Review: (Ottawa) Glengarry Glen Ross

Sleaze of The Deal

by Jim Murchison 

@JimMurchison

The Acting Company has mounted the classic play of the high pressure world of sales and salesmanship by David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross. The nice thing about being a new company with old contacts is that you can put together a cast of veteran favourites and do the stuff you love and it’s clear that the cast relishes this material.

Review: (Montreal / Theatre) Glengarry Glen Ross

R.H.Thomson, Brett Watson (Photo by: Andrée Lanthier)

NBC (Never be closing...)
by Aleksandra Koplik

Walking into this play, I had only expected swearing and cursing, the fast-paced and dirty kind. I was not disappointed. Never had I heard of Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet or the movie. Shame on me! Having been provided with a program that, very conveniently, offered a short glossary of words to know, I started to understand what it was all about. In this play directed by Paul Flicker, four real estate agents in Chicago will do just about anything to sell expensive, wanted and unwanted property. They will even betray each other.

The Abominable Showman, March 15, 2014

The ensemble cast of Glengarry Glen Ross at Montreal’s Segal Theatre (L to R):  Tristan D. Lalla, Mike Paterson, Brett Watson, Daniel Lillford, R.H. Thomson, Michel Perron and Graham Cuthbertson

Photo credit:  Photo by Richard Burnett

Down but not Out 

CharPo asks the ensemble cast of the Segal Theatre’s new production of Glengarry Glen Ross – a play about desperate salesmen trying to make a living – what they did when their own careers were in the toilet …

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

Theatre lovers the world over are familiar with David Mamet’s classic 1983 play Glengarry Glen Ross, which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1984. The hit play was then turned into the 1992 cult film starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin and Alan Arkin.

Glengarry Glen Ross was also last performed in Montreal at the Centaur Theatre in 1986. So the play’s limited-engagement run at the Segal Theatre is welcome, and its cast of seasoned actors shared a few war stories of their own when this week I asked them all what they did when their own careers were also in the toilet. 

Brett Watson, who plays Richard Roma: “When I started out some 20 years ago I auditioned for a role in a film. I’d heard the director was a big reality guy and the character I was audtioning for was supposed to be drinking from a bottle of white wine. I was so desperate to get the part, I thought I’d be bold and do the morning audition with a real bottle of wine. Just to be different. But I had to do the scene over and over. After 15 minutes I had finished the bottle of  wine and left absolutely tanked. I didn’t get the part, but I got a hangover at two in the afternoon.”

Mike Paterson, who plays James Lingk: “I was living with two comedians who didn’t pay their rent or the gas bill. They left and here I was in the huge 7 ½ trying to pay rent. I had to boil all of my baths and I had no money to eat. But one thing I had was a little bit of margarine, ketchup and mustard. So I went to the store with $1.15 and bought a jumbo loaf of white bread and made my first ever ketchup and mustard sandwich. That was my staple for a long time. It was rough, but at the same time it was wonderful because it builds character.”