The Creatives of Glengarry Glen Ross on Building a Two-Faced World of Seduction and Desperation on Broadway
(Photos by Emilio Madrid for Broadway.com)
Glengarry Glen Ross is famously a play about "men at work," a subject that never much interested director Patrick Marber. "I was doing my best to avoid ever having to work," he says—the hallmark of anyone in showbiz. But in 1983, he saw the original London production of David Mamet's workplace drama about salesmen hustling worthless properties out of a rundown Chicago real estate office. "The themes of the play didn't particularly intrigue me," says Marber, who directs the starry Broadway revival at the Palace Theatre, featuring Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr among others. "But the writing fascinated me."
(Photo: Emilio Madrid)
Aside from all the profanities that shocked theatergoers of the '80s, Glengarry Glen Ross is notorious for its two-act structure: Act I is a series of duologues set in the Chinese restaurant where the salesmen do their wheeling and dealing. Act II is the aftermath of those shifty chess moves under the roof of their less-than-luxurious headquarters. Two sets. Two completely different moods. Two unique challenges for Marber and his creative collaborators, Scott Pask (set and costume designer) and Jen Schriever (lighting designer).
"I weirdly have loved this expression of the worker's fight, which I think even artists relate to," says Schriever, joining Marber and Pask in conversation with Broadway.com Managing Editor Beth Stevens for The Broadway Show. "I didn't expect to relate so much to the play as I do as a worker in the industry."
"What's interesting about the production is just the compression and the expansion," says Pask. "The sort of intimacy of the first act. I like the idea of the darkness of that space and the textures and the intimate lighting." Marber adds, "I think our Chinese restaurant is probably the most glamorous one that's ever been seen in Glengarry. But that was intentional—to have this very seductive space and then transform into this cold, hard, very male space in the second act."
Hear more from Marber, Pask and Schriever about building the dichotomous dog-eat-dog world of Glengarry Glen Ross in the video below.
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