Business On Stage Deals in the Raw
by Philip O'Brien

" … we're having a little contest … and the fellow with the highest sales by the thirtieth wins first place. First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado … Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. You get the picture, are you laughing now?"

David Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross is a raw and disturbing view of modern business. It's set in an American real estate office, where "closing the deal" is everything, where the devil takes the hindmost and the American Dream seems little more than a sham. Canberra's Free Rain Theatre is presenting the play in a production, directed by George Huitker, beginning on May 9.

As a teacher of drama, Huitker has long been attracted to the honesty of Mamet's language and the realism of his characters. As a male, he feels uncomfortable at the remorseless chauvinism of Glengarry Glen Ross but as co-director of Free Rain Theatre, he is excited at the challenges the play offers to a mostly young cast of rapidly growing experience. The play's language is immediately affronting. It's the vernacular of the locker room, shop floor or bar - aggressive, unforgiving and misogynist. The copulative verb is used in almost every sentence.

Some audiences might be taken aback, Huitker says, but he hopes that the play will appeal to those who will see through the language. "For the characters, swearing is their everyday speak. It's as natural to them as breathing." He recalls a quote by British playwright Steven Berkoff:: "In the end, by freeing language ... [a] play cease[s] to be a dirty play since it [is] open and reveals itself without deviousness or guile."

For Huitker, the key to mastering Mamet's characters is in mastering the rhythm of the dialogue. "It dictates their movements and idiosyncrasies. He's a playwright who needs to be performed word-perfectly. Every clipped sentence, mumble or stammer has a depth of meaning." He draws attention to some Mamet idiosyncrasies, especially his punctuation. "There are the passages which end with three dots ... these are where the characters talk over each other. Getting the rhythm of these interjections just right is essential for the flow of the play." Then there's Mamet's use of italics and pauses. These are not "Pinter pauses," as Huitker describes them, referring to the elliptical British playwright to whom Mamet has dedicated Glengarry Glen Ross.

"The rhythms of the characters are in the rhythms of the dialogue. Isolate those and the text will do the work. Huitker's role as director is similar to his role as teacher and football coach; it's neither patronising nor prescriptive. He drills, supports and encourages his actors but has a relaxed approach to the craft of theatre. "You know what you have to do," he tells his charges as he gives a wrap-up after a rehearsal. "Believe in what you do, be convinced about it but most of all enjoy it."

His assistant director for Glengarry Glen Ross is Fiona Aitkin, a Free Rain regular who had a lead role in last year's production of Equus. Although the only female on an all-male production, she says that her role is not to offer a different perspective. "My responsibility is to be the 'Text Nazi'," she says. "I have a passion for theatre textually and I see my job not so much causing things to happen but rather preventing them from happening."

Huitker works with his cast to build their characters from the ground up. His rehearsals begin with warm-up exercises in which his actors improvise in character. He encourages them to develop their own characters, to talk to each other about them, gradually building up complex, multi-faceted human beings. As a director, he likes being on stage with his actors. He observes from just off-centre, moving among his cast, advising and assisting without interfering. He works by constantly encouraging his actors to greater heights.

All of which places the cooperation of the Free Rain company in sharp contrast with the untrusting characters of Glengarry Glen Ross. "Everyone in the play is an island," Huitker says. "No one has any real connection with the other." It's disturbingly similar to the current series of reality TV shows such as Survivor, The Weakest Link or Big Brother, where, whatever the illusion of camaraderie, each person is ultimately only concerned with self.

But however much the characters in Glengarry Glen Ross are coarse and unlikeable, they still attract our sympathy, Huitker says. "The work environment so often creates holes for people and then gives them shovels to dig deeper."

Glenngarry Glen Ross opens at the Canberra Theatre Courtyard Studio on May 9 at 8pm and continues Wednesday to Saturday until May 26 with 2pm matinees on May 12, 19 and 26. Bookings 6257 1077.

*

Tongue-Searing and Interesting
by Estelle Muspratt

Glengarry Glen Ross is a tongue-searer. Free Rain Theatre Company member Stuart Roberts e-mails me that every second word is a ‘fuck’, every third word is a ‘you’ as a real estate office starts to shrink and the rats claw at one another for space. There’s a competition - the one to sell the most land (through skill, seduction, intimidation, deception and other methods of bastardry) gets a new Cadillac car; second place gets a set of steak knives; third and fourth place - retrenchment.

Paraphrasing Mark Twain, it is not enough to know the words to swearing, one must also know the rhythm. Sadly and rather undiplomatically, Stuart tells me that Twain also said that women don’t know the rhythm, so this is an all-male play, though director George Huitker has installed Fiona Atkin as Assistant Director to add that female touch. This one should be interesting.

