hi i'm carolyn and i'm carol and i'm a high school drama teacher and i teach high school english and together we see lots of theater production and we often get caught up in the drama of the drama yes we do well just this last night we saw all the penington players production of glengarry glen ross by david mamet and it was excellent well first of all that is one of my favorite plays as a matter of fact it's not something you can show in a high school classroom so i have gotten permission before to show it because i think it's such an important piece to watch because of the language and mamet and just relationships and character development and it's it's a great it's just it's just a great piece of theater i have never i had never seen it on stage i'd only ever seen the movie  monologue which is not in the play out baldwin's monologue right for him for him right but you know it and you know al pacino and all that i mean the actors are tremendous but it the the intensity was there in the theater that you don't get absolutely from the there is actually a word they call it mamet speak for david mamet's you know dialogue right and they call it mamet speak and it really is a very fast kind of street smart in that way you know we always talk about you know you can be smart you know book smart or street smart which one is better i don't know well you know my son he's a genius right dumbass how bright not very  smart as a matter of fact so anyway that's one of the things that i love about mamet and the other thing is that as a theater person that i like about him is is it this kind of rapid fire dialogue  that takes place you and i talk about you you know you know that the west wing is is my all time absolute favorite television show that it's you know i still pull it out it will watch also and aaron  students but i really like that piece be the plow right that went on it was in by the right sexual perversity is in chicago which i have used with my kids in scene work you can actually find pieces of it you can give to the high school student which is great because it's about that the rhythm of the the words it's almost like poetry in many ways the way he he composes dialogue and so i think that's what makes him so interesting to watch is that is is that dialogue and what i want to say is this cast was phenomenal they were phenomenal this this show needs to have they need to find that rhythm they need to find that that pace within the language and they all did so and what i what i realized is as i was watching the show and you know we'll talk about the actors because i thought they were struck me was the symbolic nature that the language took on so and as we talk about it you know we'll go into more detail but the men who could who use the language the best were successful the men who didn't use language well who stutter who couldn't you know who repeated themselves over and over who got hung up on words which was in the script it wasn't a flaw in the editor i was in a scrap it was in the script and they were they were they stuck to the script and that was the way it was written were not successful and you know the whole premise of the of the show is as they were starting the opening i couldn't help but think about you know willy loman in death of a salesman right you know here are these these say the salesmen who are trying to define what success is right and success is getting your name up on the board right if you get the top sales your name is on the board if you get right up sales you win a cadillac  right and that's how they define success but reality is none of them are very successful as they keep saying over and over the leads are dead the leads of dried up you know the bright one character ricky roma he's at the top a play loses a sale  and and it's really about these men who he loses he loses get he does lose the sale right but he loses the sale because of somebody else's mistake right or the robbery of the in this and the place but you know it's about these men who are trying to become you know successful already defined successful and well i want to talk about this later too it's what i call that roman soliloquy right where he has that right moment in the bar or the restaurant and and they they are none of them are successful you you hear about a little bit about some of their lives outside of work none of them are you know they're all alone they are there you know that they are that true willy loman kind of you know american looking for the american dream failing at the american dream and i think and i thought that that was all done through mamet's use of  the language right how and how he well they did it you know he he uses words as weapons so and that's part of that very quick rapid fire you know i'm going to beat you down effect that he has especially with the character of james link who he who was played by daniel gleason i have to tell you he was phenomenal and if we're going to talk about that we have to talk about the director director blocking of the scene so i thought it was well staged i thought it was really well stage there was a moment where he's leaving rate and the door is upstage right and he's leaving because he's wife has told him he supposed to get a check and now he finds out that the check thank you cash that check was cashed and what it really wasn't  but he's standing there and everybody else is facing up stage so you are focused on him that's really good that was really good blocking but he just with the stuttering and the the  focus on basically having a breakdown on stay right so and so that was so intense i mean it's not a big part he's not part of this you know boys club with them this this real estate agency but he was just he was well and it goes back to what you know we what i was talking about with the use of language as as symbolism so each each one of these men at some point asked the question or make some comment i'm a man you're not a man what does it mean to be a man and clearly out of all of them if you're if you're talking about manhood in our traditional understanding of what manhood was or is great he is the least manly