Broadway real estate doesn’t come cheap. Ask the producers of Glengarry Glen Ross, the 1983 David Mamet play now in its third revival, playing the cavernous Palace Theatre. Opened as a vaudeville house in 1913, then movies, it’s been home to some of the for-profit theater’s largest big-budget musicals, including Beauty and the Beast and La Cage aux Folles, and legendary concerts from Judy Garland and daughter Liza to Diana Ross and Bette Midler. And now a pack of unscrupulous real estate salesmen has entered the premises, and audiences are ravenous.
It doesn’t hurt that the cast boasts a trifecta of well-known TV actors to eagerly lure starstruck patrons to sit through Mamet’s cutting commentary on capitalism and toxic masculinity. Kieran Culkin (Succession), Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), and comedian Bill Burr, (whose latest comedy special, Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years, premiered on Hulu March 14) lead an all-male cast of foul-mouth misfits conniving to secure winning leads and close deals in a Chicago real estate office.
Mamet’s far-right political beliefs have stirred the pot, particularly his support of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Jeffrey Richards, who’s produced a dozen of the playwright’s works, told American Theatre, “I only talk to David about his plays and work with him as a producer works with a playwright.” But as Mamet proves in the play, silence can equal complicity.
An all-female production was planned, and then the pandemic hit. Now, rumors are circulating that a starry female replacement cast may take over when the current cast completes its run June 28. If so, let’s hope that the women earn more than the current 83 cents to the dollar pay wage gap. What would Mamet have to say about it? Let’s hope nobody asks him.
1MC Takeaway
A good salesman always says, “You get what you pay for.” With ticket prices ranging from $162.50 (rear balcony) to $824.50 (front row), that may be a hard pill to swallow. If you have disposable income and can stomach the characters’ racism and ageism, the top-notch cast delivers Mamet in his prime.
Glengarry Glen Ross plays at the Palace Theatre. Tickets are currently on sale through June 28.
