Did Critics Buy the All-Star Revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross?

David Mamet's portrait of cut-throat salesmen, Glengarry Glen Ross, is back on Broadway with an all-star cast that includes Alan Alda, Liev Schreiber, Frederick Weller, Jeffrey Tambor, Gordon Clapp and Tom Wopat. The revival, directed by Joe Mantello, opened at the Royale Theatre on May 1. Did critics think the production had a competitive edge?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Eric Grode in his Broadway.com Review: "Director Joe Mantello and his gifted cast have not so much resuscitated as reintroduced the play. All too often, Mamet gets the credit when one of his works connects and the director gets the blame when it doesn't. Here's one case where a great play has been served by a clear-eyed director willing to let the material, as opposed to his own vision, shine through. Better Business Bureau members and anyone averse to seeing Hawkeye Pierce a.k.a. Alan Alda cuss up a storm should probably steer clear. Everyone else is encouraged to enjoy Mamet's gutter poetry and cut-throat wit."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "This transfixingly acted production, which opened last night at the Royale Theater, leaves you with a case of happy jitters that may keep you up hours past bedtime. But what's a little lost sleep when you've had the chance to see and hear a dream-team ensemble, including Alan Alda and Liev Schreiber, pitching fastball Mamet dialogue with such vigor, expertise and pure love for the athletics of acting?... Performers whose tricks you think you know inside-out surprise you here - faces familiar from television Mr. Alda, Jeffrey Tambor of Arrested Development and the terrific Gordon Clapp of NYPD Blue as well as from the stage Mr. Schreiber, Tom Wopat and Frederick Weller. As an ensemble, they nail degrees of desperation with the snap and synchronicity of precision tap dancers."

Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "Last night's star-studded return to Broadway of David Mamet's 1983 hit Glengarry Glen Ross had a very special luster. The actors--with Liev Schreiber and Alan Alda, razzle-dazzlers both, at the helm--were simply magnificent, talking their sleazy salesman talk with the pinpointed accuracy of Mamet's music-like dialogue… Here at the Royale Theatre is Mamet's beautifully crafted play--it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984--flawlessly staged by Joe Mantello, with its all-male cast offering the best acting on Broadway and drawing blood, guts and laughter along the way."

Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "Only 35 years separate Glengarry from Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, but while his Willy Loman was a haunting, quasi-tragic figure, the Glengarry team carries with it a huge sense of irony. Director Joe Mantello focuses on that irony. On the plus side, he never lets Mamet's stylized dialogue seem mannered. What we seldom see, however, is the depths of masculine loneliness and humiliation the play implies… Santo Loquasto's second-act office set wittily evokes a chintzy, soulless workplace. Like the play, it is keenly observed, drolly comic and intensely chilling."

David Rooney of Variety: "Unlike other celebrated plays of the 1980s, this stinging swim through the shark tank of a Chicago real estate office has only sharpened its currency two decades on, and in his crackling revival, director Joe Mantello and an exceptionally well chosen cast bring exacting detail to every bruising observation of a playwright in peak form… Shifting restlessly up and down the restaurant banquette… Alda's Levene is made no more likable by his run of bad luck. In fact, his insistence on lauding his own past glories is ingratiatingly self-aggrandizing, yet his ultimate humiliation and defeat echo with cruel pathos. Perhaps even more impressive is Schreiber, who boldly erases any residue of either Al Pacino in the movie or Joe Mantegna in the original Broadway cast as supremely confident Roma. His gestures indicate an assertive, decisive man rarely if ever given cause to doubt himself."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "This powerhouse revival, which opened Sunday at Broadway's Royale Theatre, scorches, thanks to superb performances down the line. The seven actors--Alan Alda, Liev Schreiber, Frederick Weller, Tom Wopat, Gordon Clapp, Jeffrey Tambor and Jordan Lage--define what it means to be an ensemble. But then director Joe Mantello has marshaled his forces well check out designer Santo Loquasto's effective and lavish sets in this swift production, which lasts less than two hours, including intermission."

Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "The best reason to check out this Glengarry, though, is Liev Schreiber, whose take on the crude but slick sales ace Ricky Roma is both scarier and more seductive than Pacino's was. Schreiber's Roma is a natural-born player and predator; whether he's buttering up Levene or ensnaring a potential client, you're fascinated and repelled by him--and grateful that he isn't trying to sell you anything. Like Schreiber, director Joe Mantello recognizes the dangerous allure contained beneath Mamet's staccato rhythms and scathing retorts… However grisly that game can get, this Glengarry reaffirms that it can make an entertaining spectator sport."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "What an all-star cast has been hand-picked for Joe Mantello's lean and hungry production of what appears to be one of America's two great salesman dramas. The tragi-comedy about small-potatoes real estate hustlers is peopled by an ensemble--think seven angry men--that defies any impulse to single out a few. Mamet, master of motormouth poetic subtext, is honored with a company that skews older than the usual, a shift that emphasizes the melancholy in the emotional music of need and greed."