’re talking about the better known plays. There always has to be some conflict. If you keep writing the same play, why not just go home. But there’s something about the con, the con game that seems to attract you. Yes. That does attract me. You see, the con game, like the play, lures the mind on to its own destruction. Step A is correct; step B seems correct; step C makes sense, and then I wake up and realize I just gave all my money to a total stranger. How does that happen? In a movie--which is a different kind of play--you lead the audience on. Or as my friend, Ricky Jay, the great magician says, ‘At some point, you just gotta ask for the money.’ You’ve got to lure them on to the point where they--unconsciously-make a leap of faith and then there’s the reveal, which is completely absurd. So to some extent, is all art manipulation? Maybe so. You know, magic is manipulation for which one signs on. A healthy person doesn’t go to a magic show and think, ‘I’m gonna find out where that duck actually came from.’ Right? They go in order to be fooled. They suspend disbelief. Basically, they trade their power to disbelieve for their power to be amused.
THE SALESMEN JARGON IN GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS BOARD: a device used for listing top sellers in a real estate office. CLOSE: completing a real estate transaction when a deal is made. COLDCALLING: approaching prospective customers, usually via telephone, who are not expecting a salesman to call.
DO THE DUTCH: to commit suicide. KICK OUT: when a customer who signed a contract later cancels the deal. LEADS: parties of interested or qualifies prospects who would be receptive to a call from a salesman.
PLATS: a map, drawn to scale, showing a parcel or a division of a piece of land. SIT: a session with a prospective buyer. SOFT SELL: the use of suggestion or gentle persuasion in selling rather than aggressive pressure.
A COURTYARD PLAYHOUSE PRODUCTION
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS BY DAVID MAMET DIRECTED BY KEMSLEY DICKINSON CAST JOHN WILLIAMSON .................................... KARIM EL BADRAWY BAYLEN ................................... ALP ESAD SARPER DAVE MOSS ................................... ERIK HADDEN JAMES LINGK................................... MICHAEL THERRIEN GEORGE AARONOW ................................... BRENT JENKINS SHELLY LEVENE ................................... RUSSELL BELL RICHARD ROMA ................................... GORDON TORBET CREATIVE TEAM SET AND COSTUME, LIGHTING DESIGN ................................... TIFFANY SCHULTZ STAGE MANAGER ................................... KYLIE SCHULTZ THE TOTAL RUNNING TIME IS ONE HOUR AND FOURTY MINUTES INCLUDING AN INTERMISSION PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PLAY CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE. THIS PRODUCTION IS INTENDED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES.
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Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I might remember, involve me and I’ll understand.
-Confucius
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