If you like emotionally charged, cutthroat capitalist plays about ruthless real estate agents, office politics and the decline of the American Dream, then the Live Arts theater's production of Glengarry Glen Ross is just the play for you. But if, like me, you find yourself more inclined toward sparkly musicals with complicated plots, colorful costumes and belting ensembles, then, frankly, it is not.
Glengarry Glen Ross (the play's moniker is taken from names of real estate properties) is about a small band of unscrupulous, middle-aged real estate agents who will go to any lengths to achieve their own ends. Plot-wise, not much happens, as Glengarry Glen Ross is a play about, above all, characters - their flaws, their ruthlessness and, most of all, their desperation.
Live Arts' actors succeed in portraying their roles, particularly Michael Volpendesta as the scheming, big-mouthed Richard Roma and Chris Patrick as John Williamson, the cold, callous boss who both looked and acted so much like Benjamin Linus from the TV show Lost.
Learn more about the show - check out Live Arts online
The sets were simple but nevertheless well constructed, with the first act taking place in a Chinese restaurant and the second act taking place in a ransacked real estate office. The Live Arts theater is so intimate and the audience is so close to the stage that you feel as if you're in the same room as the characters, and - sitting in the first row - I was so close that I could see the spittle fly from the actors' lips, which happened quite often, as they never went five minutes without screaming obscenities at each other.
Although the play is supposed to be a comedy (admittedly, a black comedy) about office politics, The Office it simply is not. There is no stapler-in-Jell-O humor here, just vaguely depressing conclusions drawn about the triviality of life and the corruption of the American dream. Yet somehow, it had no particularly deep musings to offer the audience about life beyond convincing each and every one of us never to go into real estate. Perhaps all of this would have been acceptable had the dialogue been witty and poignant. But personally, I didn't find a bunch of pathetic, mid-life crisis-ing old men with potty mouths
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
