By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
There’s still plenty of meat on the bones of this 1983 play by David Mamet, given a driven production by Susan Arnold at the downtown Beowulf Alley Theatre.
As director she is especially successful at getting the erratic Mamet-speak rhythms down so they sound like the actual conversation of men drowning in their own stress.
Particularly good is the scene where con artist/salesman Dave Moss (Michael Fenlason) sucks his co-worker into being an unwilling co-conspirator who will steal the valued list of customer leads from the office safe.
Bill Epstein as the once-sensational but now desperate salesman Shelly “The Machine” Levene sets the right tone in his opening confrontation with John the office manager (Michael “Miko” Gifford).
Add to them the office smoothie Richard Roma (Clark Ray), a couple of other empty-souled salesmen played by Tony Caprile and Jim Ambrosek and we know exactly where we are -- swimming with the piranhas in a shark tank.
This is definitely not a country for old men, and nobody knows that better than Shelly. He gets our sympathy as we watch the oily Roma now at the top of his game edging closer to that slippery slope himself.
Strong enough to provide the counterpoint of lawful order is scowling Mark Klugheit as Baylen the detective questioning the entire sales staff after those hot leads actually are stolen.
There isn’t really a plot to “Glengarry Glen Ross” so much as there are observations on the wolfpack mentality of men working in offices. Quite often, as in the case of these six guys, they are brought together purely by coincidence.
At this level of commerce, a salesman’s loyalty to his product is no deeper than his commission -- no commission, no loyalty. Gifford gives an excellent reading of this “loyalty” in his performance.
If you haven’t been to Beowulf Alley in awhile, now is the time to return. “Glengarry Glen Ross” is the strongest production this company has staged in more than a year.
Performances continue through Nov. 18 at Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave., 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $20 general admission, $18 seniors, teachers and military, $8 students. For details and reservations, 520-882-0555, or visit www.beowulfalley.org