of all of them his wife tells  what to do his wife are emails and he's got to get the check back there's a time when roma says to him you you couldn't you can't negotiate you can negotiate this yourself or you can't negotiate and he psych know my wife told me this is what i have to do and and that first up until that in c he doesn't even speak at all but he doesn't have any language at all in all of his action is through his face and his body and and it's not at the it until he's he's defeated right and he is defeated that as he's walking out of the door he turns and he looks at ricky roma and he says i'm sorry i let you down and then that moment that's the moment that's the moment that's the moment where you feel that he is not a man right and that's what he's apologizing for i'm sorry i let you down i'm sorry i'm not man enough so we should talk about just the the language meaning the bad words that we don't you know this is not a family show now at all no but on that note but that's important to to the play is that he kind of creates this this use of language and  and it's you know it i don't know how to explain what i know i'm well mean when he when you hear these words you know they all are again the way the characters use them  as as weapons well and it's very much i said before you know it's very locker room ish yeah right but but if it's to the extreme do you do you know what i mean i think it's really to the extreme where there's some somewhat over use especially with the clarion originally in the eighty's so so maybe maybe as time has progressed we've gotten a little more desensitized to that i don't i don't know doesn't see  hard mamet tends to do this it's american buffalo same way so it's part of the way you know that mamet speak they talk about and i know that he dedicated the show to harold pinter who i love and studied in school and wrote a show that i directed the dumbwaiter and the same kind of thing these two guys and they're waiting and and this very kind of quick dialogue repetition he uses repetition all the time right you know and so that's that's really important i mean if we're going to talk we should talk about brian jason kelly who played regular roma was well yeah he was phenomenal and rick purcell who played shelley  and he was he was great but i also really really liked williamson you know andrew tends to you know finally at the moment when you think ricky rome was going to just nail him to the wall and he turns it on oh well and again there's this there's this conversation and ricky roma was my favorite character right all right i mean if you don't like him all the time and you've got to give the actor credit yeah my there's this he calls and again it goes back to this whole idea of manhood like i keep thinking if i were writing a paper that's what my paper would be on right this this idea is how do you find manhood based on this play right how is mamet question in finding manhood and he looks at williamson and he says you were just a child yes he does right and at that moment you know like out of all of the curses and all of the bad words that he's been calling everybody through the whole show that is the worst insult that he gives to anybody is when he writes at him and says you're a child you don't know what you're doing right and and so it's sort of diminishes who he is in that moment right you know it's funny because i had a conversation with the student that i saw this play and he's he's very well educated in film and theater and he said to me oh that's the one you you always you're always closing you always need to be closing and i said yeah that's the know and that's really important here always closing right so it's this game that they play because you know it's a pyramid scheme and they're shysters and right and and it's about corruption and and so the other person i want to talk about is the guy who played mos mark vilely who has that big piece of the beginning the big sort of monologue where he's sitting there with  with our no right who was sheldon bruce stephan and he he just was on the mark his timing was perfect delivery was perfect everything about it between the two of them like you just sat there and you felt like you're not watching a play or watching these two guys in a restaurant having a real conversation here about you know robbing their business business and and you know the the other idea too is they get sort of caught up in this drama of the drama yes right we do like you know they get caught up in you know are they going to steal the leads and getting the leads and their bad leads and and what the reality is the leads are they're going to matter right there it doesn't matter you know shellie sells to this couple and he finds out later that they you know the check they can't pass the check because they're both you know there's no money there's no money and they're crazy and you know roma sell he he closes this deal with lincoln and then it falls through and everything is it's like this comedy of errors that bright happening and they steal the leads and then they get caught stealing  that's another thing like he uses a lot of language that made up or for miliard people if you don't understand that kind of business but it it doesn't matter it doesn't matter because you don't or that's not that's not the important of the story right you know it's really that's not the story right and i do want to go back because for me the best moment in the play is and i think i can't remember if it's like the beginning of act two or the be seen two or scene three i think it's the beginning the scene three and ricky roma sitting at a table over here and link is sitting at a table over here in this restaurant and they're they're not together but roma is having this conversation and it reminded me of this shakespearean soliloquy right we're hearing his inner thoughts now you realize later he's he's he's not in love he's wooing in a way to set him up to to sell to him but it he sort of talks about you know what  is life and and i it was like this sort of existential moment where i thought it was like existentialism meets willy