Lowdown Magazine

*

Real Estate Overhaul
by Catherine Jean-Krista

It’s a play about Real Estate in the 80s. Surely it’s a comedy? Think again.

“It’s about the troughs that work can dig for you and then that you dig for yourself,” says George Huitker, director. “Deliverance is very difficult in the environment these men live and work under... so I consider them angels because their world is so harsh and unforgiving... Nothing’s superfluous in Mamet. All the characters have a story. There’s definitely a journey but I think it’s from one prison to another.”

“You end up wishing that some allegiance wasn’t built on gain. It’s a character driven play and it is uncompromising. Mamet’s dialogue and rhythms dictate the characters and work as a whole. His language is so precise. I think you feel sympathetic to most of the characters at some point. Each displays the capacity for evil. They also display some very human reasons for the dark side...”

“I think a conservative audience would find it hard. For a start there’s the language issue. But you can balance that by saying it’s won a Pultizer Prize. The play asks us if we’ve reached the point where no-one cares about anyone but themselves. It’s a message that jolts us. I think it’s a cautionary tale. Is this the kind of environment I’ve created for my workers? Is this the environment I want to work in...? But I say that without hesitation because when you have a mortgage and bills to pay... Huitker pauses. “I would not treat another human being the way that people in this play treat each other.”

“I read somewhere that a lot of people consider Mamet a misogynist. I don’t. But it’s a very ,masculine play. If this play is what masculinity is about, none of us want any part of it. The play is an indictment. In terms of what it is saying about masculinity - it needs a good overhaul.

Glengarry Glen Ross, written by David Mamet, directed by George Huitker is playing Wednesday - Saturday, 9 - 26 May, 8pm at the Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre. Matinees 2pm on 12, 19 & 26 May. Bookings 6257 1077.

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All those politicians who extol the virtues of competition need to see this horrible little play about real-estate salesman. Maybe a stint in Mitch & Murray's office would be more effective than a few days in the army. On the other hand, they might learn to be even more underhand in their dealings from Mamet's all-too-accurate representation of men who must make a sale or lose their livelihood. Feels like an election coming on.

And they are all men, so language flies at its worst to such a point of exaggeration that it's hard not to laugh at times - until we realise that the loser really is a loser. Do not sell the Harbour Bridge: go to jail. No Monopoly money here - just the reality of capitalist competition.

David Mamet has written a USA Incorporated version of something like Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, but without the British "pause". These Americans talk flat out like Woody Allen, and it's not long (about 1 hour 20 minutes) before they self-destruct. A terrible existence, but an instructive drama.

Huitker is a master of movement, visual image and timing and has passed on to all his actors a consistent and precise style which this play requires: always just beyond the bounds of reality, yet therefore able to reflect the character types which inhabit this office from hell. In fact, the ensemble qualities of these actors, despite their varied background experiences, means it's time to stop writing sill amateur biogs on the back of the program.

Technical production, set and costumes are all excellent. High energy and speed on the preview night might slow a little as the run settles. But this should only improve the play's bite. It might shake you out of complacency if you think competition trickle-down is the economic answer.

Frank McKone, The Canberra Times

*

After yet another plot twist accompanied by a stream of abuse, the actors left the stage and the houselights slowly went up. There was confused, desultory applause, and we stayed in our seats a long time. No curtain call. We wandered out in dribs and drabs. The program and the sign on the way in stated clearly, 'There will be no interval,' but I checked with the front of house staff who assured me that, yes, that was the end of the show. I in turn reassured a group of confused theatre-goers outside that yes, they could leave, it was over.

But more on that later. Glengarry Glenn Ross is set in a US real estate office in the 1980s. A nameless efficiency expert turns up to announce, between torrents of abuse and obscenity, that the two salesmen with the lowest sales records at the end of the week will be fired. He reminds them to 'Always Be Closing'. There follows intrigue, blackmail, bribery, ruthlessness, deception and burglary by the four sales reps and the office manager, in between abuse and obscenity.

All parts were played convincingly. Despite the characters' similarities, each was given his own unique personality. Pat Collins as Roma - the slick, young and slimy sales star - stood out as the strongest characterisation, but Jerry Hearn's desperate, aging Levine was also memorable. The parts were played with US accents, some thicker than others, some better sustained than others, and some more difficult to understand than others. This, coupled with the US TV style of characters talking over the top of each other, was a little irritating until I realised that what the characters were saying was so repetitive that it didn't matter if I missed some of it.

