Closing Time: A Review of ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’
The three words “Always Be Closing,” famously articulated by Alec Baldwin’s “Blake” in the 1992 film “Glengarry Glen Ross,” are a distinct presence at the Broadway revival of David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play by the same name. Baldwin’s character is meant to motivate the washed up, hapless salesman who the film centers around, but instead browbeats them for poor performance and delivers an avalanche of sales cliches. It is one of the most memorable cameos in film history, and his most famous line is plastered on the new play’s promotional materials, displayed on a screen between acts, and even has a signature cocktail named after it at the Palace Theater bar. Yet the words “Always Be Closing” are also notable for their absence in the succinct, two-act play, directed by Patrick Marber and headlined by name-brand actors and comedians Bob Odenkirk, Kieran Culkin and Bill Burr.
Indeed, Baldwin’s Blake was never present in Mamet’s script for the play’s original showing in 1983, and he remains absent for the revived showing. However, Blake’s presence would have been welcome. The 2025 “Glengarry,” while raucously funny and containing brief moments of true emotion, is ultimately undermined by its abbreviated runtime (two hours including intermission), limiting its impact and making it too shallow to justify the enormous ticket price.
Although the play should ideally be judged on its own merits, the spectre of “Glengarry”’s film version lurked in my mind throughout the play’s runtime. The film, starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon and Ed Harris, contains comedic moments, yet is ultimately a tragedy. The play follows struggling real estate salesmen at an unnamed company trying to stay afloat in an industry that has left them behind. There is an office break-in where the coveted “Glengarry leads,” mysterious cards that identify profitable customers, are stolen, with (spoiler alert) Lemmon’s hapless, sorrowful Shelley Levene ultimately revealed as the culprit. Lemmon’s pathos, as well as the film’s setting — a dimly lit office and bar in a dark, rainy New York City — do the heavy lifting in creating its tragic, somber tone, two elements the play version does not succeed in recreating. Instead, the play leans on quick-hitting dialogue between its star-studded, fast-talking cast. Mamet’s pioneering prose style, known for its pithy one-liners and unabashed profanity, remains as sharp and engrossing as ever. However, witty dialogue alone cannot carry a play all on its own without the requisite character development and emotional involvement from the audience, which the play does not attend to nearly enough.
The difference between the film and play versions of “Glengarry” is perhaps best revealed in a scene between Levene (Odenkirk) and straight-laced office manager John Williamson (Donald Webber Jr.). In the film, this conversation takes place about one-third of the way through, as a desperate Levene (Jack Lemmon) pathetically chases Williamson (Kevin Spacey) to his car in the pouring rain, begging to be given better leads so he can sell real estate and support his sick daughter. Once in the car, he offers to bribe Spacey for the leads, and their negotiation feels sad and sinister, a last gasp for Lemmon and a potentially risky move for Spacey. In the play, this conversation is the first scene, taking place in a sparse and unpopulated bar. Odenkirk is a younger, more spry Levene than Lemmon, and he mostly plays his character for laughs. He is a salesman making a pitch: talking fast, pacing around the room with arms waving wildly, banging on the barroom table. Odenkirk admirably brings the sparse set to life and energizes the crowd, and Webber Jr.’s deadpan, even-keeled responses to his protestations were a brilliant counterweight. Nevertheless, you do not get the same sense of both characters being trapped in their jobs and lives. I could not help but think of the film’s more nuanced portrayal even as I chuckled at the scene taking place on the stage.
Now, Act One is not all bad. At certain points, its lighter, dialogue-focused style is truly enlivening. When Dave Moss (Burr) tries to pull his sad sack colleague George Aaronow (Michael McKean) into his scheme to rob the office and sell the Glengarry leads to a competitor, the play springs to life. They are just joking around, complaining about their jobs, until it is clear that Burr is serious about the plan, and McKean’s aghast reaction is both hilarious and realistic. His sense of propriety and desire for self-preservation is detectable in his anxious stuttering, even as the characters and world around him become increasingly desperate and cutthroat. You get the sense that you are watching a conversation between real people unfold in real time.
The same applies to when Rickey Roma (Culkin), a genuinely talented salesman, lures James Lingk (John Pirruccello) — a lone, pensive bar goer — into buying clearly worthless Florida real estate. Culkin is friendly and authoritative, waxing philosophical on life’s fleeting nature and the folly of anxiety, and seems genuine even after it becomes clear he is just trying to wring a buck from Lingk. The sensation of watching a real conversation deepens the play, as the profound role that language plays in the characters’ lives and professions becomes clear. For salesmen, everything is “just talking,” no matter the real-world consequences of this talk. The play’s characters live and die by their motor mouths, and the actors do an admirable job of communicating this key factor, thereby driving home the play’s theme.
“Glengarry”’s second act, taking place after the office robbery, has incredible choreography. The characters weave in and out of the trashed office, talking to, past and over one another — amid a cacophony of opening and slamming doors. Nevertheless, the audience can still follow the conversation threads, catching the actors’ emotional ups and downs and impeccable comedic timing. Culkin is especially excellent in this act, playing the fast-talking, finicky Roma. He whips around the room, taps his fingers and tousles his hair as he and Odenkirk run a charade attempting to convince a regretful Lingk to stay true to the deal they made the night before. After Webber Jr. inadvertently blows their cover, Culkin blows his top, delivering a string of abuses culminating in the famous line: “Who told you you could work with men?” In the film, Pacino delivered the line with characteristic bluster, but Culkin’s performance is more subtle, and his rage feels less rooted in a sense of thwarted masculinity than genuine moral uproar.
In a play with huge stars and significant comedic chops, Webber Jr. as Williamson provides a necessary counterweight, and perhaps delivers the best performance, as the austere young boss trying to keep his hyper-masculine, morally dubious employees in check. While he is clearly a striver and corporate ladder-climber, he is less loathsome than Spacey’s version in the film — a man just trying to do his job while taking terrible abuse from colleagues who disregard him due to his youth. His seething and frustration palpably built up throughout the second act, and when he let it out by slamming Odenkirk’s desk, a hush went through the audience. The final reveal, where Webber Jr. finds out Odenkirk is the burglar, feels more like comeuppance than tragedy. But Odenkirk plays the scene well, and his finally going silent once he accepts his fate is more affective than any of the myriad words that exited his mouth through the play’s duration.
Yet as the curtains closed, I found myself thinking: “That’s it?” It seemed that at the exact moment when the characters were sufficiently developed, the play ended and I wished I had another thirty minutes to watch characters I finally cared about.
When I interviewed David Mamet a few months ago, he compared theater to a football game, saying, “The best thing you can do — the greatest compliment — is to have the audience leave the theater talking about what they just saw.” After leaving the play, I spoke about what I saw, but not what lay behind what I saw: The play was all surface. Its themes of moral rot, loss of youth and masculinity in crisis do not cohere into a unified whole; it was as if I had watched a series of interesting conversations instead of a completed work of art. I was expecting a richer theater experience, but the characters too often felt like receptacles for funny dialogue rather than fully-formed human beings stuck in a loop of deception and greed. I enjoyed the play, but it did not burrow its way into my mind like all great works of art do, like the film version did. Like a sleazy real estate salesman, it over-promised and under-delivered.
Photo Caption: Poster from “Glengarry Glen Ross”