loman in the middle and he says well what is life you know life is sometimes you're looking forward somewhat times you're looking back and none of it matters if you're a bad person it doesn't matter if you you know lie to people it doesn't matter in the end you know either you're going to heaven or you're going to hell it doesn't matter what matters is what you're doing right here in this moment and  was when he was delivering that and sitting in that chair it kind of it just pulls you in he was talking to this guy sitting over here but he was talking to each person sitting in that audience right like yeah he was he was having this conversation with you in the moment and you come away from there thinking he's right none of this stuff matters if you sell if you don't sell if you buy if you don't buy in the end none of it matters and he even says you know you're not taking any of it with you right right and that that like at that moment as far as i once heard i could it was done i think that like we both really liked the play and we both really liked the performances because that's what sold the play wright was there interaction so just a couple things we really should talk about number one set was great great set up the office nicely very much in period you know with the way it was set up blocking was really i thought very very clean and you know that as long as they are running into each other though i'm good with it i know but for me i thought it just was it was just really he made very interesting pictures that's what i like to see when i'm watching a play  costuming you know fantastic you know their sales guys who don't you know you know i always heard that like my brother told me this business man you're not supposed to wear short sleeved dress shirts but a professional those kind of things you know these are these are we talking about somebody we work with today that always does that that the conversation i was i was having this conversation but i work with that out of a man in our building who wears the ties in the shirt sleeves and they're going to buy him a pocket protector to a choice to put a woman in the role of the rose herman's and when i first sort of saw publicity about this i saw her in the picture and i thought because you know and we had the opportunity to talk to the director right and he said he had to get permission to do it and they couldn't change the pronouns or the way they refer to her right so she she is  he and you know and that was a little off putting at first for me and but then it then i kind of got i got used to it and i was sort of in this mindset of this sort of androgyny of this character and and would i have liked what i have like for them to call her she yes yes i would have i think it i wish that they could have done that because it would have made it so much more interesting and because it's clearly the kids today it's in class when i was telling them about this because i always shared this one of my favorite plays they were like will was so we're doing newsies and they said are you going to dress girls up as guys and they asked me was she dressed up like a man was she supposed to be a man and i said she was dressed like a detective like a detective she was not  she was a woman to me on stage she was a woman i didn't see her trying to portray a man now which i think would have been a bad choice which i'm glad he didn't do so i thought that was yeah  i just you know i mean she comes in and she's she's sort of running the show she is running the show and you know she's looking for whoever broke into the office and she's the one who is you know calling them in and ultimately comes out and says you know it's huge it's your turn now get in here now i mean she's not doing it in a very feminine way when out whatever that means but you know i thought that it was a good it was sort of this understanding of what it means to be a man and this concept of this of the play this also sort of question of then what does it what is our social construct of what it means to be a woman right and we have these expectations that women are supposed to be a certain way and she wasn't no right and so was it inappropriate for them to call her guy and felon he right you know and i think you know kids are much better sort of with this whole gender fluid i stand in a pronouns and how we use pronouns and and all of that so you know i think in the in the original my original reaction was a reaction that is typical of our generation here where you know i had a conversation with my niece this week about gender fluid what does it mean and you know she's got a friend who's gender fluid and some days she's a she and some days she's a he and the kids just say oh you know yeah you know they're that you do they just go there then you're very right with that and i mean i think it was an interesting choice to make i like that i like that you took a risk like that that's a risk and i like that so i just over overwhelmingly loved this but i get it and i do want to give a shout out to this this director and  i and the reason i do is you know curious kyra's wescott he's a young he's young you know in fact we found out he he went to college with some of our student our students right so he's about twenty five twenty six years old and in the program a couple of the actors give really nice shout outs to him yet about how he guided him on this journey and all and what i kept thinking was here's this young man working with these very seasons when you see their resumes oh yes actors they're very impressive so these very seasoned actors who could have come in and sort of i'm sure there was it was it took some negotiation and navigation and he did a great job in the fact that they gave him the shout outs in the program and and reste gave him that respect i think that says a lot for him as i am i agree and i i have to tell you for community theater production this this was i would not have known it was a community no other i would not have an expected this that it was that good you know and i've seen this play a couple times so i was very impressed a shout out to the to the cast and