The set, designed and constructed by Lance Fox, was naturalistic - an appropriately ugly office. The scene change to the Japanese restaurant was a performance in itself, as the office was hurled apart with intent vigour. The lighting, designed by Graham Henstock, was unforgiving. Sound and music were also effective.

The unremitting ugliness of the play was lightened by humour and by Roma's slimy sales pitches and Levine's beatific description of closing a sale. My interest was held as characters bullied, blackmailed and lied their way ahead, but there was an overall monotony about the script that I found tiresome. I wanted to meet these characters in another context, see someone be nice for a moment or, goodness help me, see a female. And I was frustrated by the abrupt ending - with no sales closed and intricate deals and deceptions left unresolved, and by the abruptness of there being no curtain call, with the audience suddenly out on the street. But, in retrospect, perhaps this is how both the writer and director wanted me to leave. 'Always Be Closing,' said the efficiency expert, and yet I left the theatre without the closure I so wanted.

Robin Davidson, MUSE

*

"I've got to work up a fury to work./Nothing gets done unless/a good ol'fashioned/spat gets/under/the skin/and into the bones,/those lazy, selfish, spineless vertebrae."

When you go to the Courtyard Studio to see the latest production by the Free Rain Theatre Company, you will be startled by outbursts of sound and fury from somewhere within, but these are signifying something. It is the cast and George Huitker, actor, director, teacher and poet, for it is his poem which I have quoted from his book of poems called The Actor is Happy...

When you go to the Courtyard Studio you will find that there is not only sound and fury but there are also two books of poems by George Huitker, The Actor is Happy and Not Just Footy (sic) which you can buy for a modest price before or after you buy your ticket to the play George is directing.

When you go to the Courtyard Studio you will encounter the sound and fury which is the warm-up prelude to a play by David Mamet called Glengarry Glen Ross. The sound and fury suddenly falls silent as the actors go backstage to rev up mentally for the play to come.

After Elvis Presley has sold himself to someone called Baby and to us in the audience, there is a blackout and the light comes on - one of those stud shots when the company men stand frozen in an organised but powerfully eloquent tableau. One moment of silent stillness and the tableau is broken and the sound and fury begins.

David Mamet once worked in a real estate office and his experience has obviously left him with a memory of sleaze, lies, leads, prospects, sits and closures, which he has bequeathed to us in Glengarry Glen Ross. To do justice to this bequest you have to have actors who look the part of salesman and who can talk faster than you can protect your wallet and your ability to say "NO".

There are two things going on in the play. First, there is a sales contest - first prize is the Cadillac; second prize is a set of steak knives (someone must have made a fortune in manufacturing steak knives for give-away gimmicks). And the only other prize is the sack. Real estate is runs on the board or you are out.

Now if I were to run the sales contest and award the prizes - I would give every member of the cast a set of steak knives to begin with. And then I would give a Cadillac to Jerry Hearn for looking so absolutely like the sleaziest of sleazy salesmen. I would give a Cadillac to George Huitker for his ferocious manipulation of the play and the salesmen under his command. I would then give a Cadillac to Pat Collins for his perfectly nauseating flow of sales pitch which makes him the obvious top selling man. I would give a Cadillac to his victim, Jonathan Thomsen, because he was bewitched, bewildered and the unhappy victim of wife and salesman. Then I would also give a Cadillac to Arran McKenna because he was so stolid and unflappable when he was foully abused by one and all in the office. And then I would give out Cadillacs to the others because you have to have the two who are in line for the sack and Hamish Pritchard and Stuart Roberts win their Cadillacs for dejection and Adam Somes wins a Cadillac if policeman are allowed to win prizes in a shonky competition.

Remember that I said that there are two things going on in this play. And the second thing is a crime to which the solution is so neat that I missed it the first time. I saw it once. I saw it twice. I saw it the first time because I was the reviewer. I saw it the second time because I was liking what I saw but I knew that I was missing something and I was not entirely sure what it was.

It was, in fact, the solution to the mystery. The real estate office was ransacked and burgled. There had been talk, but one line was to provide the solution and the second time around I got it. So I get a Cadillac as well.

Glengarry Glen Ross is not entirely a successful play because it covers up the essentials with too many words and too many drawn out scenes at the beginning which actually lead nowhere, except to "leads" - which I discovered are appointments with people who might become "prospects" or prospective buyers for a piece of real estate. The best men in the game get the best leads, and the rest have to do the best they can with lousy leads.

But the casting and acting were entirely successful, and the second viewing was an exhilarating bonus.

Wendy Brzail, Artsound